How Journaling Helps Me To Calm Down
Journaling is one of the ways to find peace. I didn't know that it was pretty effective in calming me down with anxiety and doubt.
I experience a lot of anxiety, even to this day.
I started doubting a lot of things. I worry about how people behave toward me. I worry if someone feels attacked by my words. I worry if someone dislikes what I do or say.
My mind gave a lot of reasons that make sense too. Eventually, I fell into stress and found it hard to find peace or happiness.
I keep searching for happiness. I always hoped that
“Maybe if I didn’t accept this offer.” or
“Maybe if I didn’t do this, I would become much happier.”
Now I put my happiness in the past, trying to change the past that has already happened, and I don’t want to be responsible for what I have chosen.
Negativity
I sometimes blame other people and start defending myself.
Sometimes it makes me calmer and reduces my anxiety. Even so, in the end, I became much more negative toward other people. I am always trying to find “what reasons could make me feel right about my unhappiness?”
My mindset and all of my thoughts are starting to fight me.
I not only blame people, but I sometimes blame myself too. I keep searching for quick fixes to make me happy or calm. Even though happiness is temporary, calmness is what I really need.
So, I started journaling.
Write down your thoughts
I write down my thoughts.
That’s my favorite title for every journaling session that I do. “Write down your thoughts”.
All thoughts that happened in my mind from yesterday or before until today or even future thoughts
Flexible Journal
At first, I didn’t find any benefits from it.
I feel like this is a good habit, but the calmness or peacefulness people said I would feel is something I haven’t experienced yet. Then I keep on journaling and writing down my thoughts.
One interesting method that I use is what I call a “flexible journal”.
I think there is already a journal called that. A flexible journal helps me keep writing down my thoughts wherever I am. I just bring my small book and then carry it every time.
It not only helps me to journal everywhere, but it also makes me much cooler than holding my phone, to be honest.
So, whenever I feel stressed about something like “why didn’t I help open the door for the old people?” I just wrote it down.
I write it down similarly.
“I didn’t help open a door for an old person. I feel bad about it. Even so, sometimes I don’t notice it, and it’s okay. At least I am aware of it.”
They weren’t deleted completely
It’s sometimes funny because we thought that journaling those thoughts really didn’t have to be written.
I feel that too because my thoughts are simple things that don’t really need to be written, but that’s how journaling helps us with anxiety. That thought isn’t really deleted in our own minds.
It’s still there.
By writing down your thoughts exactly like how you feel, you are actually targeting and shooting at the right target of your feelings.
You are really aware of what you feel, which is important for the steps to be calm, and writing it down will move it out of your thoughts into your journal. Our thoughts, even for something that you think is small or unnecessary, are sometimes still there.
They weren’t deleted completely.
They just keep on running in the background without our realizing it. That’s why we sometimes become stressed or anxious for “no reason”.
We never knew what the reasons were, like background tasks on the computer.
How does journaling work, then?
Well, I’m not a master or doctor at this thing, but I watched a video from @healthygamergg. Which is a YouTube channel from Dr. K.
I learned about how people sharing their thoughts outweigh their energy. Not only negative energy but positive energy too. That’s why talking is correlated with action, but we are not going to talk about that now.
So, journaling works like a trash bin.
There’s a lot of unused paper in your mind that you need to throw out.
Write it down specifically
Remember that you have to write it exactly how you feel, not how you want it to be.
So, your words can really match the thoughts that are inside your mind. It’s like a death note for our negative thoughts. Whenever you write down your thoughts, it’s like you are throwing them into a trash can.
Even though your journal book is not a trash bin but more like a place to put those thoughts, your mind could become lighter than before.
You become less stressed.
A journal is your friend to share your thoughts and how you feel. It didn’t judge you, it didn’t give you any solutions, and it didn’t do anything. It only helps you to outweigh your thoughts. Your journal is a memory place that you can record and remember in the future.
You might want to read it later in the future and laugh about how serious you were at that time.
We laugh about it because it will be different in the next 5 or 10 years.
Ask yourself: Will it matter in the next 5 years?
It’s easy for us to say yes when we are stressed because we think that all of our problems are the only way to see life.
We thought that this problem was the main reason we couldn’t be happy for our entire lives. That’s why it’s easy to think that way.
It matters if you are still under the water,
but if you just stand up from that shallow water instead of diving in it, all things actually don’t really matter;
it becomes clear of what is happening.
You are not drowning; you are just overreacting, which makes you drown.
We are experiencing pain but not suffering. Suffering is more about our choices. Just like Buddha said,
“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
–Buddha
So, you have the choice to become much calmer and happier in life. It’s all started from within. Start doing it now.
Don’t let yourself fall into the trap of negativity.
We all think that we are supposed to think about those things that lead us to negativity.
It is easy to think negatively because the devil wants you to suffer more.
Practical Application
Knowing the theory is not enough. You need to start implementing it right away.
Become the doers rather than the talkers.
These 3 steps might help you become much calmer and find enjoyment in journaling:
Get yourself a small book or a piece of paper.
Write down all your thoughts, even if they’re unnecessary to think about, or maybe you think that you don’t care about them anymore. Just write it down.
After you write down all your thoughts, you can cross them all so that you accept that you don’t want to control those thoughts anymore.
It is better to do it on a piece of paper or a small book and write it down with a pen. Using a computer or typing might help, but it doesn’t really feel the same as writing it down with a pen or pencil.
In my opinion, the hand movement and how you feel when writing each letter are affecting your journaling.
Still, it’s your own choice.
Our minds are really deluded by a lot of crap out there.
Our minds are now poisoned with negativity. You need to delete things that you don’t need in your mind. Journaling could help you delete that.
You might not become peaceful in the first two sessions of journaling, but at least you feel the benefit of calmness a little bit.
Remember that peacefulness and happiness are your own choices. You are the one who can control the responses that you want. You can’t control outside things like your feelings, how people behave, or how you react to somebody, but you can control the responses.
You can control the action after that reaction with journaling and other things like meditation, exercise, etc.
You can do it! You just need to believe in yourself that you are capable of doing it.
From within, that’s come a great power!