Journaling: what is it and why do you need it?

The yearly agenda saga

At the end of the year, during the holiday season, we usually take time to reflect on the past year’s achievements and mistakes and start putting up a plan with goals for the coming year. Usually, this excitement fades because we set the bar of expectations unrealistically high, which causes frustration and a lack of continuity. So the agenda becomes a forgotten asset only used for the first few months of the year.

What is Journaling?

For a mom, journaling is quality time spent with herself to listen to her inner thoughts and feelings and to reflect on them using pen and paper. You can even consider it a therapy session without a therapist where you share your thoughts and feelings with your notebook which becomes a guide that helps you deal with the avalanche of emotions and ideas you have.

Benefits of keeping a journal

• Improving mental health.
• Spending quality time with oneself.
• Facing your emotions, accepting them, and expressing them.
• Increasing self-sympathy, moms tend to be harsh on themselves and other mothers and women. Journaling ideas and feelings give better self-awareness, which opens the route to self-compassion and compassion with others, things women and moms need the most.
• Decreasing anxiety due to previous planning and time management practices.
• Feeling of accomplishment, especially when journaling at the end of the day while reviewing a day’s events and achievements.
• The previous points help with increasing self-confidence a great deal.

Types of journaling

For journaling to be effective and beneficial, it is essential to realize what you will write, and what type of journaling you need. Below are the main types of journaling:

• Planning, whether it's daily, weekly, or just for a special event such as a child’s birthday.
• Sharing of emotions.
• Art journaling is an excellent way for those who have difficulty expressing themselves in words.
• Journaling using stickers, or scraps.

Tips to start and keep on writing in your journal

• Designate a special quiet place to journal.
• Pick a quiet time outside your official working hours as a mom (get up 30 minutes before the rest of your family, and have a quiet time with your coffee and agenda)
• Don’t be afraid to share your ideas and feelings, if you don’t want others to see what you wrote, rip the pages once you are done writing.

Wishing you enjoyable journaling and a year full of achievements.

Check out The Omooma Podcast: a voice for women’s stories