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Why I Decide To Journal

Journaling can be very therapeutic for the mind and soul

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Why I Decide To Journal
Photo by Jan Kahánek on Unsplash

At the end of the day, our brains have so many thoughts and so many experiences. We have met so many people with so many different stories. I write because I'm a storyteller. I love to meet new people, travel to different places, try new things and at the end of the day, I want to reflect on my interactions and experiences.

Journaling is a safe place where you can write your thoughts. Thoughts that are sometimes hard to say by word of mouth. By journaling, you can uncover different emotional levels of yourself. Sometimes you don't know how you're genuinely feeling until you start writing. It doesn't have to make sense. Most of the time, it won't. That's the beauty of it because although it might look like gibberish to someone else, it's a work of art for you.

Journaling is a form of art if you think about it. Different stories allude to different moments that have happened in your life. Even if the story doesn't make sense, it's still your very own, which makes it special in itself.

No one has the same experiences - even if you have similar experiences, they will never be identical. I journal because no matter if I'm going on a trip to a place I have been to before, I will have different interactions and experiences than the previous trip. I enjoy journaling at the end of the day. It gives you enough time to reflect on what you did that day. The best journaling advice I have received is to ask yourself what your highs and lows of the day are and to write them down. Each day your highs and lows will fluctuate - this gives you a chance to analyze your day and think about it on a deeper scale, rather than just service level. Even if you had a good day there are always things that you wish would have been done differently. It can be things such as, "I wish I would've gotten up in time for the sunrise." Lows don't have to be deep-rooted problems with each day - they can just be little goals that maybe you'd want to improve on in the coming days.

Another thing that I like to do when I journal is to write about the people, I met that day or the people I hung out with. People are a big part of experiences. I love meeting new people because they can teach you new things, give you new insights and bring you new wisdom. The people you meet and are with will essentially impact your adventure. I journal about people because you can learn so much from someone, even if it's something small. Journaling allows you can go back and read and remember just exactly what they taught you. An example from my latest trip is that I was encouraged to laugh more and live more in the moment. I've been taking lessons from that trip and from the people I was with and incorporating them into my everyday life.

Journaling can be as in-depth or surface level as you want it. No one can control what you write - it's truly a freeing task. These tactics are just what works best for me and ultimately depend on what I'm writing about. Your life is a story, and a beautiful story that is different than everyone else's. I write because sometimes I just want to get my thoughts on paper. Whether I share my thoughts with other people is up to me. I hope you journal because you realize that your life is a work of art and it's supposed to come with scribbles and misspellings.

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