6 Ways to Process your Feelings in Writing: How to Journal for Anxiety and Depression
Summary
TLDRIn this insightful episode, the speaker introduces six effective journaling techniques to aid in managing depression and anxiety. These methods include traditional journaling to track emotions, brain dumping for clarity, creating diagrams to organize thoughts, writing unsent letters for closure, identifying loci of control to manage stress, and envisioning alternate positive scenarios to shift focus from problems to solutions. The episode emphasizes the power of writing as a tool for self-therapy and personal growth, highlighting its benefits for mental and physical health.
Takeaways
- 📔 Journaling can be a powerful tool for managing depression and anxiety by making the implicit explicit, which is a common process in various types of therapy.
- 🌳 The concept of 'make the implicit explicit' involves taking internal, vague thoughts and emotions and expressing them in a clear, solid, and external form.
- 🚀 Personal growth is about making small, sustainable changes over time, leading to significant improvement in mental health.
- 📈 Journaling helps track moods, identify triggers, decrease anxiety and stress, and can even improve physical health by lowering blood pressure and improving liver function.
- ✍️ Writing about feelings can reduce activity in the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for emotional intensity, with men seeming to benefit more than women.
- 🧠 Brain dump is a technique to offload overwhelming thoughts by writing them down without concern for spelling or grammar, which can provide immediate relief or clarity.
- 📊 Creating diagrams or charts can help organize complex problems and provide clarity, a technique often used in therapy sessions.
- 💌 Writing a letter you won't send allows for personal closure and expression of needs and wants without expecting any change from others.
- 🔄 Clarifying your locus of control by listing what's in your control, out of your control, and what you can influence helps reduce stress and anxiety.
- 🔍 Writing an alternate version of a situation shifts focus from problems to solutions and encourages attention on what is valuable and controllable in one's life.
- 🌟 Incorporating daily habits that make a 1% difference can lead to massive growth by the end of the year, emphasizing the importance of small, consistent changes.
Q & A
What is the main purpose of journaling for mental health?
-The main purpose of journaling for mental health is to process emotions, gain clarity on challenges, and improve overall mental well-being by making the implicit explicit through writing.
What does the phrase 'make the implicit explicit' mean in the context of therapy?
-In the context of therapy, 'make the implicit explicit' means taking something that is unclear, vague, or internalized and expressing it in a clear, solid, and external manner that can be better understood and addressed.
How can journaling help with depression and anxiety?
-Journaling helps with depression and anxiety by allowing individuals to track their moods, identify triggering situations, decrease anxiety and stress, and gain a clearer perspective on their challenges, leading to improved mood and reduced depressive symptoms.
What is the significance of the acorn metaphor mentioned in the script?
-The acorn metaphor signifies that there is massive potential inside each person, but growth takes time and doesn't happen overnight. It emphasizes the importance of making small, sustainable changes over time to achieve significant personal growth.
What is the 'Oak in the Acorn' journal mentioned in the video?
-The 'Oak in the Acorn' journal is a small daily checking journal designed to help individuals build tiny habits that make a significant difference in improving mental health. It includes prompts for finding positivity, expressing gratitude, and checking in with emotions, as well as reference guides for emotions and values.
How does writing by hand compare to typing in terms of benefits for journaling?
-Writing by hand has been shown to have a bigger effect on reducing activity in the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for controlling the intensity of emotions, compared to typing. This suggests that the physical act of writing may provide additional benefits for emotional processing.
What is the 'brain dump' technique and how can it help with overwhelming emotions?
-The 'brain dump' technique involves writing down everything in your brain without concern for spelling, grammar, or narrative structure. It helps to clear the mind, reduce stress, and provide a sense of relief or clarity when feeling overwhelmed by intense emotions.
How can creating a diagram or chart assist in processing complex problems?
-Creating a diagram or chart helps to visually organize and prioritize complex problems, making it easier to focus on one issue at a time and find clarity on how to address the challenges at hand.
What is the purpose of writing a letter you never intend to send?
-Writing a letter you never intend to send allows you to express your feelings, needs, and desires without expecting any response or change from the recipient. It can provide personal closure and healing, especially in situations where direct communication is not possible or desired.
What are the three columns in the 'locus of control' exercise and how do they help reduce stress and anxiety?
-The three columns in the 'locus of control' exercise are: 'in your control,' 'out of your control,' and 'you can influence but can't control.' By categorizing aspects of your life into these columns, you can focus on what actions to take, what to let go of, and how to manage your stress and anxiety more effectively.
How does writing an alternate version of a situation help with processing emotions?
-Writing an alternate version of a situation encourages you to focus on solutions and positive outcomes rather than dwelling on problems. It helps you visualize and emotionally engage with the life you desire, bringing attention to the things within your control and fostering a sense of empowerment and positivity.
Outlines
📔 Journaling for Mental Health
This paragraph introduces the concept of journaling as a therapeutic tool for managing depression and anxiety. It emphasizes the importance of making the implicit explicit, which involves clarifying and externalizing one's thoughts and emotions. The speaker shares their personal experience with an acorn as a symbol of potential growth and discusses the idea that significant change often comes from small, repeated efforts. They introduce a journal called 'the oak in the acorn' designed to help build daily habits for improving mental health through reflection and gratitude.
🌧️ Coping with Pain and Distress through Journaling
The speaker discusses the benefits of journaling for individuals experiencing pain, distress, or feeling overwhelmed. They explain how journaling can help track moods, identify triggers, and provide a clearer perspective on challenges. The paragraph highlights the physical health benefits of journaling, such as lowering blood pressure and improving liver function. It also mentions the psychological benefits, including improved self-understanding and relationships, and the reduction of activity in the amygdala, which is responsible for emotional intensity.
🧠 The Brain Dump Technique
This section introduces the brain dump technique as a method for dealing with intense emotions or feelings of being overwhelmed. The speaker explains that the goal is to transfer thoughts from the mind to paper without concern for grammar or spelling, resulting in a sense of relief or clarity. The paragraph also touches on the use of diagrams and charts in therapy sessions to organize complex problems and maintain focus, encouraging viewers to try this skill for themselves.
💌 Writing the Unsent Letter
The speaker describes the therapeutic value of writing a letter that will never be sent, particularly for those who have unexpressed feelings or need closure on a situation. This activity is beneficial for expressing needs, wants, and wishes without expecting a response. The process of writing and then disposing of or keeping the letter can lead to personal healing and closure.
🎯 Clarifying Locus of Control
This paragraph explains the concept of locus of control, where individuals identify what is within their control, what is outside of it, and what they can influence. The speaker suggests creating a chart with three columns to categorize these aspects, which can help reduce stress and anxiety and provide clarity on actions to take or things to let go.
🌟 Writing an Alternate Version of Situations
The speaker encourages writing an alternate version of challenging situations to focus on solutions and desired outcomes. This activity shifts attention from problems to potential solutions, allowing individuals to explore how they would like things to be and detail the feelings and actions they value. The process helps in bringing to mind positive aspects and desired changes, promoting personal growth and healing.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Journaling
💡Emotions
💡Depression
💡Anxiety
💡Implicit and Explicit
💡Mental Health
💡Growth
💡Therapy
💡Brain Dump
💡Locus of Control
💡Alternate Version
Highlights
The episode introduces a method for processing emotions through journaling, particularly useful for those dealing with depression and anxiety.
The concept of 'making the implicit explicit' is explained as a therapeutic process to clarify and solidify vague thoughts and emotions.
Journaling is presented as a tool for mental health improvement, with six ways to enhance it through writing.
The importance of small, sustainable changes over time is emphasized, likening personal growth to the slow growth of an acorn into an oak tree.
The speaker shares their personal experience of carrying an acorn in Argentina as a symbol of potential and growth.
The 'Oak in the Acorn' journal is introduced as a daily checking tool to help build positive habits for mental health.
Journaling helps track moods, identify triggers, decrease anxiety, and stress, and provides a clearer perspective on challenges.
Physical health benefits of journaling include lower blood pressure, improved immune system, and better liver function.
Writing down feelings reduces activity in the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for emotional intensity.
Journaling can aid in processing trauma and has been shown to improve physical health in conditions like asthma and rheumatoid arthritis.
The 'brain dump' technique is described as a way to offload overwhelming thoughts onto paper for immediate relief and clarity.
Diagramming or charting problems can help bring clarity and focus when dealing with complex issues.
Writing a letter you won't send can provide personal closure and a means of expressing unspoken needs and feelings.
Clarifying one's locus of control through a chart can reduce stress and anxiety and help identify actionable items.
Writing an alternate version of a situation shifts focus from problems to solutions and encourages attention on controllable aspects of life.
The episode concludes with a summary of the six writing techniques as tools for processing thoughts and emotions.
Transcripts
in this episode i'm going to teach you another way to process emotions it's something you can do on
your own and it's a powerful way to work through the jumble of thoughts and emotions that are
all up in your head so today you're going to learn how to journal for depression and
anxiety now therapists have this phrase make the implicit explicit and it's basically a terrible
phrase because it sounds like you're going to be doing something wrong but all these academics all
they're trying to say is to take something that's inside your head something that's you know cloudy
and vague and you know implied and to make it clear and solid and like external something you
can like physically touch almost and when you look at all the hundreds of types of therapy
one thing that is common among them is this process of making the implicit explicit taking
the vague and making it solid and this is a really effective way to solve problems to to
resolve these internal conflicts and to soothe painful emotions like depression or anxiety
and the common way that you do this is by talking about it right by trying to explain
it or describe it out loud to your therapist but there's a ton of other ways to do it too
and if you learn these skills it's kind of like learning some ways to do a little bit of self
therapy so today i'm going to teach you six ways you can improve your mental health through writing
when i was serving in argentina i carried an acorn in my bag to remind me that inside of an
acorn is a giant oak tree waiting to grow there is massive potential inside but you can't take an
acorn and turn it into an oak overnight now people often think that if you want to improve your life
you need to make these huge changes or have an epiphany but that is just not how growth really
works and it's not sustainable sustainable growth looks like one small change at a time that you
repeat until it becomes part of you just like how you can't force an acorn to turn into an oak tree
you can't force your thoughts and your emotions to change all at once so just start building these
daily habits that make a one percent difference if you can only change one percent of each day
by the end of the year you'll have created massive growth so i made this small little
journal it's called the oak in the acorn and it's just a little daily checking journal
to help you build up those tiny little habits that make a huge difference at improving mental health
it probably takes two to four minutes a day and it just helps you look for the good
and express gratitude and check in with with your feelings and it's also got some handy little
reference guides with lists of emotions and values and like just simple things you can do each day
to improve your health so if you'd like to buy the digital download and print this little guy at home
check out the merch shelf below okay back to the video where you're going to learn
six ways to journal for mental health okay so when you have a lot of pain or distress when
you're anxious or upset or overwhelmed it's easy to feel like a situation is hopeless or to feel
conflicted about what action to take so i've seen this with my client right like should i
be selfless with my teenager and serve and love them or should i set boundaries and demand that
they treat me with respect right like things can feel really confusing or sometimes a problem is
so overwhelming that we can't even figure out what's wrong going to a therapist can help you
sort through all these confusing thoughts and feelings and of course i recommend that but
most people only see a therapist one hour a week and some people can't get to a therapist so here
are six easy ways to sort through your issues on your own okay so let's start with the first
journaling journaling is really simple you just write about what you're feeling or thinking
or experiencing journaling can help you track your moods and identify triggering situations
it can also help decrease anxiety and stress and it can help you gain a clearer perspective on your
challenges journaling has been shown to help your physical health too it can lower blood pressure it
can help your immune system and it can improve liver function writing can help you get to know
yourself better and improve your relationships and journaling has been shown to improve mood and
fight depression matthew lieberman a psychologist at ucla said brain scans on volunteers showed that
putting feelings down on paper reduces activity in a part of the brain called the amygdala
which is responsible for controlling the intensity of our emotions men seemed to benefit from
writing about their feelings more than women and writing by hand had a bigger effect than typing
journaling has been shown to help people process trauma in a study with college students
prompting these students to write about stressful or traumatic events helped them reduce stress
improve their mood and even have better physical health other studies have shown that writing about
your stress helps people with asthma improve lung functioning and people with rheumatoid arthritis
decrease their symptoms of arthritis so the simple act of taking 10 minutes every day to write about
how you're feeling can be really helpful to your mental and physical health okay the second
technique is the brain dump i made a short video that goes into more detail but the basic idea
behind the brain dump is that when you're feeling really intense emotions or when you're overwhelmed
or upset it can be helpful to just take everything in your brain and put it down on paper for me when
i brain dump i actually use a computer because i can type faster than i can write and the goal is
not to make some beautiful cohesive narrative but to just dump your thoughts down into words
don't worry about spelling or grammar just get your ideas out of your head and onto paper now
you'll probably notice that if you do this you'll feel an immediate sense of relief or at the very
least some clarity okay the third way to process emotions through writing is to make a diagram i
do this in almost every therapy session my clients come in with complicated and complex problems and
i can't even keep track of all the issues that come up in one session it's hard to know what
to work on first so in almost every session i'm using the whiteboard or a piece of paper to keep
track of ideas sometimes we make lists together sometimes we write down all the separate problems
and just use that to keep our focus on you know just one of them at a time i'll use charts to help
a client clarify what's going on and honestly i could not function as a therapist without drawing
writing or listing things out in a session so this is a skill that i encourage everyone to try right
make a diagram or a chart exploring your problem and see if that helps bring you some clarity okay
the next activity is writing a letter you won't send so i use this activity quite frequently with
teenagers and with trauma survivors so sometimes you have these things you want to say but you'll
never get a chance to say them maybe your parents just aren't able to hear what you need
or your abuser will never be in a place to take accountability for what they've done
maybe the person you need to reconcile with is dead or you have no way to reach them
or maybe you just have things to say but you're not ready for anyone to know them yet
so in this situation writing a letter that you never send can be a way for you to personally
get some closure on a situation it helps you express your needs and your wants and your wishes
without expecting any kind of change on their part so write the letter tell them what you need to say
and then afterwards you can burn it or flush it down the toilet or save it or if you choose you
can mail it whatever you want but it's the process of expression that leads to healing or you know to
use that terrible therapist term make the implicit explicit write it down in a letter you're never
gonna send okay next option the next way you can process anxiety and depression and other
strong emotions through writing is to clarify your locus of control this is really simple but really
powerful just make a chart with three columns in one column write about what's in your control
in the other write about what's out of your control and in the middle write about the things
you can influence but you can't control now again i made a longer video about this but it's a pretty
straightforward concept with some really powerful outcomes it can help you decrease your stress and
anxiety and it can help you find clarity about what action to take and what to let go of okay
the next way to process intense emotions is to write an alternate version of a situation
what we focus on we get more of so instead of constantly focusing on problems this writing
activity encourages you to bring your attention to solutions to the things you want more of
in your life so write about how you would like things to be going write in detail about how you
would like to be feeling and how you would like to be handling a situation write about how it would
be different if you were living the life that you valued spend time writing an alternate version of
how you would be acting or feeling and focus on the things that are in your control instead of
dwelling on what you wish would change that's outside of your control so for example let's
say you're in an unhappy relationship when you write out this idea you could choose a couple of
alternate endings one may look like writing about yourself expressing gratitude or writing about
yourself feeling forgiveness or writing about yourself falling back in love with your spouse
and writing about seeing the positive in your spouse you may write about those feelings of
warmth and humor that you used to have in the relationship so it's basically just bringing
to mind the things that you value and that you love about yourself and your spouse or you could
write about what it would look like if you got the courage to leave an abusive relationship what it
would look like if you had healthy boundaries what you would say and what you would do
what what you would do if you believed in yourself and if you believed in your right to be loved and
to be safe write about the actions you would take to get your life back and live your dream
okay so there you have it six ways to help you process through your thoughts and emotions
with just a pencil and paper i hope you found this helpful thank you for watching and take care
you
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