The Healing Power of Journaling
Guest Post today by
Diana M. Raab, R.N., M.F.A.
On numerous occasions, journaling has saved my life. The first time was at the age of ten when my grandmother committed suicide in my childhood home in her bedroom beside mine.
Since the trauma of my grandmother’s death, I’ve turned to journaling during many other turbulent moments in my life. For example, when at the age of thirty, my obstetrician prescribed bed rest for my first pregnancy, I chronicled the trials and tribulations associated with this experience. Eventually, in 1985, this journal evolved into a self-help book called, Getting Pregnant and Staying Pregnant: A Guide to Infertility and High-Risk Pregnancy. In 2009, it was updated in collaboration with Dr. Errol Norwitz of Yale University, under the new title, Your High Risk Pregnancy: A Practical and Supportive Guide.
Over the years, I have also shared my passion of journaling with others. My emphasis has been on writing for healing and I have taught troubled teens, women, seniors and professional writers. A few years ago, I joined the faculty of the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.
While teaching, I realized how the passion for journaling might be passed on from one generation to the next. In her closet. After my grandmother’s death, we found her journal she’s written describing her experience as an orphan during World War I. It became the core of my first memoir, Regina’s Closet: Finding My Grandmother’s Secret Journal. My second memoir, Healing With Words: A Writer’s Cancer Journey was released in June and is a combination self-help book and memoir, whereby I chronicled my cancer journey which while providing writing prompts and ideas for readers to document their own journey.
For me, journaling has been an outlet to help vent happy and sad times. When my daughter became involved with drugs as a teenager, I turned to journaling to work out my concerns and fears. Journaling helped me accept and understand my daughter’s needs, while helping me manage my own. In this case, journaling served as a cathartic way for me to spill my feelings onto the page rather than towards my daughter.
Learning to open up about issues and write automatically doesn’t happen over night, it’s all a part of accepting your situation and moving into the healing process. Whether affected by trauma, change, loss or pain, finding the time to write is vital for mental health. Some people prefer to journal, while others may choose to write fiction or poetry to help cope with their own everyday realities. We all must garner the genre most compatible with our personality type, the one which liberates and empowers us.
Here some benefits of journaling
- the notebook is a companion and best friend
- the notebook is a place to record and remember events
- the notebook nurtures the creative spirit
- the notebook is a place to work through an illness
- the notebook witnesses the healing process
- the notebook increases awareness
- the notebook clears the mind
- the notebook builds self-confidence
- the notebook improves communication skills
- the notebook is a safe place to vent bottled up emotions
- the notebook connects us with our inner voices
- the notebook encourages reflection
- the notebook invites imagination
Guest Post by Diana Raab:
Diana is the type of person who does everything in a big way. She earned three degrees: an undergraduate degree in Health Administration and Journalism, an RN, and a MFA. She has three wonderful children despite high risk pregnancies. And she wrote eight books and won as many writing awards. Finally she is launching two babies at once: her WOW Blog Tour and her daughter’s wedding in the same month. Oh Diana, you’re a stronger woman than us! Although she spent 25 years focusing on medical and self-help writing, she has also penned memoirs and poetry.
Her latest book is Healing with Words: A Writer's Cancer Journey a book about Raab's own experiences with experiences battling breast cancer at age 47 and then multiple myeloma, a type of bone marrow cancer. The book is part practical advice(she is a nurse, after all) and part inspiration, which takes the form of poems, journal entries, and friendly thoughts. To show readers the effect of healing writing, Diana also includes blank sections and writing prompts so the reader can contribute their own thoughts and writings. Diana describes her daily journal writing as “a daily vitamin-healing, detoxifying and essential for optimal health.”
I am a mom to two wonderful boys. They are my life. I needed a career where my kids could continue to be my life. We bought a daycare. Now, my boys and I spend all day together. Sometimes I need a mommy break, but mostly, I love it. I am definitely a mom who is focused clearly on her children. That's me, mom~e~centric.