My Word of the Week: Pen

How journaling helps us process our emotions and bring clarity to our lives

Jean Edelman: Great to be with you. This week I have my buddy here, Hoshi. So, she's going to be with us today. Today I want to talk about journaling. I've talked about it many times, but did you know or are you familiar with all the various types of journals? I thought we could talk about it today, and then it would be fun to see what resonates with us each day, and then we could have some fun with it.

So the first type of journal is what we call narrative. This is where we write about what's going on and how we feel about it. It's a wonderful opportunity to process our emotions as we write. The one thing I want us to remember about journaling is that these words are just for us. This is our opportunity to find some quiet and process our life, our emotions. And so you don't have to worry - there's no right, there's no wrong. Just have fun with it.

The second type of journaling is intuitive, and this is where we're trying to seek clarity. We've got a problem that we really want an answer to, and this is where we could sit. We could write out our question and then write down whatever comes after it. This is a really nice and fun type of journaling.

The next is our gratitude journal. This is a wonderful journal to have. Make the list of things that we are grateful for each and every day, and each of us have so much to be grateful for. And so remembering that each day is very important.

Then there’s visual - this is the fun journal. This is where we can get out our crayons and our colored pencils and have words come up or pictures come up. We can doodle, draw. It's just a wonderful, fun journaling exercise.

The next one is stream of consciousness. This is where we just sit and we write whatever is on our mind - words, whatever. Just keep writing and writing and writing until there's no more words and no more emotions. Very, very healing. And then we write a journal of what's going well, ongoing positive elements of our life, ourselves and our family and friends.

So these are just a few variety of different types of journals. And so our action item for the week is to see what resonates with you, try something new, what feels good. And the beauty of it is that we could go one from the other. There's no right or wrong, just whatever feels good that day.

And so my word of the week is very simple. It's PEN.

The P is for Peace, because when we are sitting, just us with a piece of paper and a pen, no one's judging us. No one's reading our words. It's only us and the paper. We can express our emotions, our desires, our dreams. And there can come inner peace and inner calm. We can move out our anger, frustration, sadness, confusion. We put it all on the paper. And then we tear it up or we burn it. It's a wonderful, wonderful release.

The E is for Emotions. There's so much going on in the world. We need to process our emotions. We need an avenue to be able to let go. And so this is a beautiful exercise to just write down. Remember our movement, remember our breath. But the key is that writing and then burning it, tearing it up, letting it go, that helps heal and that helps us process. And then you know what? We get to write down a new chapter. How do we want our new ending? How do we want our new day to be?

And the N is for Navigate. When we write something down, we're actually setting an intention. And then that intention can help us create a path that would leave to a more joyful and fulfilling life.

I encourage you this week to really play and practice with the journaling and have fun with it. Have a great week everyone.