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