When you consider journaling, a couple of images can come to mind when you think of who it would be advantageous for. Imagine a magnificent adventurer with an owl feather pen, slowly dipping it in ink as he writes in his extensive mahogany library about the escapades he has embarked on. He writes about his adventures sailing seas, fighting monsters and includes tales of joy and sometimes sorrow. The adventurer is closer than just an image.
When you consider journaling, a couple of images can come to mind when you think of who it would be advantageous for. Imagine a magnificent adventurer with an owl feather pen, slowly dipping it in ink as he writes in his extensive mahogany library about the escapades he has embarked on. He writes about his adventures sailing seas, fighting monsters and includes tales of joy and sometimes sorrow. The adventurer is closer than just an image.
Look in the mirror, and you are the adventurer of your life journey.
Reflective journals are there to help you get in touch with who you are instead of who people think you might be. When is the last time you asked yourself, “who am I?” Anytime someone asks this question, people can spiral into an existential crisis, but with journaling, you can address this question little by little each day as you work on your skill.
Define a Reflective Journal
A reflective journal’s primary purpose is to discover the answers that you’ve had the entire time. When you are in a stressful situation, your amygdala is on overdrive, provides a concoction of chemicals, hormones, and other things that put your body into a state of anxiety. You can’t really think straight during these times. A reflective journal can slow time down so that you can breathe and take the following steps to where you would like to go.
Similar to meditation, reflective journals are a practice of mindfulness. Mindfulness is an exercise that focuses on keeping you in the present when your mind wants to go a million places all at once. A reflective journal helps you place words to your feelings. A general rule of thumb is that if you can identify it, you can understand then grow from the problem at hand.
The journal is a deep analysis of feelings, memories, and prompts that help gains a better self-awareness for your talents, relationships, and any other facets that need your attention. It does not have to be a fancy journal or specialized in helping with introspection but a simple notebook, sturdy pen, and openness within yourself to get the most out of your journal.
Why use a reflection journal?
In Lew and Schmidt’s study of Writing to learn: can reflection journals be used to promote self-reflection and learning? They discovered that students could retain more of the information while writing it in their reflective journal and produced higher levels of personal understanding.
You can actively track your progress with your mental health and gain understanding through a reflective journal by re-reading some of your older passages and express gratitude for how far you have come in your healing journey. It is a great tool to help aid if you feel depressed due to a mental health day.
Similar to meditation, it helps you practice mindfulness. To learn more about mindfulness, read our article, #1 Benefits of Mindfulness, to learn more about the positives of being present to help in your physical and mental journey.
Pro-Tips from JournalOwl when starting your Reflective Journal:
Types of Reflection
Think about a moment in your day, observe, and feel some of your feelings during the day. Write about the observation, don’t try to analyze yet but talk about the emotions you felt if a co-worker wasn’t the nicest or felt overloaded with work.
Now that we have looked at the feeling and wrote it down. What were the emotions that you felt? They can be simple bullet points on the paper, or if you want to go more in-depth, you are welcome to it.
If the situation happened with another person, speculate why they might have acted this way towards you. Write down the internal factors as to why they had a bad day internal factors could be always lashing out at others then explain the external factors on why they might be acting in a different way like if they had mentioned traffic was horrible today and maybe they almost got into an accident. While people shouldn’t lash out, it helps explain when they do if we know the root causes.
Now is the time to gain awareness; what about a person’s action or event that made you feel the way you felt. Triggers are one of the best ways to understand what we have yet to heal from. These intense feelings that are accompanied by a trigger are connected to the amygdala. The amygdala is the part of the brain that is activated when it perceives an emergency. It doesn’t necessarily have to be an emergency, but your brain perceives a situation as a threat to your life. If anything, blame evolution. Your body wants you to stay alive, but calm this evolutionary quirk by facing your feelings to understand their root cause.
Let’s say that you have an interview for your dream job. You are excited, terrified, and want to make the absolute best impression. Your brain sees excitement and nervousness as a threat, so your brain is activating its amygdala to release a surge of hormones. Now that you have your reflective journal, you can address these big emotions into much more bite-sized portions.
Some journal prompts to think about before the interview:
Before your interview, we recommend getting to an interview thirty minutes before giving you time to research the company and write in your journal to alleviate stress.
What is a question that always stumps you? Ask it and answer in your journal.
Now that you have researched the company a bit more, what questions will you ask the interviewer?
It could be right after the interview or when you process and write in the privacy of your own home. Ask yourself these questions:
Observe the situation like a fly on the wall; what was your overall impression?
Beginning your reflective journal journey.
Since we know the beginning of any journey is a little tricky, we have provided some optional prompts to help in your personal discovery within yourself and relationships.
Introspection Prompts-You
Introspection Prompts- Situations
Events in our lives can be a determining factor in the people we are today. We invite you to view your personal history to teach you lessons for your life now.
Introspection Prompts- Relationships
A huge part of our existence is our inner dynamics with others. Humans are naturally social creatures who gravitate towards others. In these prompts, we want you to write about the relationships with others and your feelings connected.
Introspection Prompts- Spirituality
In all civilizations, there has been some form of religion and spirituality within the culture. In your current day and time, we want you to explore more abstract concepts of your core belief systems and how they might interact with the world around you.
Another great tool to use if you are a Christian or curious about Christianity is our blog about Benefits to Keeping a Bible Journal. It helps those who are Christian better retain and understand the Bible during their devotions and continue in their reflection.
All faiths, persons, and relationships can use a reflective journal to help their mental health and provide a better understanding of themselves throughout their lives. Small steps such as writing each day can make lasting impressions on your mental health.