Hi Reader,

I'm popping in your inbox today to share something I've been working on the last couple weeks. Putting my book about writing aside, I knew I wanted to bring my research on therapeutic writing to the page in one form or another.

Thus, I wrote a blog post highlighting the key ways journaling MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER. This is good info, Reader. Healthy coping skills for life, kind of info.

Curious? Dig in, my friend...

​

​The Art of Journaling: Harnessing The Power of Self-Expression​

I’ve always loved a journal. Everything about it. The feel of it in my hands. The soft, blank pages inside. Every journal is an opportunity. Every journal is full of potential. From the little locked diaries of my childhood to beautiful journals handmade by my sister to simple school notebooks I’d buy in a pinch while traveling. A collection of blank pages has always brought me joy, always made me feel at home.

Although I hadn’t planned for my career to focus on writing, when my oldest was a toddler and started to display a lot of difficult behaviours I had to leave my work in children’s mental health. It was too much for me to work with challenging kids all day and come home to my own. Him and I both deserved so much better than that. So I turned to writing and figuring out how to make writing easier for people, as well as how to have emotional, therapeutic experiences with writing.​

When I returned (so I thought) to the mental health world by pursuing my masters in counseling and spirituality in 2020, I didn’t think I’d study writing. I had been working with a few different ideas, looking generally in the direction of menstruation, PMDD and spiritual healing. In the end though, my proposed study was deemed too big and I had to rework my plan, quickly.

My supervisor made the obvious suggestion: “What if you looked at something writing oriented? That seems like it would be a good fit…”

I agreed grudgingly but the research on therapeutic writing captivated me instantly, and looking back now I find it hard to believe I had ever planned to study anything else.

There is no lack of articles about writing as a therapeutic tool as it is used in so many ways to support therapeutic goals – from gratitude lists to letter writing to poetry therapy. This meant I had a lot to work with but also made it challenging to come up with something unique. I wanted to do more than write another meta-analysis. I wanted my research to make a thoughtful contribution, to say something that hadn’t been said before.

My research ultimately focused on treating trauma through autobiographical writing, which relates well to journaling – perhaps the purest form of autobiographical writing. Whether in locked diaries or beautifully bound journals, it is often only in those precious pages that we share our deepest truths...

​Finish reading the post here.​

​

Of course, if someone in your life needs this info, please share this email or the blog post. So many people could be helped with a little bit of journaling.

'til next time,

Parrish