Store Your Thoughts for Free Therapy

Everybody needs a little therapy sometimes. What’s that? Don’t want to pay a guy $500 an hour to lay on his couch while he doodles in a notebook? Well, you’re in luck, because there’s a better way to give yourself a little therapy without having to hire a psychiatrist. It’s called writing. Now, I know you probably hate writing. That stems from school, when teachers forced you to write x number of words/pages on a certain topic. That’s not what we’re talking about here. This is free, honest writing about whatever you want. Here are a few benefits to keeping a blog or journal for yourself:

• Full control over the medium. You don’t have to have it in a Word document, you don’t need to double-space everything, and it doesn’t need to be in 12-point Times New Roman font. You don’t have to use college-ruled paper on an 8.5”x11” sheet. You can type it out on a computer, you can use photographs, you can use postcards. Keep a tiny pocket notebook for quick thoughts, or lug around a big, leather-bound book with a bottle of ink and a feather. I really don’t care. Whatever you’re comfortable with and whatever works for you. Snap pictures, draw doodles, or record yourself talking. Use something that you will want to use.
• Empty your head = sleep better at night. I know so many people that toss and turn at night because they’re too busy thinking about what’s going on in their lives and things they have to get done. By keeping some type of journal of your thoughts and feelings, you allow your brain to relax. Think about it: if your brain knows something’s on paper and knows where that is (or on the computer, whatever), it will stop reminding itself all the time. Your brain knows when it doesn’t have to remember something, so give it a break and get it in writing somewhere.
• Watch your mindset evolve. One of the great things about keeping some type of journal is that you can look back on different situations and how you handled them. If it turned into a big mess, you can actively make changes to your approach if it happens again. It’s called “learning from your mistakes”.

You don’t have to be some deep, introspective person to do it. It’s important for everybody to take a step back and look at themselves a little bit each day. There are plenty of different methods for doing this:

A public blog

A blog is a great way to do it, as it is clean and accessible anywhere. Pair up a free WordPress account with a cool template and an easy-to-use writing program like Windows Live Writer. Then you just have to open a new blog and start typing away! Want to go even simpler? Posterous will let you blog even easier, by using email as its main form of writing. You send your email to post@posterous.com and it will format it and post it for you. Attach a photo or video and it will embed it right into the post for you. Downside: other people will be able to read it. So if you don’t care – you come from the days of LiveJournal – then go ahead. It’s a great, flexible way to do it.

Pen and paper

The traditional approach: this allows you to go anywhere with your thoughts. We all know how to write, and you can doodle in the margins, too. The big downside here is its vulnerability to the elements. Get caught in a rainstorm, and you might lose all your thoughts.

A Word Document

It’s something you probably already know how to do: open a document, label it whatever you want, and keep it in a designated folder. Type it and format it however you want, because it’s already something you’re familiar with. Downside: it might feel like you’re doing homework.

Yup, Evernote

There’s something intriguing about the idea of using Evernote as a journaling platform. First, it’s private, and accessible anywhere for you, including your mobile phone. Second, you can record your thoughts via photograph, links to other web sites, simple typing, or even voice notes. There are infinite ways to use it, and it’s also free. I’ve long touted the advantages of using Evernote, and this one just makes sense. It’s great for journaling on-the-go, too: the mobile app allows you to create new voice notes, text notes, and snap and store pictures to sync up with the rest of your notebook. Pretty crazy stuff!

There are a lot of creative ways to keep some type of journal. Give it a try for a couple weeks and see what happens. Do you have a favorite way to keep a journal, or are you considering it? Share with us in the comments!