Guest Blogger | Andrea Brooks' Beating Depression through the Power of Journaling
We've all been there: That place where life gets to be too much to handle, we are stretched so thin that daily tasks become almost impossible and the smiles on our faces are forced. In order to cope with the daily stresses of life we can engage and write our private thoughts and feelings to help reduce stress, engage in emotional healing and discover ourselves by keeping a consistent journal. I've kept a private diary practically since I was old enough to write-I can tell you that journaling has not only given me a way to relive all the joys I've experienced as a wife, a mother, a daughter, and a friend, but also an outlet for when things haven't always gone as planned.Your journal can be a notebook, an email that you send to yourself or an online journal that can be kept private and secure. Here are a few tips that you can use as you begin journaling in order to overcome your depression and begin to heal.
1. Acknowledge your thoughts and feelings- Write about why you feel the way you feel by going over every detail and taking the time to express every emotion. Journaling the problems we have in our life will allow us to take some of the weight off of our shoulders and begin to reflect on our lives, our purpose and how we can inflect positive energy into ourselves.
2. Forgive yourself and others- Use your journal as a way to mediate your feelings about a disagreement with someone. This can keep you from stewing over the issue and allow you to see things from the other person's point of view. We can become more objective through our writing and learn to forgive ourselves and others.
3. Develop some self encouraging words that you can revisit for strength and encouragement - Journal a positive message, a proverb, a prayer, a goal or a thought of happiness that you can refer to when you begin to feel down.
Andrea Brooks is a mother, wife, daughter, sister and creator of Sistahology.com, an on-line journaling website and community for women to discover themselves through self-reflection right from the comfort of their computer. For further information about Sistahology.com visit http://www.sistahology.com or follow her on twitter @Sistahology.com
Submit Your Story or Article
Subscribe in a Reader
