How Journaling Can Be A Life Saving Tool

Hi, dear friend! Welcome back to the latest episode of "Happy By Design: Happiness Among the Chaos." I'm your host, Lizz Romney, and in this special episode, we delve into the power of journaling, especially in the face of health challenges. This is a topic close to my heart, as I've discovered the transformative power of journaling during my own journey with leukemia. We're going to explore how intentional journaling can be a life-saving tool, aiding in happiness, stress management, and personal growth, despite the hurdles of health issues. Let's dive into the insights and revelations from today's episode.

Episode Highlights:

1. The Journey to Journaling: I share my initial struggles with journaling and how traditional journals didn't meet my needs, leading me to realize the importance of intention in journaling.
2. The Purpose Behind the Journal: I discuss how understanding the purpose of a journal is crucial, especially when facing health challenges, and how it should align with your personal needs and goals.
3. Designing the 'Happy By Design' Journal: I recount my experience of creating a journal that addresses the complexities of life with cancer, focusing on positivity without ignoring the challenges.
4. Journaling Through Health Challenges: The episode highlights how journaling can become a space for self-expression and self-definition, beyond the labels and perceptions shaped by health issues.
5. The Structure of the 'Happy By Design' Journal: I explain the journal's layout, with its monthly and daily sections, and how it's tailored to help individuals navigate and thrive in their lives, regardless of their health status.
6. Empowerment Through Journaling: I emphasize the empowering aspect of the journal, how it helps in managing thoughts and feelings, and in designing one's own happiness amidst adversity.
7. The Journal's Official Launch: Exciting news about the official launch of the 'Happy By Design' journal, including a special early access for podcast listeners and a free 7-day sample available in the show notes.

Special Announcement:

• Happy By Design Journal Launch: The journal is officially launching tomorrow, but as a treat to our podcast listeners, you can get it today! Get it here.
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• Free 7-Day Sample: For those who want to try before buying, a 7-day sample of the journal is available. This sample includes a week's worth of daily journaling prompts but excludes the monthly section. Get it here.

Reminder:

• Not Medical Advice: Please remember that this podcast is based on personal experiences and opinions and is not intended as medical advice.

Thank you for joining me in this heartfelt episode. Remember, happiness can be designed, even amidst life's toughest challenges. Embrace your journey with intention, and let's create a life filled with joy and resilience. See you in the next episode, dear friend!

Links:

Buy Happy By Design Journal Here

Get 7 day journal sample here

Follow me on Instagram

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi, my name is Liz Romney and I'm obsessed with understanding what true happiness really means, while still embracing life's ups and downs, especially during the downs. I'm a Mama 3 and a cancer fighter, making sure that my sweet family still enjoys life. Happiness was never meant to be only felt when things go right. Happiness is so much more than that. Through heartfelt conversations, you'll discover how to commit to intentional joy, no matter what's going on in your life. So make sure you have your favorite drink, because we don't shy away from any topic. Welcome to Happy by Design. Happiness among the chaos. Welcome back to the podcast, my friend, I'm so glad you're here. Tomorrow is the official launch of the Happy by Design Journal, so in today's episode, I want to share with you why I'm such a big promoter of journaling with intention, because that's the key, the intention behind journaling. And at the end, I want to share why the Happy by Design Journal can become a very strategic tool in your toolkit when it comes to learning how to become happier, less overwhelmed, less stressed as you learn to manage your health challenges, either they're mental, physical or emotional.

Speaker 1: 1:17

Journaling has become a trending thing for years now, and before I got sick I tried to journal many times but I just couldn't get into it. I tried unprompted journals, meaning just free writing whatever I was feeling or thinking, and I also tried prompted journals. Those were kind of easier to use but sometimes I just didn't see the benefit of the questions. I will be like why does this question or questions matter? And I'm not trying to criticize anyone's journal, they're fantastic journals out there. They really are. They just simply didn't work for me, and the reason was that the purpose of the journals didn't match what I needed. I just didn't feel that I was making any progress with them. Again, not trying to criticize anyone's journals. They just didn't work for me. The thing is, when you're looking for a journal, you want to understand what the point of the journal is. Why those specific questions? Why answering those questions every day will benefit me. So have that in mind when looking for a journal.

Speaker 1: 2:28

So when I got sick and I knew journaling is a really effective tool to understand not only your feelings but also how your mind thinks and processes things, I knew I wanted a journal that would help me see that my life was it all about my cancer. I knew cancer was going to become and it did become a big thing in my life, a central point of my life, and I knew I am someone that if I didn't take action I can easily sink into darkness. And being sick, having a health challenge, can be very dark, I'm sure you understand as you go through your own health challenges. So when I started thinking about what kind of questions I wanted to ask myself every day, I knew I wanted to tackle my feelings right away. I wanted to have a way to really understand how I was feeling so I could take care of myself. I also knew I wanted to make sure not only that I was forcing and I say forcing because at the beginning you are forcing your mind before you pick up the habit I wanted to force my mind to also notice the good things that were happening in my life, especially on those days where my cancer was going to take over, especially on those days where I was going to be in bed very sick and emotional and overwhelmed and tired of it. I needed a tool to help me train my mind that, yes, we acknowledge the bad, but we also acknowledge and hold on to the beautiful parts of my life. So, in other words, I needed a tool, a journal that was going to help me practice happiness every single day and that's how, happy by this side, journal was born. I cannot tell you how many questions I tried until I came up with the perfect combination, but I don't want to talk about that quite yet.

Speaker 1: 4:08

When we're talking about journaling, when you're going through health challenges, journaling needs to become a place where you get to see yourself as you want to be seen. People tend to define us by what we're going through. When we get sick, either physical, emotional or mental, people create an image of who we have become because of our health challenges. For example, people either see me as a hero who is battling cancer or a victim to cancer, and they tend to just want to talk to me about it, and in some cases they don't talk about it, but the way they treat me, I know they have defined me in a certain way because of my health challenges. So because of these tendencies of people and even yourself defining you based on your health challenges, your journal becomes a place where you keep reminding yourself who you truly are and how you want to perceive yourself. Journaling becomes the doorway to the real you, the doorway of the multi-layers that make you who you are.

Speaker 1: 5:11

The happy by this side journal, for me, isn't only about learning how to recognize the beauty it, what makes my life special, but actually training myself and my mind to take charge and decide these things. What are things that I want to focus on in my life so I can design the type of happiness I want to experience, even though my life is very hard right now For me, journaling has empowered me to tell cancer step aside. I'm the one in charge here. It has become a place where I deposit energy, I multiply that energy and then I take it out and use it for my well-being. There are days where I wake up with a Monday of doomsday, like I'm going to be sick the rest of my life and this is who I'm going to be, this fragile, weak person that is always sick, and it's because of the questions in the happy by this side journal. I get to remind myself this isn't true, but at the same time it makes me see that I need extra care and help.

Speaker 1: 6:14

Journaling and this can be written, meaning you write in a notebook or you can record your voice or you create a video journal, it doesn't matter. Journaling has to become a place where you can take an inventory not only of your thoughts and feelings, but what's the overall perspective of how you're viewing and experiencing your life and how you are approaching your future. So when I say in the title that journaling can be a life-saving tool, I really mean it can protect, mold, design and strengthen the relationship you choose to have with yourself and your life, no matter what is happening in it. It's in the practice of journaling that you can discover you are writing your present and your future. Let me expand on that.

Speaker 1: 7:01

In the happy by design journal there's a question you answer every day what's something that happened today that I want to remember? When you answer this question, you are teaching yourself through this prompt repetition that you want to create moments in your day that are memorable and special, and that's the thing that mine learns through repetition. So if you ask your mind every day okay, mind, what happened today that was memorable is going to want to be right and answer the question because it knows it's coming. So you will create memorable moments throughout your day, and that's just one way the happy by design journal works. The point here is that when you are journaling and you choose a journal, you want to make sure that the journal has the objective to help you in a specific way, and when you're going through health challenges, you need as many tools in your toolkits to help you carry the weight of being sick. So let's talk about the questions in happy by design journal. I'm not going to read the questions like every single one, but more so the purpose of the journal and its sections.

Speaker 1: 8:08

The journal is divided in two sections monthly and daily. The monthly section has two sections within it. In one, you do a recap of the month that just ended and you focus on understanding how you interacted with the most important things in your life during that month, like the relationships that matter the most, like relationship with your spouse, with yourself, with your kids, with god or any other relationship that is important to you. You also look into your goals are you pursuing them? Are you pursuing the dreams that you have? And also your habits during enabling your life set what habits are really supporting you and what habits are not. It's in the recap that you can see in which parts of your life you're thriving and why, in which ones you need to work on and why it needs work. In the other section of the monthly is about creating a benchmark and how you want to show up in the new month that's coming. It sets you up with strategies that, no matter what, there's a vision of how you want to show up for your life, even if you're sick, tired and overwhelmed. It gives you a game plan and, again, it focuses on the things that truly matter the most.

Speaker 1: 9:20

The daily section is the heart of your practice. Here's where you really take your energy and design your happiness, where you train your mind and yourself on how you want to perceive your life and yourself. And it's not about toxic positivity and just pretending that everything's good and pretty. You tackle the bad parts of your day too, but you focus your attention, your feelings and your thoughts on what makes your life great. It will also help you understand and learn the feelings you have, so you don't make decisions that you will later regret or make yourself miserable because of your circumstances. Because here's the thing if we don't take the time to learn the patterns of our feelings and thoughts, we become slaves to them and live life based on them. Instead, with the daily section both morning and evening sections you will learn to identify your feelings and take a moment to make decisions and design your life.

Speaker 1: 10:23

Health challenges have a funny way to amplify and exaggerate negative feelings and thoughts. When you have a tool like the happy by design journal, you're able to decide which thoughts and which feelings work for you and the life you want to lead. I can say with all my heart that the happy by design journal has become my main tool and my lifeline, to my wellbeing as I go through this journey. If you're someone who is going through health challenges and in this can be physical, emotional or mental I really hope you include journaling as a tool in your toolkit. The happy by design journal is officially launching tomorrow, but as a podcast listener, you get the journal today. You can get it today. So, yay, I'm going to put the link in the show notes so you guys can check it out Now.

Speaker 1: 11:14

If you're someone that likes to try things before you buy them, I catch you. I also have a seven day sample you can get. I will also include the link in the show notes. The journal is a physical book, but the sample is a PDF that you will get in your email. The sample has seven days to do your daily journal, but does not include the monthly section. I just want you to be aware of that. If you decide to get a journal, I'm doing a happy dance because it's, in my opinion, a life changing tool and you will love it, because, really, why live happiness to chance when you can design it yourself? Before I leave you, I just want to remind you that this podcast is not intended for medical advice. This is based on my experience and opinions and I hope to see you in the next episode.