WELCOME TO A NEW WritingThroughLife SERIES about journaling into and through relationships!
From the beginning of our lives, relationships form and inform us. From our parents or caregivers, to siblings, extended family, friends, teachers, and lovers, every interaction leaves its mark on our development as human beings. Whether we were nurtured as children or left to our own devices, popular or bullied, we carry the affects of all those relationships — healing or wounding — with us as we grow.
And how we perceive these relationships, our reactions and responses, determine how we relate to ourselves and everyone we meet. And they have a great influence on how we see the world in general.
In order to understand the patterns in our past relationships and make positive changes for the future, it makes sense to explore and write more deeply about the significant relationships in our lives. Writing down your thoughts, reactions, and feelings is important to gain understanding and pave the way for creative change.
Journaling is a powerful way to identify the origins of and work through issues in your relationships. It can help you acknowledge your part in problematic interactions and see ways to improve how you relate to others.
[bctt tweet=”Writing down your thoughts, reactions, and feelings is important to pave the way for creative change.” username=”writingthrulife”]
Imagine what it would be like to improve your relationships with everyone you know — your friends, family members, your boss, colleagues, and your partner. Imagine being able to forgive the hurts of the past and leverage those painful relationship experiences into healthier ways of relating with others.
Journaling can help you
- Express and clarify your feelings in a safe and private space
- Identify and reflect on relationship patterns in your life
- Explore solutions to relationship problems
- Acknowledge personal strengths and weaknesses
- Identify how past wounds have affected current relationships
- Help you reconnect with the best in others
- Express negative energy in a safe space
- Convert negative energy to positive energy
- See others’ perspectives and gain compassion for them
- Gain compassion for yourself
- Decide on a course of action and begin a healing journey
Your relationship journal is a great place to express and work out anger and upsetting or negative feelings — rather than taking them out on the person who triggered those feelings. Writing down your negative reactions or judgments instead of saying (or texting) them to another person may save you from arguments and later regret, as well as the need to apologize.
Your journal is the perfect listener: it never judges, yells at you, or expects anything of you. It only listens and then reflects back to you in a way that helps you see yourself more clearly.
Your journal is also a great place to gain perspective by writing down the positive aspects of each of the people in your life and your relationships with them. In this way, you remind yourself why you’re friends with them in the first place. Or why family matters.
Through journaling your relationship dreams and goals and actively analyzing your real-life relationships, you may realize a relationship is unhealthy. You can then make positive steps toward improving the relationship or gain the courage to leave.
In this series of posts, I will provide and guide you through journaling prompts designed to explore every relationship in your life, as well as how to use your relationship journal to transform your life.
Can journaling really do that? I believe so.
Grab a new notebook and stay tuned for the next article in Journaling Through Relationships, in which we will begin our exploration by writing about our relationships with those who have probably had the most affect on our lives — our families of origin.
Will you be journaling through your relationships? Enter a “yes” in the comments section below.
Yes. This is interesting. I would like to journal. I like the cool graphics you used at the top of your post.
Yes, I’d like to journal about my relationships to gain more insight about why I do what I do.
Awesome, Tammy and Barbara! My goal is to post every week with prompts. Stay tuned 🙂
yes
Yes, this sounds interesting.
Yes. Just last night I had an ah-ha moment about myself in a close family relationship. I need to explore this more carefully.
Awesome, Elaine, Sharon, Barbara and Irene!
Yes. I’m looking forward to it. Guess I need to catch up. I love buying new journals.
Awesome, Tamara!
Yes 🙂 Before I started journaling on a daily basis, I thought that I wasn’t seen nor heard by anyone. I’d convinced myself that no one wanted to see or hear me. Then I started writing. I work through monthly challenges set by myself or inspired by others, ten minutes a day. My daily practice has taught me that I AM heard and seen by me. And to be seen by myself is very powerful and inspiring.
Wonderful self-discoveries, Rose. You ARE seen and heard. And you make a difference.
Yes
Yes please Amber – I love your work and gain so much from your prompts. Thank you.
Yes, I am just started jourmaling. I am not sure what to really write about but this website has assisted me in finding some great journaling prompts.