Journaling and Why You Should Try It.

Last week I wrote on the last page of my journal. This is not a new experience it has happened a number of times since I started journaling in my early 20’s. But it’s always an oddly bittersweet experience for me. On one had I love picking out a new journal to continue my story in, but it also feels like something is ending when I finish a journal. But one thing remains the same, when I go to tuck that journal away in the box with the rest of the filled journals, I take a few minutes and flip through old entries. That time of reflection is usually interesting and serves as a reminder to me of where I have been and how much I have grown and changed in the last decade or so. As I flipped through old journals this time I got to thinking about how helpful journaling has been to me over the years and how much it has helped my clients as well.

Every journal I've ever filled :)

Journaling is one of the first things I recommend to the majority of my clients. Here are the main reasons why:

1. Bringing Clarity

This is the main reason I journal. But I also occasionally have a client that comes in and during intake struggling to put into words what they are thinking and feeling or they know what they are feeling but they can’t pinpoint what is causing that. Free journaling or stream of consciousness journaling can be very helpful in bringing more clarity or sense to what you are thinking and feeling. I encourage people to just write whatever is on their mind without concern for it making sense or flowing from one paragraph to the next. After all this isn’t a college term paper. I personally will sometimes sit down and decide I am going to journal until I literally have nothing left to say.

2. Remembering the Good

Gratitude journals have become very popular recently. People are wanting to stay focused on things they are grateful for rather than all the negatives, which can bring an excellent balance to our tendency to focus on what is going wrong. When I have a client that is not super comfortable with free journaling or tends to get stuck in a really negative place I recommend that they try structuring their journaling based on this template I got from Duff the Psych. It provides some space to free write about whatever you want. There is also a space to write 3 things you are proud of that have occurred since you last journaled and space to list 3 goals you have for that day. I have used this template before and at times it can be difficult, but that’s okay it’s supposed to be.

3. Keep an eye on yourself

Are you thinking about making some changes or setting a new goal for yourself? Journaling can be a great way to track your progress. You can track the concrete parts of your goal but you can also have space to process your emotions about the changes you are making and identify the places that are tripping you up. Journaling through the process of change can help you catch yourself when you are slipping into old patterns and help you see that progress is being made even when it doesn’t feel like it.

4. Get it out

Sometimes we truly need to just vent about a situation or how we are feeling. Journaling is a great way to do that. When you write it down you are getting it out of your brain and on the page and when you are done you can walk away having purged some of the. . .ick. Often times after a good journaling session I feel as though I have had a good conversation with a good friend. And that really is what a journal can be. . .a good friend that is always available and will never tell a soul what you said.

5. Time to Reflect

As I mentioned above I often take a few minutes to reflect on old entries when I have finished another journal. This is one of my favorite things about journaling. I can look back at where I have been and how much I have grown and changed over the years. It’s important to take this time to reflect on your journey and take note of the progress you have made and ask are you headed in the direction you want to be headed in. Whether you throw your journal out when it’s full or you have a growing box of journals tucked away somewhere (like me) take a few minutes every once in a while to flip through old entries.

My recommendation is that everyone give journaling a try and get creative. There is no rule book that says journaling has to be written word only. I think the written part is important but I have also incorporated song lyrics, drawing and collaging into my journals. Whatever I felt was going help be best express myself at the time. Recently I had a client that was a much better verbal processor than a written processor so he would do audio journal entries. Journaling options are only limited by your creativity.

So give it a shot and see what you think. If you are comfortable with free journaling get yourself a blank journal and go to town. If you are a little less sure of where to get started give the template by Duff the Psych a try, or you can go to Amazon and find tons of journals that will provide you with prompts to get you started. I will include a couple of links below to examples.  Happy journaling.

F**k Anxiety!. . .Word.

Raise your hand if you have struggled with anxiety. Okay granted I can't see any of you but I'm guessing if I could a lot of you would have raised your hands. I know I do, most days it's pretty low key and the worst that happens is that my right foot starts to twitch (always the right, I don't know why, the left one is lazy) and I don't usually even notice until someone near me says, why are you shaking. My usual response is "I didn't know I was", but once it's pointed out I realize that damn anxiety monster is acting up. On rougher days I have the full blown, upset stomach, tingly hands, fast breathing, racing heart, feeling hot and sweating. Not helpful in daily life, unless you are fleeing a woolly mammoth.  I'm sure many of you know what I'm talking about and let's just agree it sucks and if we could take a pill and kill that monster for good we would.

Unfortunately that is not how it works with anxiety.  That jerk creeps up on you at the most inopportune times, even when you've been working hard to manage it, and robs you of sleep, time, or sometimes once in a life time experiences. One of the greatest opportunities anxiety took from me was the chance to go the top of the Eiffel Tower. They seemed to think letting someone on the elevator having a panic attack was bad idea. Weird how that works out. Clearly that experience (15 years ago) still bugs me some days, damn anxiety.

Through years of work and therapy (yes even therapists go to therapy) I have for the most part been able to get my anxiety under control. I also spend a fair portion of my professional life helping others get their anxiety monsters under control. And in both of those arenas I been on a constant quest for a better way to explain/cope with/understand anxiety that didn't feel so clinical. And then it happened, like a gift from heaven, I stumbled across a self help book that was everything I was looking for and even things I didn't know I was looking for.

Now before I lose half you because you hate self help books and your eyes are starting to glaze over, let me say I hate self help books too. I find most of them to be a little too sunshine and rainbows for me. More often then not I get to a chapter that seems to suggest if I just think happy thoughts every thing will be great (Unfortunately that gets a little hard to understand when your thoughts are full of sunshine and rainbows and life kicks you in gut anyway). At that point I close the book, resist the urge to throw it through a window, and instead throw it in a box to go to Goodwill. So if this book were like that, you wouldn't be reading this and I might be pricing a new window. :) But I digress.

The title is what first caught my eye. . .are you ready. . .cause this is pretty awesome.  The title of the book is Hardcore Self Help: F**k Anxiety by Robert Duff, Ph.D.  Yep, I knew at that moment this book and I were going to be friends.  I immediately bought the audio version (after my non techie self figured out how to use audible, that was ridiculous) and started listening, because ain't nobody got time to wait for things to ship.  The introduction had me cracking up and by Chapter 1 I thought to myself "YES!!! FINALLY someone gets it!!! And he's talking to me like a friend, rather than a psychologist; using big words and jargon that real only proves he's super smart (which he is) but doesn't help me get my anxiety in check because I have no idea what he's talking about (okay, I do understand most psychologist jargon cause I spent a lot of years in school, but you know what I'm saying)!!!

Allow me to highlight the reasons I have fallen in love with this book:

• It's short, most days I have the attention span of a goldfish.
• The book is maybe 50 to 60 pages (I'm not sure it doesn't have page numbers) but I know the running time on the audio book is about 1 hr 15 min.  Everybody can find time to fit that in, you know it, I know it, so just get rid of that list of excuses right now.
  
• He GETS it. Few things in this world feel as good as being understood.
• I mean really, think about a time when you felt truly understood by someone else.  Like explaining how you were feeling or what you were going through wasn't hard and you didn't feel like you had to defend yourself, the other person just got it. Feels pretty damn good right? Nothing in this world is 100% but if I was a betting kind of gal I would put a lot of money on you feeling understood while reading this book.
  
• It's funny, laughter truly is the best medicine.
• This is one is pretty self explanatory, but let me paint you a picture with my imagination brush of a woman laughing so hard as he listened that had someone walked in the house they would have had some questions about what was happening.  Just imagine me walking around ear buds in, cleaning the house, laughing out loud, like really loud. There were a couple of times even the cats were looking at me like "What the hell is wrong with you?"
• Additionally, it is incredibly difficult, bordering on impossible, to feel anxious while you are laughing, so that's a win.
• The suggestions are practical, easy to follow, and easy to implement.
• Look, bottom line we are all busy and if we are presented with "12 steps to a new you" most of us aren't going to make it too far because it's just too much at once and can feel like a heavy duty over haul of your life, and good or bad change is hard and stressful.  Suggestions in this book are simple. 
• Breathing? We gotta do that anyway so it's no big deal to take a few minutes and add a little intention and structure to it so that maybe you can calm the hell down rather than hyperventilating.
• We are going to worry about a situation regardless right? So why not take that time, practice following a few easy steps, answer a few questions, and try to make that time productive rather than worrying in circles that do NOT bring about any resolution?  Everything in this book is SIMPLE to learn and EASY to start to implement but can make a HUGE difference in coping with anxiety.

I could go on for days, (some of you probably feel like I have if you follow me on twitter, @ajgus83) I can NOT possibly say enough good things about this book.  Absolutely 10 out of 10 recommend.  I ordered an obscene number of copies and officially have strongly recommended/made any client (and a handful of friends) I currently have that even kind of deal with anxiety read it.  They have all LOVED it.

The one DISCLAIMER I will give about this book is that Duff is not afraid to swear freely and often so if you are easily offended by that, swearing just isn't your jam, or you are a youngin maybe not the book for you.  But over all fantastic and if you are like me and swear like a sailor anyway the swearing in the book is no big deal.  You should definitely CLICK HERE or use any of the other links I've provided and get your hands on a copy TODAY.

I would also strongly recommend you check out Duff's website www.duffthepsych.com, he has a blog with some great ideas and information as well. He also periodically offers custom guided relaxations (last I checked there were still a few available), which are also fantastic but that's a whole different blog post. I have had the privilege of getting to know him a little bit via email and the internet.  He's a pretty awesome guy all the way around.  I know we will all be hearing more from him and about him in the future.

Unfortunately nothing is an immediate fix-all and even with this book anxiety can still be a pain in the ass but this book is certainly a good place to start in the journey towards getting the upper hand on that wench called anxiety. In less time than you think, you can have the tools to wake up every morning kick anxiety in the face and make it your bitch.