Reflective Journaling Write to Heal, Know, Grow and Care for Yourself with By Lynda Monk, MSW, RSW, CPCC
We human beings have a both a hunger and a fundamental need to listen to our own inner worlds while paying attention to our outer worlds, in order to enhance our physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual well-being. It is a learned skill to attend to one’s inner life and to practice the art of self-awareness. Reflective journaling helps us slow down so that we can listen, breath, notice and simply be.
“It is easier, sometimes to become fo- cused on the healing of our outer lives, of the world, than it is to look at the need for healing our inner lives.” Susan Borkin, Author of When Your Heart Speaks Take Good Notes: The Healing Power of Writing.
I started my social work career working within high stress and often high trau- ma roles including as a child welfare social worker, a crisis response coun- sellor, and as a medical social worker. I really loved my work; it was fast paced, interesting, diverse and meaningful to make a positive difference in some- one’s life on a regular basis.
My Story
As a young social worker, I became very aware of the occupational hazard of professional burnout. I saw a number of colleagues go off on “stress leave” and some of them never returned to their careers or they came back for a short time and would “leave” again. By the time I was thirty-years-old, I had lost three social work colleagues to suicide. I started
asking myself and others too; “Is it pos- sible to do this type of work and stay grounded, healthy and happy while serving the growth and well-being needs of others? Or is emotional suf- fering, burnout and compassion fatigue the unavoidable outcomes of a career where high emotion, empathy and the frequent witnessing of human suffer- ing are present?”
I realized that the answer to this question had to come from inside myself and so I turned to my journal for answers. I wrote about how I felt and what I experienced each day. I wrote about sitting with Ian, a man on the palliative care unit. I held his hand while he took his last breath. He had no family left. I wrote about the 18 year-old boy who was on his way to pick up his girlfriend after work. He was running late and went through an icy 4-way stop. His vehicle was hit by a truck and he died instantly. I held his mom while the police told her that her son was killed. At the end of every work day, I wrote and I wrote and I wrote.
I realized I was instinctively writing to heal from all the pain and suffering that I witnessed due to the nature of my work. To heal means to make whole. I was writing myself whole, again and again.
Now, many years have passed since my early years as a crisis response social worker. Nonetheless, to this day, reflective journaling continues to be a practice that nourishes me, grounds
October/November 2012
me and keeps me mindful within my daily experiences as a mother, a wife, a daughter to aging parents, as an entre- preneur and so on. I still write to heal. I write to come home within myself.
Our Collective Story As heart-centered women, most of
us fill many roles both personally and professionally where we are caring for the needs and well-being of others. As women, that is what we do – we care, we nurture, we connect, we listen, we bear witness. Reflective journaling is a practice and tool that allows you to savour your lived experiences. Regular journal writing helps you hear the whis- pers of wisdom within you and it helps you hear what needs to be heard.
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