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Many people find journaling and other forms of writing to be helpful for healing. Journals can store our innermost thoughts and feelings and provide a healthy release of emotions. Journaling provides the bereaved time to attend to their grief and a way of identifying and processing though grief reactions. While the inner world of grief feels chaotic, journaling helps add structure for clarifying our experiences.

If you never kept a journal you might not know where or how to begin.  First, remember that the journal is for you. You are writing for yourself, not an audience. If you are not sure where to begin, write down what happened. Then describe what is happening now. Write what you are feeling and about where those feelings might come from. Even jotting down daily events can be a way to tap into other feelings.

Keep it simple. Be patient with yourself. You don’t have to write pages and pages and you don’t have to write every day.  Writing prompts can also be helpful and I’ve included some tips to help you get started. There are three types of journals:

Visual Journals - If you are more of a visual person, try a visual journal. Purchase an empty sketch or an unlined journal that you can fill with drawings, paintings, and collages. Be sure to include quotes or narratives as well as scrapbook images, photos, and newspaper or magazine clippings.

Digital Journals - Perhaps you would rather put your thoughts on a computer rather than in a journal. Many people find it easier to write on a keyboard. If you plan on turning your journal into an online blog, remember that your innermost thoughts and feelings would go from a private to a public domain.

Readymade journals - Bookstores and greeting card stores often carry journals with quotes to get you started. There are several geared toward the grieving individual. 

Here are 10 tips for getting started:

1. What I miss most about you and our relationship…
2. What I wish I’d said or hadn’t said…
3. What I’d like to ask you…
4. I forgot to tell you…
5. You taught me…
6. You would be proud to know that I….
7. I can hear you say…
8. I am grateful for…
9. What I’ve had the hardest time dealing with…
10. Ways in which you will continue to live on in me…

Diane Snyder Cowan is the mother of two grown daughters and a national leader in using music in grief therapy, as well as the director of Elisabeth Severance Prentiss Bereavement Center of Hospice of the Western Reserve in Cleveland, Ohio.   She is a regular ShareWIK.com columnist.

To learn more about Diane, visit her blog.

 Read other Diane Snyder Cowan columns here. 

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