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Down the ages, the need and importance of writing diary has been recognized as a tool of self development. It has been used as a friend and companion by many, while many others have found it to be a guide, an inspiration, and a counsellor -- all rolled together.
Keeping one's journal or diary is based on our need to express our thoughts, feelings, and emotions which we often find not to be fully understood by anyone, if at all. Most of the time, our own expressions are held back by reservations because we anticipate others' response or reaction even before communicating our thoughts or ideas to them.
When we express whatever is in our heart or mind in our diary, we immediately become honest in our expression because we are not held back by the anticipated fear of being refused, mocked at, or not understood. To the diary, we can say whatever we want to say unhindered. Hence it becomes a fulfilling exercise.
The benefits of maintaining a diary are not limited to the satisfaction of unhindered and uninhibited expression of our thoughts and feelings. If diary writing becomes a regular practice it works wonders in many dimensions.
Various survey results show that people who write down their goals are much more likely to achieve them than those who don't. In a research conducted in Yale, only 5 percent of students of the class of 1953 wrote down their goals. And in 1973, twenty years later, this 5 percent owned 90 percent of the group's net worth. So many people simply stumble through life without a plan. A few of these people strike it lucky, most of them don't. Others have a vague idea of what they want to do, and strive towards it in a general fashion. They are moderately successful. But those who write down their goals step-by-step are the ones who are most likely to shine. Even Henry Ford has attributed his success to his determined practice of jotting down his ideas and goals in his diary.
Keeping a journal also encourages honesty, because rarely do people lie to their diary. While writing into the diary we know that there is really no point in lying as no one will be reading our diary except ourselves. By noting down the day's events in a journal every night, we are forced to jog our memory as we recall the events of the day. This exercise keeps the brain sharp and active, and it also increases memory. In fact, sitting down every evening to recall the events of the day is a great intellectual exercise.
The practice of writing diary also inculcates discipline in us. Sitting down every night and writing a page or two in our diary is a discipline by itself. Random writing every once in a while naturally does not lead to discipline, but it does lead to some great memories. But if we are regular with our journal writing, we are likely to be regular with other matters as well.
There has been going a vast research in this area by leading psychologists and they have come up with a unique healing process called Writing Therapy. Writing Therapy is a new healing form, developed and researched by James W. Pennebaker and his teams at Southern Methodist University and the University of Texas at Austin since 1975. During that time they tested thousands of individuals and found the key to healing a wide variety of illnesses by using words to affect health. He explored the nature of self-disclosure, confession, inhibition, trauma and other disease-related conditions. Pennebaker writes in the Preface to his path breaking book, Opening Up, The Healing Power of Expressing Emotions: "...writing about your experiences may improve both your physical and mental health. I am not selling a miracle cure. Rather, recent studies from around the world are uncovering some exciting findings that may help you in your coping."
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Writing Therapy prescribes devoting at least twenty minutes to writing your diary every day. They have found that it helps us not only psychologically but also physically because most of our physical ailments are caused by unexpressed feelings and emotions crowding our mental sphere. Writing Therapy also brings clarity of understanding to us in our personal and social life because we are able to see things a lot more clearly after writing them down. As we go back again and read the incidents and feelings we have recorded, we begin to appreciate our friends and near ones. This is a good exercise for emotional health.
One of the greatest advantages of maintaining your diary can be the sharpening of your writing skills. While giving expression to our memory and feelings related with them, our thought process is provoked, enabling us to ponder about various things and being articulate in our expression. This also leads to cultivate a reading habit as this is a natural consequence to sharpening our writing skills.
In light of what we have discussed, the efforts by the founding member of Anjali Foundation, Shri A. K. Patel, (Chairman, Anjali Kitchenware Pvt. Ltd.) have to be appreciated. He has made it his mission to awaken the habit of diary writing in society at large. By creating innovative diaries for teenagers and for those in pregnancy he wants to make sure that the most impressionable phases of our life are positively affected by this perfect tool of self development.
- Swami Sanjay Bharti
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