Decompressing Through Writing

​Decompressing Through Writing
Is it an evening run? A glass of wine and a movie? Maybe you decompress by processing. We can decompress in any number of productive ways whenever we choose.  Journaling is just one of them. Sitting and thinking back over your day, and documenting those thoughts in a sentence or two.
We can use the nervous energy of our day-by-day concerns to create beautiful work in self-guided therapeutic time with ourselves. As time goes by, our sentences become paragraphs; and paragraphs, pages; pages to chapters, and perhaps even whole volumes. It can be rewarding and the act of writing, specifically, is conducive to our well-being, overall.
Now, this decompressing, this outpouring, can be at once painful and healing, refreshing and frightening.
You may be telling yourself – ‘I have nothing to say,’ but why not take the first step? You may find surprising personal value in the exercise.
You’re probably thinking, - ‘well, I’m not a writer.’ I understand. There’s an unfortunate sense of competition that we all sometimes feel about our creative output, but remember, this work is for you and you’re not obligated to share it.
‘But there are just some things I can’t even write about.’ For those things, why not play with substitute names and fictitious places? You’re held to no rules about how your story is told. 
Strategize your way through a struggle, dissect your dilemmas, pen your purposes and plan. In every way, journaling is a tool in your hands. So, create your own life chronicle.
Carla Bell