The Practice of Journaling

 

(Chrislyn Cook)

 

SUMMARY

      The practice of journal writing is the process of expressing the feeling and emotion within the mind. A diary or journals are ways to write down feelings and emotions in effort to freely express the inner thoughts of creativity toward a more positive physical well-being. Scientific evidence has supported that expressive writing such as journaling provide benefits toward experiencing positive benefits. Giving more of your time to sitting down to writing in a journal has thought to clarify thoughts and feelings, reduce stress, become open minded and an overall development of emotional and health benefits. Journaling is a more personal type approach to expressing how we really feel and it can be beneficial to write become able to express more though writing. (Chrislyn Cook)

This quote speaks a lot to me because what it says is exactly what journaling is about. Journaling is opening up your deepest thoughts and wonders and writing them down on paper. I think that journaling opens up your hearts in ways that you did not know possible. Your heart is the one major organ that helps to express some of your deepest emotions like love and passion. I think that through journaling there can be a lot of love and passion. I found myself talking about people I love and things that I want to do in life while writing in my journal. I think that journaling is a way to open up the wonder that you have in your heart. (Tiffany Dempsey)

 

This quote is the reason why I keep a journal. I just love the fact how you can express your feelings in writing and just let go of things. Journaling has helped me get through my toughest times this year. It helps you to be honest with yourself about things in your life. I have never been so honest with myself until I started writing in my journal faithfully. In my journal, I found myself writing about all of the things that has been holding me back negatively. I also use journaling as a method of venting especially when I have no one to talk to. Journaling overall has helped me be more positive about stuff in my life. If you do not journal, I highly recommend you to start! (Erikka Banks)

 

Peer Reviews Articles

 

Journaling Enter the 21st Century:The Use of Therapeutic Blogs In Counseling

http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.libproxy.nau.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=22ae2cc6-6b4f-4062-937f-82e4505f5814%40sessionmgr4004&vid=6&hid=4203

Summary: In this journal it describes journaling in a blog form. It explains that it is very similar to hand written journaling and provides the same results. This provides self reflection and is an easy assessable way to journal. In today's world everyone has access to a computer and the internet. Blogging is a great way to express yourself in the moment and it can be spontaneous or planned out. (Tiffany Dempsey)

Can Journaling Provide Support for NICU Families?

http://eds.a.ebscohost.com.libproxy.nau.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=aebf2ed6-f31d-494c-9bad-5452882439dc%40sessionmgr4004&vid=4&hid=4203

Summary: In this journal article it talks about NICU families and the influence that journaling contributes to the families. In this article it shows that journaling can help the families get release stress and can help as a coping stagey. It can also help the families to understand the reason why their child is hospitalized. (Tiffany Dempsey)  

Reflective Journaling and Assessment

http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=89f55419-4761-49d3-a49f-3e31c6c92a72%40sessionmgr111&vid=10&hid=107

Summary: This article talks about using reflective journaling as a learning technique that can be used by students and teachers. Results show that using this technique for learning was very affective because students used there knowledge by creating journal entries. Teachers find this helpful by looking at what students did not understand and used it to transform there ways of teaching.(Tiffany Dempsey)

 

Reflective Journal Writing: Exploring In-Service EFL Teachers' Perception

Abednia, A., Hovassapian, A., Teimournezhad, S., & Ghanbari, N. (2013). Reflective journal writing: Exploring in-service EFL teachers' perceptions. System, 41(3), 503-514.

 This article demonstrates a study that was conducted on the effectiveness of reflective journal writing in teacher education. Analysis of the discussion demonstrated that the participants believed that writing journals had contributed to their self-awareness, understanding of issues, reasoning skills and dialog with the teacher educator. The study suggested that maximizing the effectiveness of journal writing were the teacher educator’s more clarification of the nature and goals of journal writing and encouragement for peer feedback. (Chrislyn Cook)

Expressive Writing in Early Breast Cancer Survivors

Craft, M. A., Davis, G. C., & Paulson, R. M. (2013). Expressive writing in early breast cancer survivors. Journal Of Advanced Nursing, 69(2), 305-315.

This article is a report of a study that was aimed at determining whether or not expressive writing improves the quality of life in early breast cancer survivors. The participants of this study wrote 20 minutes a day for four days, which their quality of life was measure using the ‘Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Breast Cancer Version’ at one month and six months after writing. The conclusion of this study showed that expressive writing focusing the instructions on writing about one’s living and dealing with diagnosis of breast cancer, is recommended for early breast cancer survivors as a feasible and easily implemented treatment approach to improve quality-of-life. (Chrislyn Cook)

Expressive Writing as a Brief Intervention for Reducing Drinking Intentions

Young, C. M., Rodriguez, L. M., & Neighbors, C. (2013). Expressive writing as a brief intervention for reducing drinking intentions. Addictive Behaviors, 38(12), 2913-2917.

This study examined the effectiveness of expressive writing in reducing drinking behavior. The participants for this study were undergraduate students, who were randomly assigned to write either about a time when they had a lot to drink that was a good time, a time when they had a lot to drink that was a bad time, or their first day of college, followed by measures assessing intended drinking over the next three months. Result revealed that participants intended to drink significantly fewer drinks per week and engage in marginally fewer heavy drinking occasions after writing about negative drinking occasion when compared to control. (Chrislyn Cook)

The Arts in Psychotherapy: From destruction to creation, from silence to speech: Poetry herapy principles and practices for working with suicide grief

Stepakoff, Shanee. (2009). The Arts in Psychotherapy: From destruction to creation, from silence to speech: Poetry therapy     principles and practices for working with suicide grief. 105-113.

This article is about survivors of suicide who must contend not only traumatic grief but also shame, stigma, and silence. The utilization of preexisting poems, along with the expressive writing of poems, letters, and journals are powerful tools for healing in this population of people. Expressive methods such as survivors engaging in their own original writing, journaling, letter writing, and the creation of poems are very beneficially for these survivors. (Erikka Banks)

Student Well-Being Interventions: The Effects of Stress Management Techniques and Gratitude Journaling in the Management Education Classroom

Flinchbaugh, C. L., Moore, E. W. G., Chang, Y. K., & May, D. R. (2012). Student Well-Being Interventions: The Effcets of Stress Management Techniques and Gratitude Journaling in the Management Education Classroom. 191-219.

This article is about well-being is conceptualized here as students' reduction in stress, enhanced experienced meaning anf engagement in the classroom, and, ultimately, heightened satisfaction with life. They investigated whether purposeful semester-long classroom interventions could influence these dimensions of student well-being. They examined the impact of stress management techniques, gratitude journaling, a combination of stress management and journaling. The author found that in the combined intervention and gratitude journaling treatment conditions showed heightened level of meaningfulness and engagement education research. (Erikka Banks)

Journaling about Stressful Events: Effects of Cognitive Processing and Emotional Expression

Ullrich, P. M., & Lutgendorf, S. K. (2002). Journaling about stressful events: Effects of cognitive processing and emotional     expression. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 244-250.

This article is about the effects of two journaling interventions; one focusing on emotional expression and the other on both cognitive processing and emotional expression. This study was compared during 1 month of journaling about a stressful or traumatic event. They found that writers focusing on cognitions and emotions developed greater awareness of the positive benefits of the stressful event than the other two groups. Writers focusing on emotions alone reported more severe illness symptoms during the study than those in other conditions. (Erikka Banks)

 

  Media Elements 

 

Self-Reflective Journal Writing

Summary: In this video it walks you through some steps on how to start journals and the benefits from it.(Tiffany Dempsey)

TEDxConejo- Erin Gruwell: The Freedom Writers

Summary: I am sure that almost everyone has seen the movie Freedom Writers and in this video the real woman that inspired the movie is talking about her experience. In this video Erin Gruwell talks about how something as small as a book or a journal can change millions of lives. (Tiffany Dempsey)

8 Tips to Help You Start a Journal

Summary: In this video it is a life coach walking you through some steps that you can do to get started in a journal. She describes that if you have a prompt to start with it will be easier for you to begin writing because so many people do not know what to write about. Most people are afraid to journal because of the chance that someone will see it but in the video she says that you need to silence your internal critic. Once you do this is it easier to start to journal and you will begin to get the benefit. (Tiffany Dempsey)

 

365 Journal Writing Ideas

                                        (Chrislyn Cook)

Ask a UT Psychologist (Emotional Well-Being)

                         (Chrislyn Cook)                                    

Why Art Journal?

 

                                        (Chrislyn Cook)

Journaling

There are three techniques shown in this video clip that are to better understand yourself and others. (Erikka Banks)

 

Journal Types

Learning how to be creative a make different journals. (Erikka Banks)

 

Benefits of Journal-Writing

Coach Libby Gill explains her journal techniques that will help you make the most of today and tomorrow. (Erikka Banks)

 

 Books

 

The Diary of a Young Girl

Frank, A., Mooyaart-Doubleday, B. N. (1952). The Diary of a Young Girl. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.

The Diary of Anne Frank is an example of diary that was written by Anne Frank herself about her life her and her family lived through during horrified times of war. Throughout that horrified time she wrote of this horrible time she was able to write about it in her diary that was like her way of getting away from the terrifying times of hiding from the cruelties of the war. This diary demonstrates the how even through horrible times journaling helps in ways that can't be explain. (Chrislyn Cook)

Inner Journeying Through Art Journaling: Learning to See & Record Life as a Work of Art

Hieb, M. (2005). Inner Journeying Through Art-Journaling: Learning to See and Record your Life as a Work of Art. London, GBR: Kingsley, J. Publishers.

This book look conveys the holistic process through art, art therapy, which designed theory and spiritual direction in order to attain personal balance, awareness of one's own inner processes of internal conflicts and enhanced wellness. It guides the reader toward the process of creativity that would be helpful for the individual looking to add holistic journaling to his or her own meditation, prayer, or inner exploration practice. (Chrislyn Cook)

Journaling for Well-Being & Peace

Welles, E. (2011). Journaling for Well-Being & Peace. Peace Communications.  

This book is more of a "how to" type of book of journaling, which helps to explore the healing process from lose, the pathways of creative endeavors. This book helps to guide the creativity through the writing from healing the peace at the core. It shows us how to see the magic in the mundane, hope in grief, and humor in just about everything. (Chrislyn Cook)

Journal to the Self: Twenty-Two Paths to Personal Growth - Open the Door to Self-Understanding by Writing, Reading, and Creating a Journal of Your Life 

Adams, K. Journal to the Self: Twenty-Two Paths to Personal Growth- Open the Door to Self-Understanding by Writing, Reading, and Creating a Journal of Your Life. Grand Central Publishing, 1990

This book provides tips that help to lead a person to better living by with a step by step method. This books helps with personal growth and other things that contribute to well being of a person. (Tiffany Dempsey)

Journalution: Journal Writing to Awaken Your Inner Voice, Heal Your Life, and Manifest Your Dreams

Grason, S. Journalution: Journal Writing to Awaken Your Inner Voice, Heal Your Life, and Manifest Your Dreams. New World Library, 2005

This book gives the reader a brief look into the art of Journaling and it gives different activities in which you can experience journaling in a new way. The author provides guidlines in which you can write in a journal. The author tries to motivate you to begin journaling. (Tiffany Dempsey)

Note to Self: On Keeping a Journal and Other Dangerous Pursuits

O' Shea, S. Note to Self: On Keeping a Journal and Other Dangerous Pursuits. William Morrow, 2008

This book explains the process of journaling and how each person has to overcome their own obstacles first. The book explains that journaling is a great trans- formative practice. Each person has to over come their fears of journaling first and this book helps to discover them and how to get over them. (Tiffany Dempsey)

Writing and Being: Embracing Your Life Through Creative Journaling

Nelson G. Lynn. Writing and Being: Embracing Your Life Through Creative Journaling. New World Library, 2010.

This book explains the biology behind the powerful experience of journaling by laying out recent discoveries of the human brain, and shows how journaling can heal psychological and spiritual wounds. It also gives powerful, practice step by step writing exercises and a plethora of examples. (Erikka Banks)

Self Discovery and Healing Through Journaling

Lane, Meredith. Self Discovery and Healing Through Journaling: Includes 130 Journal Prompts. 2013.

This book will guide the reader toward a path of mental clarity, gratitude, and joy through journaling. It provides an overview of the benefits of journaling, advising on the best journaling habits to develop. It stated that journal writing is an amazing tool for self-discovery and healing. (Erikka Banks)

Writing Down Your Soul: How to Activate and Listen to the Extraordinary Voice Within

Conner, Janet. Writing Down Your Soul: How to Activate and Listen to the Extraordinary Voice Within. 2008.

This book is about a woman escaping a terrible situation of domestic abuse. She had no advisors or anyone to help and give her advice about her situation she was in. So she listened to inner voice which told her to start writing and jotting down her feelings. by her doing that she gained clarity and strength, and she felt an incredible connection to the divine, and almost immediately miracles began to happen. Studies have shown that what is actually happening in and through our bodies, minds, and spirits will come easy as we roll a pen across paper. (Erikka Banks)

 

 Websites

 

WikiHow to do Anything [Journal Writing]

http://www.wikihow.com/Category:Journal-Writing

(Chrislyn Cook)

Jane Davenport Artomotologist

http://janedavenport.com/art-journal/ 

(Chrislyn Cook)

Life Optimizer Personal Growth and Effectiveness

http://www.lifeoptimizer.org/2009/10/12/effective-journal-writing/ 

(Chrislyn Cook)

WebGuru: The Guide to Undergraduate Research

Reflective Journaling

http://www.webguru.neu.edu/undergraduate-research/structuring-ur-experience/reflective-journaling

(Tiffany Dempsey)

5 Ways to Inspire Your Journaling Practice

http://www.becomingwhoyouare.net/2013/12/5-ways-inspire-journaling-practice/

(Tiffany Dempsey)

Writing and Keeping Journals. A Guide for Educators and Social Practitioners

http://infed.org/mobi/writing-and-keeping-journals-a-guide-for-educators-and-social-practitioners/

(Tiffany Dempsey)

A Journaling Workbook

http://www.brainline.org/content/2010/09/after-brain-injury-telling-your-story_page5.html

(Erikka Banks)

Journal For You

http://journalforyou.com

(Erikka Banks)

Journal Gallery

http://hopewallace.com/paperrelics/journalgallery

(Erikka Banks)

 

 One Creation 

(Tiffany Dempsey)

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=757991870879335&set=a.100108176667711.23.100000055860346&type=1&theater

For my original creation I made a collage that combines pictures with words. The words are what I chose to be on it is what usual comes to mind when I think about journaling. Journaling can be inspiring and expression it is a great way to get your feeling and thoughts out without any judgment. In my own personal journal I write down 3 positive things that happened that day or that week. I think that journals are a great way to express yourself and who you truly are. You can use a journal for just about anything such as you can use it for pray, quotes, and art work. In whatever way you like to use a journal it is your own personal expression.

 

 

       For my creation I chose to take pictures of my own journal using crafting paper and all sorts of other crafting things to decorate and make it my own. The cover and back of I glued quotes, which I thought were good in demonstrating expression. In the inside of the cover I pasted in a verse~quotes page, which as you can see in the picture are few of my favorite quotes, versus from the the bible and songs. One of my favorite quotes I wrote is, this quote is also the same one that was use in one of my most favorite movies "Coach Cater":

 

                    "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frighten us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. We were born to make manifest the Glory of God that is within us. It's not in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates other." -Marianne Williamson

                    (Chrislyn Cook)

 

 

Journaling(1).pptx

For my creation, I created a powerpoint full of interesting quotes about journaling. These quotes explained how journaling effected their lives personally. (Erikka Banks)

 

Summary Practice Reflection

Journaling was my second transformational practice and the reason why I chose this was  because from doing the Wiki on Journaling got me interested in trying it out for myself. Journaling is something that is very personal and a way to express yourself with no shame. There are so many positives to journaling which are very beneficial to everyone that has written in a journal before. Today many people are finding that journaling can be beneficial when it comes to education or in a career. Within the teaching and learning of education studies show that by writing down your initial reactions to something new that was learned it can increase your learning status of the subject. Journaling can help with personal growth of a student at any level of education. Journaling can also contribute to the professional lifestyle of the career in which you pursue. By writing in a journal about the issues within the world today and analyzing how to solve them or make a difference in the world shows employers your ability to analyze problems and provide a new prospective on the issue itself. Since I have been participated in this practice myself I have received many different positive benefits from it. I have noticed that from writing in my journal I have been able to focus a lot more on my school work. In my journal I am able to write about all of my stresses and doubts and after I have written about them I feel so much better. From writing in my journal once a week I have learned so much about myself and my good things and things that I need to work on. I have really enjoyed this practice and would recommend it to anyone and everyone. (Tiffany Dempsey)    

http://www-distance.syr.edu/journal1.html

Hiemstra, R. (2001). Uses and benefits of journal writing. In L. M. English & M. A. Gillen, (Eds.), Promoting journal writing in adult education (New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, No. 90, pp. 19-26). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

 

            The first transformational practice that I took part in was the practice of journaling. I found that journaling my thoughts, experiences, and feelings throughout the week allowed me to let go of any tension or frustration I had pent up inside. I learned a lot about myself and found that I looked forward to journaling because it allowed me to express myself in a place that was non-judgmental. I can definitely see myself applying the practice of journaling to my life professionally and personally. Personally, I can use my journal to write down my personal feelings I have throughout the day and all of my frustrations. This can help me eventually understand and identify the cause of my frustrations. Also, I can use journaling to keep track of my daily activities and school work. For example, if I am struggling in a class, I can journal how much studying and work I do for the class to be able to really see how little effort I am putting into the class and what I could improve upon. I could use the practice of journaling professionally by journaling ideas for the physical therapy clinic I want to open up. Keeping a journal of things I need to get and the details of the vision that I have can help me be organized and move efficiently through the process. Also, I could use journaling professionally by writing positive messages to myself encouraging my work in the physical therapy field. Opening up my own clinic takes a lot of work and can be very frustrating so writing down positive ideas and ways to overcome obstacles can help keep me optimistic and help keep my business up and running. Journaling has taught me that writing down my thoughts and feelings can help release some frustration and by keeping a consistent log of my thoughts and can identify the root cause of my problems. Knowing the causes to my problems will then help me find solution and will allow me to make some changes. (Taylor Lajoie)

 

Summary Practice Reflection

            The first transformational change practice I participated in was meditation. When I started out with this practice I knew practically nothing out what meditation, only that it was done by sitting in a quiet place, with the eyes closed and a clear mind. The definition of meditate is to think deeply or focus one’s mind for a period of time, in silence or with the aid or chanting for religious or spiritual purposes or as a method of relaxation. At first when I began mediation I found it to be very difficult especially for a beginner who has never meditated before. I learned for this transformational practice that meditation take time and patience, which was hard for me because I have learned I’m not quite the patient person I thought I was before this practice. Although mediation is difficult for someone who has never practiced it before I learned there are other ways of practicing meditation, such as, mindfulness, concentration, open awareness, and reflective meditation. Throughout this practice I focused more of concentration meditation, which I did find to be helpful in training the mind to concentrate and focus on an object or nothingness. I thought that this type of meditation would help to ease my mind of all my thoughts. (Chrislyn Cook)

            The second transformational practice I chose to participate in was optimism. At the beginning of this practice I really did not know how to go about practicing because I knew nothing of how to practice optimism. So in order for me to get a better of optimism I looked up the definition. Optimism is defined as the hopefulness and confidence about the future or the successful outcome of something. From this definition of optimism I was able to gain a better knowledge of optimism and how I could go about practicing this transformational change. As I was putting in the thought of how I could go about practicing optimism I came to realization that optimism is something I do daily. I was unaware that looking at the positive side of things and having confidence that I have the ability to make good things happen was optimism. So for this practice I chose to look back on some of the things I thought I was unable to accomplish but changed my mind set toward a more positive direction in order to accomplish whatever it was I was doing. I also decided practice optimism with the homework assignments and other class assignments I was given over the semester that I had looked at in a negative perspective. Instead I changed the negative mindset into a positive mindset so that I gained the confidence of overcoming my doubts of failing. (Chrislyn Cook)

 

 

 

Summary Practice Reflection—Journaling

 

     The first transformational practice that I experienced this semester was journaling. I figured that journaling would be a good way for me to reflect on my daily experiences and get things off my chest instead of bottling things up. What I didn’t expect was to dislike this practice as much as I did. I found that most of the time when I sat to write, I faced a blockage or I censored myself which was nonproductive. Through this I have learned that there are better ways than journaling for me to express myself and there are things that I can do to step back and see the bigger picture. As a result of this practice I have looked deeper into other areas of change and have found something that for the time being is working better than journaling did. I may try journaling sometimes again in the future because I am always changing and learning new ways to adapt, but in the mean time I have put a stop to this practice. While there are many uses of journaling in the professional and personal realms, I am not ready to seek more opportunities just yet.

     In the future I can hopefully utilize journaling when I have a challenging day at work. As a nurse there are many situations that are unethical to talk about in the open so journaling could be a good way for me to sort out the situations and release any pent up emotions. This practice could also be utilized in the professional setting when I am working my way through new certifications. In these instances journaling would be a good way for me to keep track of the most important information I am learning so that it is easily accessible.  On a personal aspect, I hope that one day I will be able to utilize journaling to keep track of contacts that I make as I move from base to base around the world. For me, it is important to not only keep contact information but personal information and memories about people I meet who are important to me. I can also, hopefully, one day use journaling to document memories that I make so that when I start a family I will have records to share with my children. I do not have any records from my family and I want my children to know about where they come from, because that is not something anyone shared with me growing up. (Bridget Bradshaw)

 

Summary Reflection

The second transformational practice I chose to do was journaling.  I had tried this before in different classes and really didn’t like it, but I decided to give it another chance.  I think journaling has a lot of positive aspects to it.  I think it is a great stress reliever to be able to write out all of your frustrations and thoughts.  Having said this the experience the second time around still did not go well for me.  I decided to journal every Sunday night about the week before.  I was really excited to start this and the first week I wrote a lot and really put effort into it.  After that day however, it got really hard to do every Sunday.  I think this is because I normally cram all of my homework in on Sundays and after I was done with that the last thing I wanted to do was journal about my week.  I thought about switching it to a different day, but I really wanted to do it after the weekend and week were over.  I kept up with the practice and got through it.  A suggestion I might make to myself next time would be to maybe do two a week just to split it up and not have to try and remember the whole week in one journal.  One more suggestion I have would be to make myself think of two positives from the week and two negatives.  This way it is not just me writing down all my frustrations, but I can remember some of the good that happened that week too. (Aaron Krause)

 

Summary Reflection

 

The first transformational practice that I decided to go with was journaling. I was very curious about trying this practice because I have tried it before but I have never really taken it seriously, so I wanted to see what I was capable off. I can honestly say that I am very thankful that I chose this practice because I now I journal all the time. With the vast amount of fitness goals that I have, journalism allows me to keep track of my days, workouts, and meals. I really like being able to go back and see how I was feeling everyday, and knowing how I did in regards to my workout. I also like to write in my journal after I read my bible at night and write about my thoughts or feelings about what I just wrote. It really helps me to dive deeper into what I am reading. I open times go back and read what I have wrote so that I can remember what I was working on those days and remind myself of what I read. Journaling has changed my life and I plan to keep the practice for the rest of my life. I can't believe that it took me this long to discover this amazing practice. Only suggestion that I would give myself would be to not write at night because I tend to get tired and my mind doesn't allow me to dive deep into my day. Other than that I feel like I love the way I journal. (Anthony Troftgruben)

 

Summary Reflection

     I chose to participate in journaling for my first transformational practice. It was an eye opening experience to say the least. I had never seriously done journaling before so I was interested in seeing what I was going to get out of it. Starting journaling, I struggled with finding words to fill the page and it took me a while to write even a paragraph about my experiences or thoughts of the day. As the weeks went on however, I found it becoming much easier to share all these thoughts on paper. One of the most beneficial aspects of journaling was being able to reflect back on my decisions. On a personal note, I was able to see how certain situations affected me and my reactions to them. For instance, I had a few cases where people were unhappy with me or treated me less than great and I wrote down my feelings towards them. Later down the road when I was getting mad at those people for insignificant things, I was able to reflect back on the way that they had treated me previously and find the harsh feelings that were buried. Journaling also is beneficial on a personal note for venting feelings. When events occurred that rubbed me the wrong way I was able to get out my anger by writing it down and I could also look at the cases and see if my anger was rational or irrational. In the professional world, I think that journaling could become very helpful for record keeping. Say if someone is in charge of making many decisions for a group or even a corporation, if they were to keep track of the decisions they made and the outcomes, if crisis arose, they could look back at their journal entries and see where the problems originated and also deviate from making those decisions again. I think that journaling would also create a most positive work environment. Instead of having coworkers holding grudges against one another they would be able to just take a break and write down a few words, almost like the letters of hatred that are never sent to the people that they are intended. I feel that by writing down the events of the day people would be able to rationalize reactions and make better choices based on the feelings and the personalities of the people they work around. Journaling is a great way to keep records and also reflect on past decision and can be useful in both the professional and personal world. (Chris Oestmann)

 

Summary

 

     The transformational practice of journaling was my first transformational practice I participated in. Journaling was a lot more difficult then I thought so what I did was focus my journaling to something specific to my life which was my nutrition and work outs. I made entries into my journal about everything I ate ever day and all of my workouts through out the week in hopes of finding a correlation between my diet and workouts. Journaling made finding a correlation between my diet and workout clearly visible and defined.

 

     My experience with the practice was a great one as I used the practice of journaling to improve and twee my diet to produce better performance in my training. the easiest part of the practice was making my entries into my actual hand written journal. The hardest part of the practice was reviewing my journal entries and connecting the dots so to say to find the correlation between my diet and workouts so that I could make adjustments. The most meaningful part of the practice was how beneficial it was to see what I was actually accomplishing by journaling my diet and workouts because I made lots of strides in my performance because of it. As a result of the practice I felt confident that I could make educated guesses as to what I could change in my diet or workouts based off my journal entries which showed what I needed to add or hold back on in term of diet or work load during workouts. What has changed as a result of the practice is a better understanding of how my personal body works because I was able to track it by journaling.

 

     Personally I could use journaling to get my feeling, emotions, or thoughts out on paper. Many of us including my self hold in to many things that we cant tell others but if we could right them down and get them out it could go a long way in relieve the mind of stress or anxiety. I could also use journaling to help track

 

Journaling

     At first, I was skeptical on how journaling would help me. It turns out that it actually helped a lot! It helped me to look at my typical day, evaluate it, and make changes to it in order to better the way that I did everything. It helped my days to run a lot smoother. It was a very meaningful practice because it helped me to organize my day in a way that was more manageable. It helped me to balance track, school, and sleep. I learned that hectic days are usually caused from having a lot to do but not planning well on how to do them. Being able to step back for a second, grasp what you have, and re-organize it is very beneficial. This is a good application that I can use in life sometime in the near future. Someday I will be a husband, father, teacher, and track coach. In order to not be crazy busy, journaling my days and creating ways to better them with organization will be very beneficial. My days have become much less hectic because I have been doing this now. Another important application that I have found is having the ability to remember certain events without actually having to remember them. It is like a calendar for the past. This will be helpful in my career greatly for if a student ever gets injured and if the parents decide to sue. It is important as a PE teacher to journal in order for them to go back in these situations and clearly show that the child must not have been following directions for example. This will save my skin if it ever happened. Journaling was a great choice and I am grateful for choosing it. (Connor Vincent)

 

     The first transformational practice that I participated in the first part of the semester was journaling. I have learned multiple lessons through participating in the personal experience of the practice. By participating in the transformational practice of journaling I have learned that I am able to be honest with myself now and not always sugar coat things. During this whole process of writing in my journal every morning and every night, I found out a lot of things about myself. Most importantly I found out that I am the type of person to hold in stuff until I can’t handle the stress anymore and just break down. I also found out that journaling has helped me release all the stress that was building up inside me by letting me write down everything that was on my mind and figuring out what I can do to better myself with the situations I was going through at that time. I knew journaling was helpful because once I was diagnosed with a severe concussion and was told I cant read, write or watch any television, I was really going through it because I couldn’t write down what I was feeling at the time. My thoughts were overcoming me because I was feeling every emotion you can think of while going through my concussion. All I could think of was writing in my journal because I knew that would release all of the stress I had. Overall journaling has benefited me by letting me clarify my thoughts, feelings and also gaining self-knowledge about myself. My life has completely changed just based off of these two transformational practices that I participated in. I recommended my roommates and teammates to engage in this whole process of multiple practices that will benefit your life and overall health. I will be very consistent with both of these practices for the rest of my life because I honestly cannot see myself without either one of them. I really enjoyed participating in these transformational practices that have changed my life for the better. (Erikka Banks)