How to Use Mindful Journaling for Emotional Release and Reflection

Is it possible that something as simple as journaling could have lasting impacts in optimizing your mental health? According to studies, the answer is yes! Expressive journaling has been shown to help relieve stress, reduce depressive symptoms, and improve working memory.

Journaling can help you reflect on life’s difficult questions to bring clarity to decisions. It can also be a great tool to help you express your feelings in a healthy way so that you’re able to better navigate life’s occasional challenges.

While it may seem as something to be only done in your leisure time, journaling can actually be part of a regular self-care routine. Especially when combined with mindfulness practices, journaling can lead you to greater levels of self-awareness.

Here, we offer some insights into mindful journaling and how to use it to bring emotional relief, release, and deeper reflection. We also offer journal prompts to help you get started easily and quickly.

What is mindful journaling?

Mindful journaling is simply writing with the intention to reflect, release, or bring awareness to something going on in the inner world of your thoughts, feelings, or perceptions. Rather than writing for someone or about something external, your writing allows you to express what’s showing up for you in the moment. The goal is to not judge your writing but simply allow whatever wants to surface to come up.

How can mindful journaling help your mindfulness practice?

Putting your thoughts and feelings down on paper is a great way to see their transient nature. As you do this, you witness them happening from a deeper and more still place within yourself. 

You become deeply in touch with the present moment because rather than staying inside those ruminative or negative thoughts, you’re seeing them more objectively. This can help reduce stress and bring relief as you realize that your thoughts and perceptions are simply passing through your awareness in this moment – you are not them.

Journal to get “unstuck” from negative patterns

Maybe you’re always encountering the same difficulties in one aspect of your life and can’t get to the bottom of why and how to move forward? Or perhaps there’s a certain emotion that you want to let go of but just can’t seem to get past? 

Journaling could help you find a common thread that may reveal clues as to the mental or emotional patterns that keep you feeling stuck.

While it may not feel comfortable at first to write about the things that don’t seem to be going well in your life, it can often bring a huge load of relief as you get these thoughts out of your mind and onto the page. You may then notice an ‘a-ha’ moment that would’ve never come if you haven’t written things down.

Journal to slow down and savor the good

When events occur in our lives that carry a high emotional charge, whether positive or negative, we may be quick to move on to the next thing. When it comes to positive experiences, we often forget them faster than negative experiences (which our brain naturally wants to hold onto for protection). 

Journaling can help you savor more of the good things in life so that you can feel appreciation and gratitude more frequently. 

Take just a few minutes at the end of every day to reflect on what went well, what you may be proud of, and what you’re grateful for. You may soon start noticing more opportunities to be grateful as you’re training your brain to strengthen the neural pathways that allow you to register these good events more often.

Journal to gain mental clarity on what matters most

It’s frustrating when you have so many things on your mind that you’re not sure where to turn first. Journaling can help bring clarity to where to focus your attention. Noting the things that you want to or have to do can often bring a certain feeling associated with each item.

You may perhaps notice a feeling of excitement when you write down one thing but a feeling of discomfort when you write another. Notice these feelings as they arise in the present moment and see what they may be telling you about the things you’re working on or confused about.

Brighten up your morning routine with the morning pages

Make mindful journaling a part of your morning self-care routine and something to look forward to. Grab your cup of coffee or tea, your favorite notebook and a pen. Sit outside on your front porch or balcony. Following the concept of “the morning pages,” made popular by author Julia Cameron, aim for filling three pages of your journal with whatever comes to mind.

Remember, nobody will read this but you. Let this be a therapeutic practice to simply get your thoughts down on paper and see what comes up. You may notice certain patterns in thinking or perception that you weren’t able to see before.

Journal by hand to increase brain connections

While it may seem tempting to write your thoughts and reflections out on your computer, there’s much to be said about the benefits of good ol’ fashioned pen and paper. Science has shown that when you write by hand, you engage more of your senses. 

This can spark new connections between different parts of your brain, leading to more insights than could happen if you journaled on the computer. This increased innovation could even bring about a solution to a problem you’ve been grappling with. Journaling by hand could also feel like a therapeutic form of self-expression as your creativity is amped up.

Journal prompts for Mental Health, Release, and Reflection

Journal Prompts for Gratitude

• Who are three people you currently have in your life that you couldn’t imagine being without? What about them brings you the most joy?

• What are 3 of your favorite simple daily pleasures (fresh coffee in the morning, the chirping of the birds outside your window, the comfort of your bed)?

• What about your body are you most grateful for that other people might not have the ability to do (such as being able to walk, see, or hear well)?

Journal Prompts for Emotional Release of Fear and Anxiety

• What has been preoccupying your mind most over the past week? Over the past month? Over the past 6 months? Is there a common theme to these worries?

• What is the worst case scenario you’re most worried about? Are there any steps you can take to plan for this worst case scenario? If so, write them down.

Journal Prompts to Reflect on Your Wins and Overcome Your Inner Critic

• What are some things about yourself that you’re most grateful for?

• What are some ways that you’ve grown over the past 1, 5, or 10 years? 

• What are your favorite personality traits about yourself?

• What do most people say you’re great at?

• Who are some people whose lives you’ve touched most over the past year?

Journal Prompts to Gain Clarity When Making Difficult Decisions

Feeling stuck between two decisions? Try these journal prompts to move past indecisiveness:

• What is the worst thing that can happen if I choose option A? What is the worst thing that can happen if I choose option B? How much of these worst case scenarios is in my own mind? 

• What are some of the opportunities that may open up if I choose option A? What are some of the opportunities that may open up if I choose option B?

• What do I feel in my heart or in my stomach when I imagine that I’ve chosen option A? And if I imagine that I’ve chosen option B?

Practicing mindfulness can help you further reduce stress and enhance mental clarity so that your journaling practice can bring you heightened benefits. Not sure where to start with mindfulness or meditation? Subscribe to Pure Life Therapy on YouTube or Insight Timer for more transformative content!