[excerpted from, 9 Keys to Embracing Change: Personal Growth ©2023]

To embrace change, and go through transitions as wisely as we can, inner exploration is in order. And what better way to do so than with that therapist at your fingertips: a journal?

Or if you don’t enjoy writing, or find that it doesn’t work for you as a means of introspection, consider keeping an audio or video journal instead, through which to explore your thoughts. (Our phones make this exceedingly easy.) The point here is (a) this is only for your eyes (or ears), never for anyone else, so that you’ll feel free in what you write or record; and, (b) to explore your thoughts and feelings in a way that also gets them out of your head and into another format, thereby allowing you to both look more closely at your inner experience and also to decrease or release its mental and emotional impact.

If you’re unfamiliar with journaling, it’s often referred to as a ‘therapist’ because in writing down (or recording) our thoughts and exploring our feelings in this way, we tend to gain insight. A journal isn’t for a simple recounting of one’s day (unless it’s for a specific purpose, such as a gratitude, kindness, or mindfulness journal); rather, it’s for deeper exploration of one’s mind. We ‘tell’ our journal things we’d never say to another person, and sometimes, thoughts or feelings emerge that we didn’t realize we had.

In times of change, keeping a journal can provide a stabilizing factor; it’s one thing that’s not changing, an anchor, and a place to safely express what we’re feeling in the midst of turmoil. We can explore such topics as what currently is and is not within our control, what we can do about the aspects that we do have some control over, and how we can better let go of those that we don’t. We can use the journal to explore what’s particularly disturbing or frightening in this time of change, what we anticipate or dread, and how likely either outcome may be. We can clarify the process of change itself, explore our goals and objectives for this transition – whether we’ve chosen it, or it was thrust upon us by fate or the actions of another, and what steps we can take to get past whatever stage we’re in currently. We can express our sense of loss as we leave the old life or our former self behind, our feelings of being lost while in that middle part, and our sense of relief and perhaps even anticipation as we begin to emerge.

In processes of personal growth or development, journaling can be especially useful for keeping us motivated (“eyes on the prize!”) and exploring our roadblocks as they arise, in planning our next steps and assessing the effectiveness of our efforts thus far.

We can also use a journal to rewrite our story. This is a very useful exercise for making the most of our transition, of this period of change, and possibly of achieving some form of personal transformation as a result. Whatever has happened to us in the past, or is happening to us now, or around us, is only one part of the story. Surely, there are a range of perspectives to be explored. But even more importantly, what has occurred, even if we’re still in the middle of it, took place in the past – even if it was just days ago; what we tell ourselves about it, now and going forward, is our story of this event, this time of change, and we can choose to tell it in a range of ways.

This isn’t to say that we make up a story or deceive ourselves with fantasy. Rather, it’s a matter of the way in which we choose to focus on and later, to remember this event, however major.

Let me give an example. Say something traumatic happened to you as a child. The event itself occurred however it did, and we can’t change that. Nor is it useful, years later now in adulthood, to paint some pretty fantasy of it in order to get past the emotional content; this is the magical thinking of a child, that if I cover my eyes, you’re no longer there. It doesn’t work in adulthood; our brain always knows the reality of what happened.

But what story do we choose to reinforce? That story, that ongoing story, in terms of what perspective we take on the event that occurred, is ours alone to tell. In this example, the story might begin with what happened so long ago; it could then go on to other aspects, such as how we’ve chosen to live our lives, all that we’ve done to ensure our own mental health, the people who love us, the person we’ve become, even what we’ve gained as a result. (Those who’ve suffered trauma as children, for example, often become highly empathetic adults.) All of that is in the ongoing trajectory of the original story – and we decide how it’s told, if only to ourselves.

So, you can use your journaling to explore how you’ll tell this story in the future. It’s a very effective way of getting through the change itself, right now. If you can’t detach from the emotions of it, try writing it simply as a story happening to someone else – someone else who lost their job, or a person, or a marriage, or who’s about to have their first child and is anxious about how life will change, or who is—you get the idea. Write that story. How will you tell this, in years to come?

Another way to lessen the emotions as we go through a transition is to write about them. By exploring what we’re feeling in this form, by putting emotion to paper as it were, we’re also releasing it to some degree. We can explore the grief and loss that accompany letting go of the old, in order to ultimately embrace the new. We may find ourselves writing (or recording, or your method of choice), “I feel really anxious about this because I’m filled with doubt that I’m not good / strong / worthy enough to … be a parent / take on that new role at work / be single again,” and this helps to defuse the emotional impact. We can then explore the reverse: I feel that I’m not ready / capable / sufficient – but in what ways could the opposite possibly be true?

Our internal exploration, during our time within the cocoon of change.