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Frequently Asked Questions
Welcome!
What is the
difference between keeping a journal
or a diary and guided journaling?
Proper guided
journaling is more than just writing
about your problems. Guided
journaling techniques lead you
step-by-step through key questions
that help you to explore your
feelings, thoughts, reactions and
responses to whatever problems,
stresses or illness you may be
facing. In so doing, guided
journaling leads you to find
solutions to your problems and
achieve a greater sense of mastery,
responsibility and empowerment in
your life.
Just keeping a
journal or writing in a diary only
provides a way to express your raw
thoughts and feelings. Though this
can be therapeutic in the sense that
it provides some emotional release,
research shows quite clearly that
guided journaling leads
to far greater physical, emotional
and mental benefit.
A good
journaling system that uses guided
journaling techniques is really like
having a "virtual therapist" to
guide you through your problems.
Though for
some problems therapy is necessary
and incredibly valuable, guided
journaling is the most powerful way
to augment your growth during
therapy or to deal with the majority
of life's stresses that usually
require no specific therapy.
You may be
asking yourself, "I am so stressed
out and strapped for time already,
how am I supposed to find the time
to start journaling now?"
Ironically,
setting aside just five to fifteen
minutes a day to start journaling on
a regular basis can actually save
you time. How is this possible?
When you are
under stress, your body goes into
what is known as the "fight or
flight response." This physiologic
response directs blood away from
your central organs to the muscles
in your arms and legs, which are
used to help you run away or stay
and fight. In so doing, your mind
becomes very narrowed in it's
perceptions and over-focused on all
the perceived threats around you. In
fact you will start to perceive
almost everything as a threat to
your own peace of mind and
survival.
In this state
of mind, it is almost impossible to
be creative and productive with your
time. Additionally, stress hormones
flood your body and make you even
more susceptible to illness, pain,
depression, frustration, anxiety and
despair. Journaling helps to cool
down your physiology and turn off
your "fight or flight" response,
thereby helping you to achieve
greater creativity, calm and
emotional well-being.
Can
Journaling Really Help You
Physically
As Well As Emotionally? Isn't
Exercise Better?
While it is
true that exercise is a fantastic
outlet for physical and emotional
tension, it does not always work on
resolving the more chronic daily
mental stresses and strains that
accumulate in life. These chronic
daily stresses begin to cause
significant wear and tear on your
mental and emotional well-being.
Guided
journaling exercises help you to
process the deeper and more
difficult problems in your life. The
field of mind/body medicine teaches
us that all our thoughts and
feelings are chemical. As such, the
written word represents these
thoughts and feelings.
When you write
down your painful thoughts and
feelings on paper, you "move" this
chemical energy out of your body
onto the written page, providing a
"release valve" for any pent up
feelings that may be throwing your
chemistry off balance. This movement
of energy from the body to the page
helps release your stress hormones,
turning off the "fight or flight
response" and freeing your mind to
think more clearly. This leads to
greater peace of mind, serenity and
empowerment.
Guided
journaling helps you to reconstruct
your painful thoughts and feelings
and in a sense, rewrite the story
of your life. Because your
thoughts and feelings are chemical,
when you reconstruct your thoughts
and feelings, you really change the
very essence of your biochemistry.
This is what leads to the healing
benefits of journaling. I will
discuss more about this in future
mailings.
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