Expressive Journaling: Healing your heart, clearing your mind, and changing your brain

Healing your heart, clearing your mind, and changing your brain . . . in about an hour.

Therapeutic journaling is all about jotting down what’s on your mind and heart, especially when it comes to personal experiences. It’s different from just keeping a diary about your daily happenings.

Here, the focus is more on exploring a range of emotions and thoughts related to tough or even traumatic events. The goal? To get to a better place emotionally and physically, and to feel an overall sense of well-being.

One effective and proven method is the Expressive Writing Protocol developed by Dr. James Pennebaker. This approach involves writing about difficult emotional experiences for several short sessions (15 mins) over a few days (4 days) with the end goal being a boost to your mental health, physical health, and self-awareness.

Here’s How to Start Expressive Journaling:

1. Make a list of the most difficult experiences in your life: Choose one of them to write about. Really let go and explore your feelings and thoughts about it. Many people have not had a truly traumatic experience in their lives, but everyone has had major conflicts or stressors and you can write about the most dramatic or stressful experience you have had. As you write, you might tie this experience to your childhood, your parents, siblings, people you have loved or love now, or even your career or schooling.
2. Write for 15-30 minutes without stopping: You can write by hand or type.
3. Practice this process four times on four consecutive days.
4. Be as descriptive as possible. Consider these questions:some text
   1. What colors do you notice?
   2. What sounds are present?
   3. Is the temperature notable?
   4. Where does the light come from?
   5. Who is in the scene? What does their face look like?
   6. What is said? What is not said but known and understood?
5. Reflect on how has this experience relates to:some text
   1. Who you have now become?
   2. Who you have been in the past?
   3. Who you’d like to become?

More Expressive Journaling Tips

Make sure that you are in a place where you won’t be interrupted for 15 to 30 minutes. Also, because you’ll be exploring challenging material, make sure you give yourself some time on the other side of the exercise to gather and comfort yourself. 

To further develop this exercise, spend time editing your four entries into a more coherent reflection essay 750-1250 words (3-5 pages) and give it a title.

This process is also helpful when working with joyful and meaningful events (those moments that are poignant, memorable, or ordinary that stand out as significant).

How Sage Hill Counseling Can Help

Sage Hill is a social impact organization that provides life-changing counseling, coaching, and programs for individuals, couples, and families that disrupt the status quo and release the human heart. We provide relationship-focused, evidence-based, counseling services to help you live fully.

Get connected with us by starting the process here.

Source: (1) Pennebaker, J., & Evans, J. F. (2014). Expressive Writing: Words that Heal. Idyll Arbor