When you think of journaling, you might picture a tween girl, laying on her bed with her feet waving lazily through the air and writing about her crush in a diary. While it can certainly be helpful for those purposes, journaling is not exclusively for “girls,” teens, and tweens—it’s for anyone who can write! It is a form of self-expression that can lift and empower people to understand they’re complex feelings and find humor with it.
Simply putting words on a page will probably not get you all the benefits of journaling, but effective expressive journaling can result in many positive outcomes and improvements to your quality of life.
If self-care is a radical act of self-preservation, then expressive journaling is a radical act of subversion. Because as the practice of reevaluating sources of grief and trauma through written word, expressive journaling allows you to speak your truth, truth that might make others uncomfortable. The hardest part of expressive journaling, however, is knowing how to begin. This post is here to guide you.
Before we begin, let’s look briefly at the mechanics of memory. Ever wonder why you can clearly remember traumatic events, while everything between is just a blur?
This is because traumatic memories, and the negative emotions associated with them, stick around twice as long as positive memories. According to psychology professor, Laura Carstensen, the reasons for this have evolutionary roots, as for survival, it’s more beneficial for your brain to remember the metaphorical tiger in the grass instead of the tasty pastries you enjoyed for breakfast.
Thanks to the above mechanics, expressive journaling differs from creative writing.
Because whereas creative writing is like drawing a picture, where details are outlined, amended, or erased as you work, expressive journaling is like sculpting with marble. Like stone, your traumatic memories are inflexible. Also like stone, your traumatic memories must be approached with care, as the smallest misstep could injure you. And like a sculptor, you’re tasked with working with the marble, by pulling details, a coherent story, out from its face.
How to Recover Lost Memories
Upon starting my memoir, I realized I could recall every traumatic incident but none of the details between. The same predicament might apply to you as well.
Thanks to how the brain stores memories, know that it’s normal to have trouble recalling memories surrounding the traumatic event. Your memories, however, are still in your brain; they just need a little coxing to come out.
To recover lost memories, try experimenting with the following tools:
Music. Listen to old playlists or music from the same era as the traumatic event.
Pictures. Review old photo albums and social media posts.
Scent and taste. Sample old recipes and perfumes you wore in the past.
Text. Review old emails, text messages, or archived news articles.
Speech. Talk to old friends and family members.
James Pennebaker, in the 1980’s, discovered a link between “expressive writing” — writing for 15-20 minutes at a time, over several days, about a past traumatic event, or secret concerns — and measurable improvements in immune system function. Doctor visits also decreased. These results have been replicated in patients with a variety of conditions, including asthma, arthritis, breast cancer, and HIV.
Subsequent studies found that when people did similar short-term writing interventions, wounds on their skin healed significantly faster. Incredible. (For an autobiographical summary of his research over time, read this 2017 article from Pennebaker in Perspectives on Psychological Science.)
Some helpful facts have emerged from the research of Pennebaker and others, as the understanding of this phenomenon has grown:
1. Don’t suppress your thoughts and emotions related to traumatic experiences. Pushing down or denying what happened to you isn’t a helpful response. To support this fact, research has shown that suppressing related thoughts and feelings can compromise your immune function.
2. It’s not just about venting. People who focus exclusively on venting negative emotions might experience worsening health. (Ullrich and Lutgendorf discuss that effect in the 2002 Annals of Behavioral Medicine.) To experience the health benefits of expressive writing or journaling, you need another ingredient.
3. Seek to interpret your experience as you write about it. Pennebaker discovered a writing pattern that predicted improved health outcomes: Those who started out using a lot of “I” references, but then shifted to more words like “because,” “realize,” or “understand,” saw more benefits from the writing process. This indicated that the writer was actively interpreting what had happened to them.
As most clinicians are aware, it’s not helpful to repeat the same negative narrative, over and over. Processing a stressful experience, and incorporating it into the overarching narrative of your life, is key. This is thought to reduce stress, the key factor in producing health benefits.
4. Make lemonade out of life’s lemons. Lutgendorf notes that people who are able to find positive meaning in traumatic life events enjoy better health than those missing this perspective.
It doesn’t mean that what happened was good; it may have been truly awful. Still, it’s well established that those who experience trauma and adversity often become stronger and more resilient. If you train yourself to watch for the positive that emerges out of negative (or even devastating) events, it positively impacts your mind and body.
For the puspose of eventually converting your expressive jounaling into a memoir, it would be important to have a bit of chronological sequence to the events.
When you’re processing something particularly intense or traumatic, it’s wise to have qualified, therapeutic support on hand. This article isn’t meant to replace the advice of your doctor, psychologist, or counseling professional. Seek their advice first.
Many of us spend our days running from one thing to another, without taking time to reflect on or process what’s going on inside (or around) us. A regular journaling practice can be helpful and grounding, and It doesn’t have to take long: Even just a few minutes a day (or whenever you’re feeling stressed) can be helpful.