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How To Journal Series – Journal Idea #2 – How To Expose Your Inner Demons With Journaling

Dear Journaling Friend

If you have been following my blog posts and writing for a while, you will know that I constantly drum about how journaling has helped me find more clarity in my life. And how journaling has helped me with self-reflection and gaining fresh perspectives about myself and my loved ones and life.

In today’s blog post, I would like to share with you how journaling has helped me purge my inner demons and insecurities.

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Journaling Can Be Really Scary

Mostly, journaling has been fun and fulfilling for me. However, sometimes journaling can get a bit scary. And that’s when I am journaling about my innermost fears and insecurities, and speaking to my journal about my lack of confidence in certain areas of my life, especially my career.

For someone who has always been relatively confident of my structured career path in the past, forging a path of entrepreneurship is terribly debilitating to my confidence, and I often find myself wishing and praying that I would see the light soon as to what I am trying to do with my ambitions.

Eliminate Your Fears Through Journaling

Thankfully, journaling has helped me to stay focused on what I am doing as I write down all my innermost demons on paper. After writing my insecurities down, I would review them at a cafe while sipping my favorite Earl Gray Tea Latte beverage from Starbucks. I would take my time to reflect on each insecurity in my journal and what’s holding me back in my life.

After my self-reflection, I will carefully and slowly eliminate each insecurity on paper that I am confident I can overcome soon. Once I have eliminated these fears, I will feel “cleansed” because somehow by eliminating these fears on paper, I have convinced myself mentally that I am prepared to trudge forward in my chosen path of “ikigai” (Japanese term for “reason to be”).

I will then review the list of insecurities that I have not eliminated in my journal. I will take a mental note of these fears and resolve to work through them in my next journaling session. I will work on each of my fears until I have finally eliminated all of them in my journal.

Honestly, your list of fears will probably never get eliminated because with each journaling session you will probably be adding more fears that creep up on you. Don’t worry about this. Your list of fears will get cut down as you grow more like a confident journaler.

Indeed, your list of insecurities is like a to-do list. Usually, it just keeps piling up. But the process of writing your fears down and then eliminating them in your journal just as you would eliminate tasks you have completed from your to-do lists will help to purge these creeps from your head. I am speaking this from my personal experience with journaling.

Your Problem Is Only As Big As You Want It To Be

Our problems are only as big as we want them to be.

When I keep thinking about a problem, the problem will often take on a life form and avalanche into life-threatening snowballs that keep hurling themselves at me.

And when I am not thinking about my problem, that nagging thought of fear already created by my earlier reflection on the problem will probably still be lurking at the back of my fatigued brain. This creates a constant loop of fear that is played out in my head like a broken record.

I will give you an example of a problem, which my brain fog has created into an avalanche of abominable snowballs and snowmen that haunt me.

As some of you may already know by now, I am not only a persistent solo entrepreneur; I am also a wife and mummy.

One of my deepest fears is that my munchkin will fall sick by catching a virus in school. Aside from the fear of the illness making my munchkin upset, I also have the fear that I am not able to attend to my to-do lists at work while I dedicate myself solely to taking care of him.

Sometimes, I will keep thinking about this “fear”, and it would consume me. The truth is that my munchkin is happily playing in school with his teachers and his friends. Yes, there’s probably a lot of germs in school lurking around him, but on hindsight, it’s so silly thinking that all these germs are going to “catch” him anytime soon. Why harp about something that you cannot prevent?

There’s nothing that I can do to prevent an illness except to do my best by providing him with stuff like probiotics and vitamins to prevent him from falling sick. So, why should I allow this invisible fear to cripple me?

I got so fed up with my paranoia that I started to write down these invisible forms of paranoid fears in my journal. And then I slowly struck them out one by one confidently, knowing that these silly fears are not big monsters trying to hunt me down. These are merely thoughts that I have manifested into monsters in my head by replaying them again and again in my mind. But once I put these fears down in my journal and face them with courage, I realized how silly I was. Have a good laugh at your silly fears, my journaling friend. Don’t be afraid of these invisible monsters.

How Journaling Can Help You Get Rid Of Your Fears and Demons

Now, let me share with you how journaling can help you get rid of your fears and innermost demons.

With constant journaling, you are going to learn a lot more about yourself. As your journaling sessions progress, you will eventually be able to work out what fears and regrets have been holding you back in your life for so long.

I hope to share some journaling techniques with you that will help you:

gain clarify on yourself as a human being;
embrace your good and bad qualities with confidence;
understand what motivates you;
overcome your fears to trudge forward on your path to success; and
find joy and happiness as you release yourself from your nagging fears.

Journaling Technique 1 – Overcome Resistance And Start To Gain Clarity On Yourself As A Human Being

Stop resisting writing and journaling. Just. Start. Journaling. For most people, the thought of journaling daily or even writing down words and how they feel bog them down. Without even starting to journal, these people get stressed by the thought of having to write something in their journals every day.

To journal successfully, you must first let go of this fear of writing and getting to know yourself better by writing. You need to overcome the fear of journaling and start somewhere.

You don’t have to journal daily to enjoy the benefits of journaling. You can do it weekly or fortnightly or on a schedule that works for you. It’s your journal so don’t feel obliged to do anything you are not comfortable with. Be yourself with your journal. Overcome your resistance and flow into your journaling trance.

Treat Your Journal With Respect

Journaling constantly is like showing up for work. You show up for work even when you have the Monday blues. You show up for work even when you are feeling down and out. You show up for work even when you don’t feel like it.

I am not asking you to treat journaling like your work. What I am asking you to do is to start treating journaling with the same respect you would for your work. Just show up. Same time, every day.

Gaining More Clarity As A Human Being

Once you have overcome your resistance to journaling, you will find that words will start flowing out like never before. You will find yourself enjoying journaling more with each passing day. Your journal will become your best friend as it stashes away your deepest fears and secrets, without giving them away.

As soon as you have overcome this initial resistance of journaling, you will start learning more and more about yourself through journaling.

Journaling truthfully can help you identify your innermost fears and demons. And help you to overcome them with courage.

Whether you are facing stress in your work or career, personal life, relationships, or finances, journaling honestly can help you gain fresh perspectives of where you are in life and how to move forward in life with more courage and confident footsteps.

Journaling Technique 2 – Embrace Your Good and Bad Qualities With Confidence

When you have overcome your resistance to writing and journaling, you then have to overcome your resistance to being honest in your writing.

Sometimes, I will find it difficult to write down the truth that is speaking to me and instead pen down something quite different from what I am thinking. There’s no point in lying to your journal. If it’s not your intention to be truthful, then what’s the point in keeping a journal? The whole point of keeping a journal is to help you understand yourself better, so be honest with yourself.

When you journal, don’t just harp on your bad qualities, which is something that new journalers tend to do. Embrace your strong traits, and thank yourself for your great qualities.

Be Grateful and Honest

Be grateful for yourself. Be thankful for being alive. Be glad for being the great person you are. Never be fearful of being grateful to yourself. You are a wonderful human being and never let anyone make you think poorly of yourself.

Be honest with your journal, and your journal will reveal to you the most truthful things about yourself.

To improve as a person from journaling, you not only have to expose your bad qualities and reflect on them; you also must embrace you for who you are and thank yourself for all your wonderful traits.

Love Yourself

Don’t use journaling as a form of self-bashing, which will only bring you down mentally. If you use journaling as a form of complimenting yourself, you will start to love yourself more.

When you love yourself more, you will also find it easier to love the people around you more. You will start to love the people around you more for their good qualities, which you never knew existed before. You were probably too busy bashing these people for their ill traits and never analyzed them thoroughly for their wonderful qualities.

Journaling Technique #3 – Create A Journaling Habit And Read Your Old Journal Entries

Once you start journaling more, you will find yourself looking forward to your journaling sessions as you forge a habit of journaling.

You will no longer find it a drag to journal. You will find yourself having fun journaling. This is the same concept for work. Once you start to embrace your work, you will find yourself showing up for work happily every day. Career satisfaction is a big topic deserving of its analysis in another blog post.

As you journal more and more daily/weekly/monthly, you will have more journal entries to reflect on.

You can read through your journal again and again to gain fresh perspectives about yourself.

You will then start to enjoy your relationship with your journal more. As you caress your journal’s blank pages with your thoughts and feelings, your journal will return your love with new insights of yourself as a person. It’s a symbiotic relationship that can only be nurtured with love. Love your journal, and your journal will love you back, my friend.

Take Your Relationship With Your Journal To A Whole New Level

Once you start being truthful to your journal more frequently, your journal will start to reveal to you stuff about yourself you never knew existed.

Your journal can help you understand what drives you as a person, what your passions are, how to overcome your fears, and become successful. Most importantly, your journal can help you find joy and happiness as you release yourself from your nagging fears.

As you embrace more love in the Universe, the Universe will also start to reward you with more love. I have become a happier person, who smiles a lot more these days through the simple act of journaling. May you also smile more with your truthful journaling.

Love,

Ashley Yeo

Tree of Hearts Journal