Journaling is an amazing tool at your disposal that can bring you: Relief From Trauma, Mental Fitness, Better Relationships, and Success In Any Negotiation.
Here is how to use it.
1. For Relief from Trauma:
After decades of studying trauma, there is 1 method proven to be more effective than any other for healing trauma: the Pennebacker method (I will elaborate more on it in another post.) It’s a journaling exercise. Here are the basics.
- Pick one single episode that causes you grief or trauma. Only one at a time.
- Write about the episode from the third person view—as if you would be a reporter writing an article about the event, ex. “Juan walked into his mother’s funeral and he saw…” Not, “I walked in and…”
- Write for 20 minutes, then stop
- Write 20 minutes per day for 4 CONSECUTIVE DAYS. No breaks.
This technique has worked with severely traumatized people with the most severe cases of PTSD.
2. For Mental Fitness
All methods of therapy, regardless of the approach agree on 1 central and ancient goal: “Know Thyself”. Mental Fitness is not possible in a confused and unfocused mind.
Journaling can help you clarify your desires, your guilt, your shame, and your secret tendencies. You can express your truth without fear of rejection, punishment, or consequences. The act of writing is known to activate brain centers, making them stronger. Journaling is a workout for your mind.
3. For Better Relationships
How can you have a relationship with someone, if you don’t know what your needs are, what you want, and what pleases you? The majority of relationships are unsatisfying because 1. People don’t know what they want, or what they need, yet demand another person to guess and meet them. 2. If they know what they want, they don’t make it known (again, playing the guess what I need game). Journaling can help you get in touch with what you want, and develop clarity that may help you communicate it.
4. For Success in any Negotiation
Everything in life is a negotiation: selling a house, buying a car, your kid’s bedtime, who takes out the garbage… According to the premier experts in negotiation, a successful negotiator prepares by determining what exactly they want, that way they know when they get it. Simple right? Yet most of us step into negotiating blind, dependent on the other to teach us what is possible. So, we end up getting what someone else wants to give us. Journaling can give you clarity about what you want, what you need, and what you can afford. With this information, you can get into anything confident in your knowledge, and get what you need.Journaling Will Bring You: Relief From Trauma, Mental Fitness, Better Relationships, and Success In Any Negotiation