Journaling About Trauma: Writing to Heal

What Is Journaling?

Journaling, or expressive writing, is simply writing down your thoughts and feelings about a specific event, series of events, or interactions that you have had.  Journaling for mental health is a perfect practice for those who have suffered from PTSD or complex trauma because it allows for you to process your emotions without inhibition and without fear of judgment.  It gives you a place to say what is often unsayable.

Benefits of PTSD Journaling

There are many benefits to journaling as a way to heal from trauma.  Repressing and suppressing emotions, particularly anger,  can have harmful effects on the body including anxiety, depression, and certain illnesses.  Expressing your emotions is cathartic and can help release energy that has been blocked inside the body, leading to a decrease in anxiety, and a greater sense of vitality.

The effects of trauma can mimic the effects of ADHD.  Organizing your thoughts and writing them down can help you gain clarity and improve your focus and concentration.  With improved clarity comes a greater capacity for creating a new narrative for your life, one in which you prevail as the hero of your own story.

Below are some of the benefits of journaling about trauma:

• Helps to access your inner world of feelings and give voice to them, rather than continuing to suppress them
• Offers a safe and judgment-free place to express exactly how you feel without worry about what others might think.  This is particularly helpful for emotions that you may feel are unacceptable, such as anger or shame.
• Decrease feelings of anxiety by gathering all of your scattered thoughts and emotions and putting them in one place
• Increase feelings of resilience, empowerment, and psychological well-being when you are able to see how you have managed to survive and thrive despite your traumatic experience

Steps for Journaling for Trauma

First, purchase a beautiful hard-bound journal that speaks to you aesthetically.   That way, writing in it feels inviting and special and the journal becomes a sacred space for your innermost thoughts.  Because trauma and suppressed emotion stay stuck in the body, the act of physically moving your hand across the paper helps in the process of moving the material out of the body and into the sacred container of the journal.

Below are seven steps for journaling about trauma:

1. Create a Sacred Space for Writing

Your writing place should be somewhere you feel safe, comfortable and nourished emotionally.  Your bed, surrounded by pillows and cozy blankets is one example, but make it sacred to YOU. Light a candle, brew a cup of herbal tea, and have a box of tissues on hand in the event that your writing brings up tears.

2. Start With Free Form Writing

Write continuously without stopping to edit, re-read, or change anything.  Free form writing is best, as it allows you to express yourself uncensored. Have a list of journal prompts handy for those days when you feel stuck.

3. Refrain From Self-Blame or Self-Criticism

Remember, the practice of journaling is to give voice to your innermost thoughts and emotions.  It is a tool for your well-being, not a tool for beating yourself up!

Keep your journal handy so that you can jot down thoughts that arise throughout your day.  If your journal feels too big to do this, keep a smaller notebook with you to jot down ideas to expand upon later when you have your sacred time for writing.

4. Think and Reflect

When it comes to journaling about trauma, there really are no rules.  Some days, you may feel like simply writing about what is currently happening in your life, and that is okay.  However, this can be a way that you distract yourself from your pain and continue to suppress emotions so you have to be careful about falling into that pattern.

Let’s say for example that you were a victim of emotional neglect from one or both of your parents, and sense that this has caused you to act in ways that are unhealthy in your current life. However, when you attempt to write about the experience, you feel emotionally numb and disconnected.  It can be very helpful for you to conjure up an image of yourself as a child before you start to journal.  Even better if you can have a photo of yourself to reflect upon.  It is often much easier to connect with a painful childhood experience and access those suppressed emotions if you can actually see the young child that you were.

Another helpful practice for journaling about trauma is the gratitude journal.  Ending your day by writing three things that went well that day can help you feel a sense of hope for your future, and keep you from becoming mired in victimhood.

Here are some trauma journaling prompts to get you started:

• What has been my greatest wound?
• What has been the greatest obstacle in my life?
• What do I need to say goodbye to?
• What have I been carrying for far too long?
• What shame do I carry in my body and soul?
• What keeps me stuck and unable to move forward?
• What gift has come with my greatest wound?

5. Create and Prioritize the Time for Journaling

I recommend beginning with a half hour of journaling before you get started with your day. Emptying your mind of scattered thoughts and emotions at the start of the day allows you to begin with a clean slate.  Giving yourself ample time to write is very important.  Focused attention in a sacred space allows for more authentic expression of your inner feelings than rushing to jot things down in a hurried fashion.  Healing from trauma is not something that you do in sound bites or quick moments.  It is a sacred practice and must be treated as such.

Journaling at the end of the day can help you make sense of thoughts and feelings that have arisen throughout your day, so if you can bookend your day with journaling, all the better!

6. Read What You Wrote

Going back through your journal and reading what you wrote can be a helpful part of your healing process.  The suppression of emotions is a habit that is hard to kick.  Going back and re-reading your journal can keep you present to the feelings that you experienced while giving them a safe place to live.  Another benefit to reading your journal is to illustrate just how far you have come on your healing journey.

7. Create a Plan for Managing Distressing Thoughts & Feelings

Allowing yourself to write about painful experiences will bring up painful emotions.  That is what it is supposed to do- allow you to feel emotions that you have repressed or suppressed in the past.  I highly recommend allowing yourself to cry, punch a pillow, or scream if that feels right for you.  If you feel completely overwhelmed, call a friend or family member for support, or perhaps sit with a beloved pet for comfort.  Slow, deep breathing can help to calm the nervous system if it starts to feel like too much.

Finding Ways to See the Positive

There is no doubt that all of us will suffer in some way at some point in our lives.  Our greatest wound often contains within it our greatest gift.  Journaling about our pain, about the effects that it had on our lives can take us through to the other side, the side where we feel safe, stronger, and more resilient than ever.  Once you have processed your feelings about your trauma (and sometimes this takes a long time) you may begin to consider what the experience of going through and surviving trauma has given you.  Are you particularly intuitive and good with offering solace to others?  Can you remain calm when others are activated?  Whatever your gift is, can you use it in some way to help others?

When to Seek Professional Help

While journaling is a wonderful practice to help a person manage feelings around trauma, it is not a substitute for therapy.  Most often, trauma occurs in a relationship with someone else, perhaps a parent, a caregiver, or a romantic partner.  There is a tremendous amount of healing that can occur within the therapeutic relationship.  In fact, the single most important factor in whether or not a therapy will be successful is the therapeutic alliance between the client and therapist.  Learning that you can rely on someone to hold space for you in a loving and non-judgmental way is tantamount to healing from any trauma.  Journaling and other practices are adjunctive therapies, but should not be used as a replacement for a relationship with a therapist.

Therapy for addressing trauma may include:

• Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy.  EMDR focuses on moving your eyes in a specific way while processing traumatic memories
• Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT): CBT focuses on the effects your thoughts, beliefs and attitudes have on your sense of well-being.  The aim of CBT is to stop negative thought cycles Trauma-focused CBT (TF-CBT) focuses specifically on the impacts of trauma.
• Prolonged Exposure (PE):  Prolonged exposure therapy is a specific type of CBT that helps individuals to approach their traumatic related memories and feelings slowly and gently.  By facing what they have been avoiding, the individual gradually learns that their trauma-related memories are not dangerous.
• Online therapy options: Making an appointment with a therapist can be a difficult process.  There are often long wait times to see someone in person, and some areas have shortages of therapists.  Because of its accessibility, online therapy for trauma and PTSD can be a viable option for those who otherwise might not be able to find a therapist.
• Narrative Therapy: Narrative therapy helps an individual to process traumatic memories and reframe their experience in order to empower themself and reclaim their sense of personal authority.
• Somatic Therapy:  Somatic therapy is a broad term to describe therapies that utilize the connection of the body and mind to release trauma from the body.  Some somatic practices include yoga, tapping, and grounding techniques.

In My Experience

In my experience, the best approach to treating trauma is three fold.  First, find a licensed therapist who can walk beside you on your path, someone you feel connected to and someone with whom you feel safe. There is nothing more indicative of a successful outcome in therapy than the therapeutic alliance between you and your therapist.   Secondly, since trauma can cause you to disconnect from your body, incorporate some type of somatic practice that can help you connect your body and your mind.  These practices can include mindfulness meditation, yoga, tai chi or Qi Gong. Regular massages or acupuncture can be helpful as well.    Lastly, journaling is an important and integral part of any healing process, and is especially important in healing from trauma.  Journaling provides a safe container for emotions that may feel out of control, allowing for more peace, clarity, and focus.

I advise my clients when they begin therapy that  they may feel worse before they feel better. Do not be discouraged by this!  Part of the process of healing from trauma is allowing yourself to feel things that were too overwhelming in the past to feel.  Your journal can be your trusted companion on this journey, and can also serve as a reminder of how far you have come.