We’re sorry for your loss.
Grieving for a loved one is never easy. You may experience bad days, then days that are not so bad. Lingering feelings may press on for a while before your mind starts to leave behind the raw emotions associated with bereavement. You feel adrift, lost, helpless, and maybe even hopeless.
Please understand that grief is normal. What you’re going through is normal. What you’re feeling is normal. It’s not okay because you feel sad, angry, and hurt and wonder why things happened the way they did.
But you’re experiencing something other people have gone through, too, and they can assist with your healing.
Journaling offers another way to help you during the grieving process and provides a coping mechanism to move through your feelings.
Benefits of Journaling as You Grieve
Journaling to work through grief provides several benefits as you get a handle on your feelings.
1) Gaining a greater awareness of your feelings. Writing something down, either on paper or computer, allows you to slow down, take a deep breath, organize your emotions, and assess what you’re thinking.
2) Discovering what you truly feel. When you write down your raw emotions, your mind begins to process and analyze them. As you continue writing, you discover how you truly feel. Are you mad about some choice your loved one made in their life? Are you upset that someone was taken too soon? What about blaming yourself for the loss? As you write down your feelings, you realize the truth of what happened, why it happened, and that your loved one is in a better place and existing without pain. Yes, it sucks that you miss the person so much. But hopefully, you recognize that the person no longer suffers from whatever pain they might have been in.
3) Journaling reduces stress. Writing your thoughts and feelings can reduce stress and anxiety, help you maintain calm, improve your critical-thinking skills, and enhance problem-solving skills. It also allows you to sleep better because your mind has already dealt with the day’s feelings.
4) Growing emotionally and spiritually. Unfortunately, grieving is a fact of human existence. We are born, we live, and we pass away. Most people will endure some bereavement or grief in their lives, whether they mourn for a pet, a family member, a friend, or a mentor who is no longer a part of their lives. Journaling helps you to grow emotionally because of the experience. Later on in life, you might be able to help someone through their grieving since you know how they feel. You may also gain a greater spiritual awareness based on your own belief system.
How Journaling Helps Your Mind Heal
There are no hard and fast rules for journaling, but these tips can make the process more edifying for your life.
1) Write whenever you feel compelled to. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the car (using speech-to-text software), eating dinner, lying in bed, or on your lunch break at work. Write in your journal when you start to feel overwhelmed so you can process your emotions and thoughts.
2) Write with your personality. Put yourself into every word. Use expressions you say in your daily life. Write how you would speak. You don’t have to describe every little detail of your quirks, but when you read your journal later, you can tell that your words are you.
3) Be honest. Honesty is the key to moving through your emotions. If you’re mad, write about how you feel. If you’re heartbroken, journal about that. Your feelings are real. Don’t hold back because writing is a safe place for you to express whatever you need to without anyone judging you. It’s just you and the journaling, nothing else. At some point, you’ll be free due to your honest assessment of your inner thoughts.
4) Make your own writing prompts. As you start journaling, your thoughts will generate your own writing prompts. Discuss how much you miss the person. Have a conversation with the person you miss. Write down your favorite memories. Cherished and happy memories offer a fantastic opportunity to tell funny stories and permanently archive fond memories you can reflect on. Later in life, when you remember your loved one again, you can read the journal and re-live the good times without remembering them in your head or worrying about forgetting your cherished memories. Journaling offers a way to keep your memories safe and secure as you move through life.
Keep Your Fond Memories Safe & Secure
We can help keep your fond memories safe and secure through our microjournaling app. Simply pull your phone out and write down your feelings whenever you need to, no matter where you are. As you write, you can tag certain entries for easy retrieval later.
