The single most beneficial component to my recovery has been journaling. With that said; journaling is also the bane of my existence. I don't enjoy it as much as I wish I did. I wish I could tell you I did, or that I have grown to love it, even look forward to it, but I haven't. I don't know if I ever will. I don't know if I will ever do a pirouette, sit down at my computer with little birds chirping outside the window, smile and sigh with delight as I write in my journal. I don't think I will and furthermore, I don't think I have to. I journal because of the way it makes me feel, I journal because it helps me heal, it cleanses me and I am healthier because of it.

Everyone knows that journaling is the route in which you discover the keys to so many thoughts, feelings and emotions. I wasn't sure I wanted to know the answers to some of the questions I had, some things I couldn't even think about journaling about in the beginning…so I didn't. I took my time with it, I did what I could when I could, day by day.

Since I disliked journaling so much and avoided it every chance I got…I became very good at making excuses as to why I couldn't journal. Here are a few of my favorite excuses and my retorts to them.

1. I'm too tired.
   This was a great excuse except for the fact that often I wasn't too tired to watch a movie, call a friend, clean the bathroom, do the dishes, play with a new hairstyle, read a book or just putter around the house for another hour or two before bed. Too tired? Too tired for what, exactly?
2. I'll do it tomorrow.
   This is good too, why do today what you can put off for tomorrow? Except that whatever I'm avoiding writing about today and whatever feeling I'm running from today is probably on the surface today and if I wait until tomorrow to think about it then I won't be getting the full benefit from journaling about it and I'll just end up having to journal about it again the next time it comes up so I'm actually creating more work for myself later.
3. I don't have time.
   This is very similar to #1. How long does it take to journal? Do I really need to set aside a half an hour or an hour at a time to journal? Sometimes when I would set aside the time I would only journal for a few minutes anyway. A little journaling is better than no journaling at all.
4. I left my laptop at the office.
   Pen. Paper. Need I say more?

In the beginning journaling was good because it got a lot of the unnecessary clutter out of my mind. Things would be rolling around in there all half together, one piece in one corner and the other piece on the other side and nothing ever seemed to match up until I started to write it down. Once I got it on paper I could look at it more objectively and I could create some emotional distance from it, emotional distance can go a long way in the healing process.

Journaling allowed me to pave the way to deal with the harder issues as they came up. If I hadn't been practicing journaling and hadn't been getting comfortable with my own thoughts and in my own head then I wouldn't have been able to make some of the breakthroughs that I made once I really started to get into some of the deeper issues.