I’m a big fan of keeping a journal, even though I haven’t kept one for most of my life. As a free-lance writer, I’ve done my share of putting words on the page, to be sure. However, journaling wasn’t on my radar until I discovered that recording difficult events and emotions during a devastating time in my life actually helped me get through it.
I started writing things down in what would become my journal about five years ago to document a month-long solo road trip. I left Minnesota in late May and headed toward Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. My first entries were pre-trip lists of the places I wanted to visit, food items to bring and notes on camping gear that I didn’t want to forget. Once the car was packed and I was actually on the road, I wrote about long and lonely hours driving, places I hiked and life list birds I spotted along the way.
However, what began as a journal of adventures turned into something quite different about ten days into the trip. My son, who lived in Colorado, became sick with what turned out to be an aggressive and terminal form of cancer. I spent the rest of the month caring for him in Boulder, which turned into the rest of the year and some of the next year, too. I continued to write in my journal, but it became far more than logged milestones from my trip. Instead, it became a silent and receptive witness to the devastation of losing a child to terminal illness.
I wasn’t regular with my journal entries, but when I needed to get something out, I wrote it down. Some days I screamed on paper; other days I 
looked for strength. It helped me get through the shock and sadness of what was happening to me and my family. And while I didn’t give it much thought until later, I realize that making those journal entries helped me cope. Here are some of the ways that I’ve learned first-hand that keeping a journal can be good for you:
It gives you clarity. Writing down your thoughts while they’re fresh allows you to place them somewhere (your journal) and then let go of them. This means that you can later return to emotional entries that were written during the heat of a moment and process what was happening at the time with a little bit of distance and a calmer mind. Returning later to emotionally charged journal entries often gives you valuable insights that you didn’t have the capacity to see while you were writing.
It reinforces your memory. Scientists have found that you’re far more likely to remember something if you write it down. But there’s more to it than that. While you may remember an incident from the past, the details tend to fade over time. Going back and reading a journal entry about it reminds you of the emotions and smaller details attached to that event. And writing in your journal encourages you to relate to your surroundings and life events in a deeper way, which actually boosts your memory and prevents cognitive decline as you age.
Journaling can help make sense out of chaos and organize your emotions. On those days when my journal entries were literally meltdowns on paper, I always felt better after having written everything down. During the times that I was completely overwhelmed, the process of logging everything that I felt I couldn’t handle actually helped me sift and sort through what was true and what were minor irritants. Journaling helps you prioritize and make sense of turmoil. Writing it down can help you prioritize what’s important, make sense of what’s happening and let
go of the trivial stuff that’s just getting in the way.
Your journal can be a great conduit for new ideas. Brainstorming in private in your journal is a way to pull on the threads of new ideas without any criticism from the outside world. It allows you to try out new concepts, write about your dreams and find inspiration. And once those thoughts are written down, you can let them sit and marinate or you can continue to develop the ones that speak to your heart.
Journaling seals past events to memory. When you remember an event that occurred in the past, you’re really just remembering the last time you thought about it. It’s been picked apart and tossed around in your mind until the memory isn’t an accurate representation of what actually happened. In contrast, when you write about an event it safeguards it through time. This means that your written record of what happened prevents the memory of that event from becoming distorted by time. Keeping a journal helps preserve clear mental images of your memories.
It helps process trauma. Writing about traumatic events can be a helpful way of working through powerful negative emotions. It helps make sense of the trauma and frees up your brain from the hard work of processing disturbing emotions. I have personally found this to be true. In writing about all the painful events surrounding my son’s illness and death, the grief was profound, but I was able to set aside some of the trauma attached to that time because it was written down and didn’t have to live in my mind.
In the end, during the months that my husband and I cared for our son, I noticed that the tone of my journal entries changed. There was still some screaming on paper, but there were also descriptions of small miracles, kind acts from friends and strangers and astonishing things that happened during that devastating time. My journal became a forum for pep talks, hope and ways to cope. It helped me endure the unimaginable and preserve precious memories of my son.
