In this podcast episode, I enjoyed chatting about my love for journaling and its incredible benefits. I shared some personal stories and my favorite techniques to make journaling a powerful tool for self-reflection and growth. I even talked about a special missionary mom journal I created for moms like me, with kids on missions, to capture our unique experiences. I hope my tips and insights inspire you to pick a pen and start your journaling journey. I can't wait to catch up with you in the next episode. Have a fantastic week!
Share your missionary stories where you agree to allow me to share them: michellesevans.coach@gmail.com
In this podcast episode, I enjoyed chatting about my love for journaling and its incredible benefits. I shared some personal stories and my favorite techniques to make journaling a powerful tool for self-reflection and growth. I even talked about a special missionary mom journal I created for moms like me, with kids on missions, to capture our unique experiences. I hope my tips and insights inspire you to pick a pen and start your journaling journey. I can't wait to catch up with you in the next episode. Have a fantastic week!
Share your missionary stories where you agree to allow me to share them: michellesevans.coach@gmail.com
Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I am excited to talk to you about a subject. That is really been helpful for me in processing through just things that come up in life. So I want to talk about journaling. And it's a tool that I use to help me see what's happening inside my brain. And sometimes. It can feel like a lot of things going like my brain is like skipping all over the place. Kind of like a ping pong ball. And when I dump all of that out onto paper, then I can start to sort it. Into what is a fact. What feels true, but it's just a thought. And what isn't true. So wanted to share, if you feel called to journaling to try out writing down what's happening and then processing through it. So I've learned a few techniques that I'll go over. And that I find helpful that maybe it will help you as well. So journaling's a really powerful tool that you can be used for. You know, self-discovery reflection and personal growth. It can help you. Gain insight into your thoughts and feelings. Identify patterns in your behavior set and achieve goals. Manage stress and anxiety. Improve your creativity and problem solving skills. So the way it works. Is, It's a practice of writing down your thoughts, your feelings, the experiences. In a journal, it can also be a place to write down emotions. How they feel. In your body. And using very descriptive words to identify. Them. And it can be done in a variety of different ways. You can do free writing. Without worrying about grammar, spelling, judgment, anything like that? You can also do a stream of consciousness writing, which is writing whatever comes up. In your mind without editing. And then guided journaling using prompts or questions. To kind of guide your or prompt your. Writing and see subconsciously kind of what comes up and then last there's narrative writing, which is just writing stories or narratives about your life. no matter what you choose or what you want to try and you can try any of them or all of them. It can be a really powerful tool. For self-discovery. Some of the benefits of journaling is, you can increase your self awareness. It can help you become a lot more aware of your thoughts, feelings, behaviors. It helped you. better understand yourself and your motivation and what's happening kind of behind the scenes because we have a whole bunch of subconscious things going on. And you can bring some of those up. In journaling. It can be a great way to relieve stress. And anxiety. Writing out your problems can help you get a very. Unique and distinct. perspective and it helps you process and find solutions. It can improve your mood. It can help you express yourself and reflect on. Positive experiences. And sometimes we can't verbalize exactly what's going on. And so being able to write it down helps you be able to express it. It also can help you enhance your creativity. By allowing you to explore thoughts and ideas in a really free open way. Where it's free of other people's eyes looking at it. Problem solving. By allowing you to brainstorm ideas. And explore different solutions. Goal setting helps you achieve and kind of track your progress and identify obstacles that may come up. It can help you increase gratitude. By allowing you to reflect on the positive things in your life. Improve. Communication. By allowing you to press practice. Expressing yourself clearly and concisely so that you're not, kind of all over the place. That's that's how I can be at times. And it's hard for me to be able to hone in on exactly what's going on, but if I can write it down, then it can be very helpful., Strengthen your relationship. By allowing you to communicate more effectively with others. And. As I mentioned before, bring up subconscious thoughts or beliefs. That you may not be aware of, and this can be really powerful. For personal growth. I want to go into some of my favorite things. Um, this is just like what I've kind of evolved into, but I've experimented a lot. And so journaling allows you to experiment and see what works for you. So I like to write down my thoughts that seem to get really jumbled up in my mind. And get them out on paper. And then once I can see them, I can see which ones aren't serving me. And which ones are, and maybe there's something on there that I want to discard. So an example recently, my youngest son is getting ready to graduate. And at the time of this recording, he just submitted his mission papers and I'm feeling very anxious and excited at the same time. So I wrote down all the feelings that were coming up in my heart about him leaving. And he's my youngest, so I don't have any others left. And I just didn't filter anything. And it was all the thoughts that I could see and all the emotions. And then I did an exercise that I learned from one of my coaches. Called writing. To myself from my highest self. I try to visualize. The most loving, empathetic version of me. And I write from there. And it's like things that I need to hear. So it depends on what's happening, but it helps me frame what I want to write, write about. So lately I've tried giving myself the most grace that I can muster. Without any judgment about things that I may be doing wrong. And then I can see the emotions and I can love them. And what they're trying to teach me. And after that I go through. And if anything seems like it's not really aligned. From my initial kind of brain dump. I asked myself. What is really the truth and what is the lie? So for example, If I'm in a disagreement with my husband and I write down some things about the disagreement or what's come up. And one of the things that maybe I wrote down is he doesn't love me. Now I know that that's not actually true. So I know. I know that that's a lie that my brain came up with. That doesn't serve me. So, what I do is I just cross it out. And I don't mark it out with a marker or anything because I want to be able to see it later. But it's. Telling my brain. That we're going to edit that. Because that is not true. After I go through, if there's anything else that seems like it's not aligned. Then., I marked those things out as well. One of the last things that I do is I write down some of the things I want to include in my prayers. And for some reason, the act of writing them down helps them have more meaning and kind of solidifies them for me. So I'm not just kind of talking. At. You know, my heavenly father that I have some substance behind it. So, and I can actually go back and see. What I've been praying about and it helps me really remember. Who and what I want to include. So I don't accidentally leave something out. So right now, my husband's cousin is claiming. Um, Mount Everest. And so he's somebody that I want to include in my prayers. Every single day. And so I. Have written him down, but he's not somebody I think about all the time. And so if I hadn't written it down, then I would probably forget about it and leave him out. I actually learned that when I watched the movie, the help. And, the one. Lady in there. She writes down. You know, her prayers and she writes down who she's praying for. And people from the neighborhood know that her prayers are answered. And so they want to be included in her purse journal. So it was just like something that was mentioned on a movie. And so I thought, well, I think that might be helpful for me. Because I have a tendency to forget. But it's also powerful to help you develop and hone your thoughts. So that when you're praying that you can be. More focused. And. It helps me keep my mind. From wondering as much. Okay. The last thing I include in my daily journaling is gratitudes. I like to write down what I'm grateful for. And it can be anything. Including seemingly very small things. Like, I'm very grateful for hot water to shower with. I'm grateful for the people with different perspectives that help me grow. I'm grateful for an extra blanket for the winter. I'm grateful for my thick thighs that carry me through hiking skiing. Horses. I'm grateful for the dirt, different personalities of my kids. So anyway, do you get the idea? It can just be anything. And some things repeat themselves and. That's totally. Okay. It doesn't matter. It's just a time to be creative. And a time to feel into gratitude. I try to just open up my heart and really feel. Gratitude, not just I'm writing things down, like as a checklist, like, like true deep gratitude. Like what does that feel like in my body? And can I generate that? From writing that thing, those things down in the morning. So I've used a variety of type of, um, journals from hardcover journals that I've got from desert book. To Amazon journal options that I find that I think are really pretty. Right now, currently my favorite. At the moment is just a composition book. That you can buy a Walmart. My boys. use those in high school and I had a couple laying around, so I switched over to those. The other thing is I used to throw them away. But I stopped throwing them away. Because. I decided the reason I was throwing them away is that they leave me very vulnerable and kind of exposed. And, but I decided that I just have a stack. And I just keep adding to them and I don't really worry about whether somebody will read them later. So honestly, it's just whatever you're comfortable with and whatever level. That you want to keep, um, I know somebody who keeps, they call their angry journal or their black journal that they write all of their dark. dark. thoughts in, and at the end of every year, they throw it away. And it's, it's an act of discarding those. It's just whatever works for you. And I have been experimenting with journaling on him on and off for the past. Probably seven to eight years. Um, and it started when I read the artist way. So just allow yourself to come out with curiosity. And how you can find something that works for you. And I've played with different formats. This the format I shared right now. Is what I'm using. But I'm sure that that will continue to change as I go and evolve. As different things happen in my life. And so there's no right or wrong. Way to journal., I find that this is a really powerful tool while my kids are serving missions. And I actually have a missionary mom journal. That is listed in my show notes. That includes some prompts. And, um, some details that you can fill in about their transfers, like who their companions are. And I use it as a gift to give my missionaries when they come home. And when I created it, I sent it to my niece who had just returned from a mission. And she said, oh my gosh. I would have loved to have known my parents thoughts about my mission. And so I I thought. It would be helpful for, you know, other moms. That are interested in. Journaling and especially joining. Journaling about their kids' mission can be really, um, a nice gift. And I don't filter in there either. So if my missionary is struggling, I write about those struggles.'cause I know at some point in his life, he'll look back on it and he'll love to read my perspective. Of the struggles that he was having. And I don't try and solve. I just try and write down, what he shared. If you're not already journaling, I like maybe use this as an encouragement to give it a try. You may be surprised at how much it helps you. Um, during your kids mission. And the ongoing chapters in your life. All right. You guys, that's what I have for you today. If you're interested in the missionary mom journal that I created, it is in the show. Notes, you can click on it. It'll take you right to Amazon. And it's there for anybody that's interested. I also used it as a gift. To the other moms that I know. Are sending kids out. I've given a lot of them away. Because. You know, as mothers, we have our own experience of our kids missions. All right. You guys have such a great week and I will see you next time. Bye. Bye.
