The Best Journaling Tips For Processing Trauma

Can journaling help you process trauma in recovery and beyond? If you’re in treatment for substance use disorder (SUD) or another mental health disorder, you might question the validity of journaling as a therapeutic activity. 

At Miramont Behavioral Health, we encourage our patients to write about their feelings and experiences to facilitate healing and better self-awareness. Studies show that emotional writing not only helps improve your mental health, but it can also decrease the damage that trauma causes your brain. 

In this post, we offer a few tips and prompts to get the expressive writing juices flowing and pave a written path through and beyond trauma. Remember to take it slow, drop any expectations of perfection in your writing, and know that what you write is yours and yours alone—no one needs to read it at any point. 

You also have no obligation to share what you write with anyone—therapist or otherwise—no matter how close you may be to them. This process is about you and your feelings, and privacy will help ensure the honesty needed for its success. 

Expressive and Emotional Writing: The Science Behind Journaling

Research shows that expressive writing works to lower stress and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. It can even boost our immune system and help us sleep better. On a cognitive level, it helps us make sense of our experiences. 

When we write about what we’ve been through, we start to see patterns and connections that we might have missed during those experiences. It provides a sense of control. When we’re writing our story, we’re the ones in charge. We decide what goes on the page and how to frame our experiences.

Emotional writing also offers clarification and a documented trail of progress. It’s a safe space to express ourselves and is especially helpful when we feel that the things we need to say are too raw, embarrassing, or painful to share with others. Our journal is a judgment-free zone where we can let it all out.

Self-knowledge is also a powerful benefit of journaling. Through exploration of thoughts and feelings around substance abuse, mental illness, and traumatic experiences, we can gain insights that help us manage cravings or symptoms more effectively.

Prompts for Journaling Through Trauma

It’s common for childhood trauma, abuse, or difficult experiences in adulthood to add to substance abuse issues or poor mental health. Journaling helps clarify these connections. 

Here are some prompts that help you identify how trauma influences your day-to-day:

• The thing that gets in the way of my happiness and progress most is thinking about:
• I wish I could forgive myself for:
• The most challenging aspects of healing from my trauma include: 
• When I reflect on my progress after my traumatic event, I feel:
• The clearest impact of my trauma on my life has been:
• The boundary that I want to create or struggle to create is:

Prompts that connect to overcoming trauma:

• The traumatic experiences I’ve sustained have developed the following strengths in me…
• Right now, I’m proud of performing the following to actively deal with and process my trauma:
• When it comes to facing my trauma, I see myself practicing resilience by:
• Today/this week/this season, I showed up for myself by:
• I take care of myself by:

Prompts for understanding your true feelings:

• When I think about my family life or my childhood experience, I feel:
• If I could let go of _________, I would feel:
• If I could give advice to a younger person or a younger version of me, it would be:
• I feel [insert emotions] when I think of:
• I wish [insert person or group of people] understood that:
• Today, I feel I’m working toward:

Mental Health Treatment in Wisconsin: There is Hope

Journaling isn’t a cure-all for your problems, but it can have a tremendous positive impact on your long-term progress, in combination with therapy and medication. From coping with grief to preventing substance abuse relapse, Miramont Behavioral Health is here with the tools to support you!