Journal Writing Ideas
If you're looking for journal writing ideas this is a great place to start! Journaling is a great way to build your creative writing skills and it's also a healthy way to relieve the stress we experience throughout our lives.
Journaling helps us to tap into our subconscious allowing us to express our deepest thoughts and dreams. It helps us to expose on paper what we hold deep within our souls. Journaling has allowed us to see into the lives of those who've gone before us and it's also seen as an effective therapy for the mind. Psychiatric hospitals often offer empty notebooks to their patients and encourage them to write. Even children as young as Kindergarten are encouraged by their teachers to write in their journal everyday. Journaling is a priceless tool that should be encouraged and continued throughout the entire course of your life.
What Should We Write About?
Journal writing ideas can be anything from how you are feeling to where would you like to vacation and why. With so many journal writing ideas, it's easy to get started.
For people with high stress lifestyles, emotional problems, or struggle with anxiety or depression, journaling about these issues can help us sort things out and see things in better perspective. Oftentimes through writing about these things we expose our automatic negative thoughts and through exposure we are then better equipped to build more truthful, positive thoughts.
Questions We Can Ask Ourselves
A great way to get journal writing ideas is to ask ourselves some of the following questions:
- How am I feeling today?
- How can I make a difference in the lives around me?
- What's the best thing that happened today?
- How do I feel when I am alone?
- If I could go anywhere in the world, where would it be?
- If I had a million dollars, how would I spend it?
- If fear did not exist what would I do that I wouldn't otherwise do?
- How do I feel about my parents?
- What are my best childhood memories?
Of course there are thousands of questions you could ask yourself to get journal writing ideas. The Complete Book of Questions: 1001 Conversation Starters for Any Occasion is a great book that will keep you journaling for a very long time.
Another great read is Writing to Save Your Life: How to Honor Your Story Through Journaling. Michele Weldon introduces the regimen of "scribotherapy" as a process for using one's own words to find relief from life's difficulties and to celebrate the joys past and present. Weaving together personal experiences and anecdotes from students and readers, Weldon expertly demonstrates how writing can be instrumental in the healing process.
How Will You Keep Your Journal?
More journal writing ideas come from asking the question, How will I keep my journal?
Although it is common for people to journal in spiral notebooks they are not always the best choice. Depending on how you want to preserve your writings will have a lot to do with how you choose to keep your journal. Here are few choices to consider:
- Online Journaling - People often journal online through the use of blogs. Many people have topic specific blogs, while others are more carefree and eclectic. These online blogs allow you to post pictures, link to favorite spots on the web, customize the look and feel of your page and they also allow for your readers to communicate with you, if you should want that. There are privacy settings that will allow you to be as open or as private as you choose. Blogger and Wordpress are some of the most popular online software that allows you keep an ongoing, dated thread of your personal writings. You simply log in and journal about anything you want. So if you are interested in using them to include your journal writing ideas be sure to check them out.
- Art Journaling - Who would have thought as art having a place in journal writing ideas? Well, people do it and have been doing it for sometime now. The idea of art journaling is to keep track of what's going on in your life while using a multi-layered approach. In an art journal you would find miscellaneous writings, perhaps even poetry, random scribbles, old movie or concert tickets as well as photos and art that you've created. If you are creative enough and have an interest in scrapbooking, you can turn your art journal itself into a piece of art. For more information on Art Journaling, check out Creative Wildfire: An Introduction to Art Journaling - Basics and Beyond by L.K. Ludwig
- Video Journaling - Some people love the idea of keeping a video journal. Although it's not for everyone and proves to require some amount of courage, it can be a great way to express yourself. Video journals can be kept private for your own use or they can be done publically through websites such as YouTube. Either way, be sure this is what you want to do before you do it and be prepared to share yourself, especially your face with the entire world.
- Book Journaling - This is one of the most common types of journal writing ideas today. People have used blank notebooks for years to do their journaling. However, it is smart to invest in a journal such as the Red Co Journal that has a bungee cord to hold it's contents together nicely. They come in leather, fabric and other decorated fronts and do not have perforated pages so you are sure to keep all your pages together. When you invest in a book style journal, be sure to shop around and find something you really like. By taking this time you will find yourself taking more pleasure journaling in such a beautiful book and help you to see just how important it is.
Additional Resources
For additional information on journal writing ideas, check out the following additional resources.
Writing Down Your Soul: How to Activate and Listen to the Extraordinary Voice Within by Janet Conner
Journal to the Self: Twenty-Two Paths to Personal Growth - Open the Door to Self-Understanding bu Writing, Reading, and Creating a Journal of Your Life by Kathleen Adams
Excellent Tips on how to write a journal.
Journal Writing, Positive Thought Replacement & Recognizing your Self-Talk
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