How to Journal: Your Cancer Experience

One thing I found to be exceptionally helpful to me was to begin writing a journal when I was first diagnosed with breast cancer.  I didn’t know how to journal, I just knew that I needed to get some things down on paper and FAST.

I’ve always kept a diary ever since our son was born, so I didn’t find it difficult to begin.

I believe perhaps that others have some problems in that regard, so I found you a lovely resource in a website called “Journaling Saves!” written by Kristin Donovan.

Here’s a link entitled How to Journal in 10 Simple Steps.  Wonderful information, and that will get you started.

How Journaling Helped Me

Here’s how journaling helped me.  When I was going through breast cancer, I was reading a pile of information on breast cancer (sometimes several books at a time), a stack of natural healing books and heaps of inspirational info.  When I would find a passage that made sense to me or that I particularly wanted to remember, I wrote it in my healing journal.  Here’s one of my favorites:

“Think of cancer as a message from God to repair the delicate pattern of your soul and internal bodily health through love, nurturing, understanding and acceptance, and as a way to bring those aspects of your life that are out of balance back into balance.”  (Katrina Ellis, from Shattering the Cancer Myth).

Journaling was amazingly helpful to me, I found it essential to be able to refer to those passages I wrote and recall the information quickly.  To see it in my own handwriting also seemed to lend it credence.  I still thumb through the pages of my healing journal once in awhile.

Why Journaling Might Help You

The reason you might want to journal?  Think of it as a container for self reflection, self-expression and self exploration.  It can be a very healing thing to do.

It gets things out of your head and into the light of day – makes them more real.

You might discover some things that need healing – issues, negative beliefs, relationships – things will bubble up from your subconscious mind.

Researchers have found that people who write their deepest thoughts and feelings about upsetting events in their lives have stronger immunity and visit their doctors half as often.  Journaling reduces stress, it even helps your organizational skills.

Journaling can help move you towards wholeness and growth – to who you really are.

If you’d like to stay connected, sign up for my free e-newsletters on the right, or “like” me on Facebook (MarnieClark.com) and I’ll do my utmost to keep you informed and empowered on your healing journey… and beyond.