You may be in one of these groups: a committed journaler, a dabbler (one who occasionally or sporadically journals), one who has sworn off such pursuits, or open to ideas about using a tool that is amazingly flexible.
Regardless of whether you can identify with one of those, or are in another place, I invite you now to seriously consider journaling at this particular time in our lives. It can have immediate benefits like giving you more clarity as you reflect. It can also be therapeutic. Particularly in this quickly changing times, our heads are filled with so many thoughts, questions and feelings. Taking a little time to sit down and reflect on all that can be extremely helpful.
Many, if not all of us have elevated stress and anxiety as we try to figure out the logistics of the reality we have been forced into. Writing in a journal will help us figure out what some specific stressors are, what triggers the anxiety and think about how we can reduce and share them. We can also use a journal to consciously list what we are grateful for in the midst of all this.
Beyond these immediate benefits, our journals will be a great treasure as we look back years from now at our personal thoughts and experiences. These will also provide a window into what we went through for our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren in future years.
Will you join me in journaling from your personal viewpoint what this CoVid-19 virus pandemic means to you, how it is affecting your life, what thoughts you have?
In a matter of a few weeks, our whole country and our individual lives have changed. How did the changes evolve for you? Starting now, we can look back on the last weeks and record how the reality began to enter into our consciousness and how it grew. We can reflect on how we perceived the process from that point to now. And from this point forward, we can record daily or near-daily experiences and reflections. At this point, we have no idea how long this will last and how things will change.
To facilitate this, I offer you a free downloadable and printable journal. You can print additional pages as you wish. I also invite you to join this Facebook Group: http://carolbrusegar.com/Journaling-a-Tool-For-Life
In the journal, I provide some questions/prompts that can help you zero in on your experiences and questions. So that it is most flexible, those questions/prompts will be in list form and you can write about whichever seems most useful on any given day. Or perhaps you just want to do daily reflections as you go along.
In the Facebook group, I hope that we can share some of what we are writing, inspire others to explore in additional ways, and support each other.
Here’s your link to the direct download: http://carolbrusegar.com/Journaling-Through-Crisis
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