Why I Want To Journal More In 2019

Hey guys! I hope you're having a great January!

Since it's a new year, a lot of us are making resolutions or commitments to follow through with in 2019. (We all know the drill.) Maybe it's eating better, or keeping your room clean, or reading more.
(Or all of the above. Hehe.)

This week I'm going to share with you one of my goals for this year. It's a simple one but it's become really important to me and I'm looking forward to working on it throughout the year!

So, this year I decided that I wanted to do more JOURNALING. (side note, have you ever noticed that sometimes you'll look at a certain word and suddenly that word just looks so weird?? I had to look up the correct spelling of "journaling" and before I knew it the word "journal" just looked fUnKy. no? just me?) 

I'm not talking about bullet journaling, which I may have talked about here before. (although bullet journaling is fantastic and I'm 100% planning a post on that soon, too, so stay tuned!) I'm just talking regular old journaling, what some might call keeping a diary. I've kept a journal/diary for almost as long as I can remember, although there were times that I wasn't consistent and other times that I wrote nearly every day. (You know, during the dramatic tween years.) Back then I just started it as a way to record daily happenings. Most people's intentions when they start a diary, I guess.

As I got older it was not only a place to write down memories (or a list of my favorite toys-- shoutout to August 2, 2005), but my thoughts and feelings. I always have a journal, but there are times when I don't utilize my current one as much as I'd like. Mostly just special events are written down. And then I look at my journal one day and realize it's been three months since I last wrote.

But I decided this year I want to try be more intentional about journaling. I think there are a lot of benefits to journaling besides just writing down memories that you can look back on someday. Here are just a few for me personally:

IT'S A WAY TO CONNECT WITH GOD

This is something that I started doing as I got older. Whether it be in my regular journal or a prayer journal, sometimes I write prayers or thoughts to God. For me, I felt like it was my own personal connection with Him-- I'm a writer, and I feel like my best communications and efforts are on paper. So to write directly to God is like my own personal offering to Him-- it's like saying "This is what I love to do, and this is what I do best, so I want to share it with You."

IT FEELS GOOD FOR ME AS A WRITER

I do most of my writing on my laptop. Stories, blog posts, emails, comments-- I type. A lot.
So journaling is a great way for me to stay in touch with a pen and paper. I love that fluid feeling of writing with just the right pen, of filling up pages with physical paragraphs. It is so satisfying and fulfilling, getting away from technology and putting the extra effort into handwriting.

Also, sometimes my journal writing comes out more poetic than my fiction writing. So in a way, I think journaling is a good way to experiment with different styles of writing without having to worry about other people seeing it.

IT'S THERAPEUTIC

This is the main reason I purposed to journal more this year. I really wanted to focus on journaling for the mental/emotional benefits. Life can be stressful and sometimes it's good to just sit down and focus on writing down either the day's happenings, or the things that are bugging me, or just simple positives that I would like to remember when I look back on my entries.

It's a way to vent, to get my frustrations out. When I don't want to discuss something with somebody, I'll write it down and it can make me feel like I've done something about it. Of course, praying is always a good way to do this too. But again, I'm a writer, and there's something really beneficial in being able to physically get my anger, disappointment, or frustrations down on paper. Picture that pen as a butcher knife and the paper as your problems. 

Journaling can help so much with anxiety and stress. It's just such a good way to unwind and unburden your mind.

IT'S REWARDING

I've filled about six journals. When I look back on them, not only do I see the pleasant or perhaps melancholy memories that I know I'll be so thankful to have later, but I see my personal journeys. Memories, you can preserve in a video, or a photo, or with the people you made them with. But your mental and spiritual journeys? That's between you and God, and writing down your struggles and victories can not only prove therapeutic, as I mentioned in the last point, but you'll be glad you have them later.

Of course, there might be some people that would not benefit from having these things to look back on, and that's okay too. Maybe doing so would only drag them back into those negative thoughts and be harmful to their progress. But for me, I appreciate being able to revisit the dark times of my life, because it shows me how far I've come. It hurts sometimes to see words that I had written, the things I thought about myself or my life, but it just makes me so much more thankful to be where I am
today.

And that's just about it! I look forward to journaling more intentionally this year and seeing the positive effects it might bring into my life.

What about you guys? Do you journal, or are you interested in starting? What benefits do you get from journaling? And don't forget to stay tuned for my bullet journal post soon (probably sometime next month or so), because I'm super excited to talk about it!