Write Of Passage: Writing Down Your Thoughts And Emotions Can Help You Control Them

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By Mia Bolaris-Forget

How much truth is there to the expression “The pen is mightier than the sword”? Well, according to personal improvement professionals, LOTS….and, they also say it helps solve more issues, more effectively.

One of the most cathartic exercises for getting yourself in tip-top emotional shape is to right your wrongs by literally writing your wrongs.

A detailed account of experiences and insights into your daily life not only provide documentation for posterity but also allow for your personal review of your existence, your experiences, and your challenges and how you embraced and/or reacted and responded to them. It actually gives you an outsider’s perspective to yourself and paints a clearer picture of who you are for YOU.

Beautiful Beginnings and Comfort Zones:

Allowing your thoughts to run freely means clearing your mind of all the “confining” stresses that contribute to tension and emotional suffocation. Remember, “freedom” of speech means an environment free from mental disturbances. Experts recommend finding a peaceful, serene, comfortable location, unwind, and embrace all your thoughts and ideas jotting them down as they come to mind (disregarding “coherent” order, rules of structure and punctuation). Hold NOTHING back! Be open, honest, totally free, uninhibited, and completely expressive.

Take Note Of Your Thoughts And Feelings:

Annotating your emotions and your mental meanderings visually helps you analyze and put into perspective conscious and subconscious conjectures. It also helps you to keep track of areas of frustration, change, improvement and progress. That’s precisely why professionals stress maintaining a consistent, detailed, accurate, and uninhibited” life journal. They make the following suggestions with regard to fields of focus:

1. Document significant experiences including those that made you frustrated, sad, angry, happy, etc. Note the things that contribute to stress and those that contribute to joy.

2. Record revelations about yourself, your environment, and the world around you.

3. Reflect on your past and situations or actions you could rectify and how.

4. Determine your hopes, needs, wants, aspirations etc. and assign an importance value to each.

5. Define areas and issues of “weakness” or that need attention and improvement.

6. Focus on your strengths, weaknesses, areas of interest and curiosity…and how you can address and build on each.

7. Pinpoint things you excel at and that are gratifying to you and why. Examine how you can use these outlets to enhance your life.

8. Identify scenarios, people, and images that have a calming effect on you and why. Explore ways in which they can help you improve upon or enhance your life and achieve your goals.

9. Determine what brings you inner peace and sanctity and find ways to make it a daily part of your life routine.

*** Remember, this thought provoking exercise has no limits, except for your devotion (to it) and your imagination. While authorities may advise writing in a diary daily, feel free to mark your musings as often as you wish. Also remember that choosing to share your thoughts and ideas with others is a fabulous way to encouraged and inspire while being encouraged and inspired. ***

Other Advantages:

Healthy Emotional Outlet: Jotting down thoughts and feeling relieves tension by allowing you to address your sentiments in a positive manner and reflecting on how your feel, why and how to best resolve the situation.

Understanding and Knowledge: Knowledge is power…and writing things down gives you the advantage of looking at your inner identity and discovering your true you.

Inspiration: Explicitly defining your ambitions and aspirations offers greater insight as to your personal passions and directs you towards (a plan) to achieve them.

Reconciliation, Forgiveness, and Moving Ahead: Examining the past and putting it into perspective allows for successfully approaching and embracing the present and the future.

New Perspective: They say things always look better on paper. Keeping a daily log serves as visual venue for examining our fundamental approach toward life and shedding new light on situations. It also makes you more aware of the things that (truly) bring you satisfaction and why.