Journaling in Recovery
“In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could to any person; I create myself.”
Throughout my recovery process, journaling has been an essential component of my treatment, helping me reflect on my thoughts, feelings, goals, and fears, helping me make sense of a wholly confusing situation. Simply the process of spilling all my raw and vulnerable emotions onto paper without censorship—a free association of sorts—has proven to be irrevocably cathartic and freeing. Journaling isn’t only meant for those who are “good” writers nor is there any pressure to write what you think others would want to hear. Instead, think of journaling as an intimate space for self-discovery, one where you can visualize, acknowledge, and confront all those abstract, jumbled thoughts running through your head. If you find that your mind is oversaturated with too many worries and fears, simply letting them flow out into the outside world will effectively reduce the internal hold they have over you. It is no secret that perhaps the most potent way to deny a being power is to silence it, to deprive it of a voice. Far too often, we silence ourselves and our thoughts, constantly keeping them trapped inside. Thus, journaling is in essence an act of self-empowerment, validation that we deserve to hear and listen to our inner selves.
Like recovery, journaling is about you investing in yourself—because you are certainly worth investing in—and perhaps the best thing about journaling is that there are no rules (except for trying to be as honest with yourself as possible)! There is no specific format you must follow, and you don’t even need a physical journal or paper to journal. For instance, being a busy college student often on the go, sometimes it is just more convenient for me to journal using the Notes app on my phone.
Health Benefits of Journaling
There are various health benefits of journaling, and journaling is a great activity to engage in even if you are not in recovery from an eating disorder. By being able to rely on journaling as a healthy coping skill you can use when you feel overwhelmed or stressed, you can begin to deviate away from those unhealthy coping mechanisms. Overall, journaling offers distinct benefits to optimize mental health and well-being such as:
Stress and anxiety reduction
Providing clarity to your thoughts and feelings
Problem-solving
Helping you prioritize problems, responsibilities, and goals
Helping you better recognize, understand, and anticipate triggers
Enabling you to identify self-defeating thoughts so that you can challenge them and reframe these internal messages with a more empowering outlook
Allowing you to track symptoms, setbacks, and successes consistently
How to Begin Journaling in Recovery
Again, there is no one-size-fits-all way to journal, but if you are wondering how to begin journaling, the answer is simple: Just start! Use whatever materials you want, and format the entries however you want. Just write what feels right to you without worrying about what others might think. Try to write consistently and daily, but don’t beat yourself up if you miss a few days….this is not supposed to be stressful, but rather, is a way to alleviate stress! I sometimes find it helpful to just set a timer on my phone (usually around 15 minutes) and free-write for that allotted time.
Some Journaling Ideas
Write a running list of all your reasons to recover. It has been so helpful to me to have this list for when I feel like giving up or like recovery is too hard….it helps me remember why this process will all be worth it in the end. Here is the list I made….feel free to use any of my reasons in your list as well!
Write down all the negative things you tell yourself on a daily basis. Then, write out the complete opposite of these statements so that you now have a list of positive self-affirmations. I decided to do this exercise in a more artistic sense by first creating a portrait called “The Noise” that is an embodiment of all the negativity that runs through my head, hindering me from unleashing my full potential. Then, I drew a second, happier self-portrait called “The Inner Bitch,” a complete reversal of my first portrait and the embodiment of the affirmations and mantras I hope to live by. I highly recommend this exercise because if we constantly tell ourselves we are not good enough, we will begin to feel unworthy. Only by consciously making the effort to actively acknowledge and oppose spiraling negative thoughts can we begin to feel any different.
Write a letter to your eating disorder. Explicitly let your eating disorder know all the pain and loss it has caused, and let your frustration out! This really helped me mentally commit to recovery.
Write down things you are grateful for daily. Keeping a “gratitude journal” has been shown to increase optimism, and indirectly, happiness and health. By listing all the things I was grateful for, I began to truly see that life is worth living and fighting for….you can’t truly live and experience all of life’s wonders if you are wrapped up in the embrace of your eating disorder.
Write down a list of your favorite body positivity quotes. Come back to these quotes when you are struggling with poor body image and repeat them on a daily basis.
Write down your eating disorder thoughts vs. the truth. This exercise will help you recognize distorted and incorrect thoughts regarding your self-worth, weight, and food so that you can begin to see that these thoughts are manifestations of your disorder and not the truth. For example, an eating disorder thought might be, “If I gain weight, I will be unworthy.” The truth is “weight does not determine self-worth.”
Journal about any slip-ups you have made. Recovery is not a linear process and we will all inevitably encounter set-backs. However, the best way to ensure that relapses remain only temporary and don’t spiral into something bigger is by acknowledging them so that you can learn from them and move on with the recovery process. Don’t just write about the slip itself, but also about what happened beforehand and how you can react differently going forward so that you can identify triggers and alternative, healthier ways of coping.
If these prompts do not inspire you, don’t feel pressured to use them! These are just some exercises that personally helped me. The right way to journal is whatever way works best for you. Happy journaling!