Journal to the Self: Twenty-Two Paths to Personal Growth - Open the Door to Self-Understanding by Writing, Reading, and Creating a Journal of Your Life

Loving the practical advice in this book.My favorite way to journal would be writing ofcourse, but there are a few barriers. You can't format (except for caps or italics), editing an entire journal entry can be difficult (although might be useful in observing patterns), there's the threat of loss, unwelcome prying eyes, fading over time, fire, water damage etc..(although this could be useful to some - showing a well worn journal); Lastly, the ability to search and find a specific journal entry, say several years old is challenging. However, there are many pros to writing in a physical book that may far outweigh the minor inconveniences, & as I alluded to before , i would prefer this format if it came with the bonuses of online Journaling (listed below).In fact, I'll even recommend a journal book to kick start, or complement your journal writing. I came by this a couple weeks ago while I was browsing Journaling books. It's by Lyndelle Palmer ClarkeDailygreatness Journal: A Practical Guide For Consciously Creating Your DaysI'd recommend getting it even if it's just to get some good tips & ideas on how to structure your Journaling.With that said, I've switched to digital Journaling, specifically evernote, & I use the structure in book above to complement my online journal. Here are a few reasons why I prefer digital:1. Mobility. Evernote is cross platform. I can journal on my PC, tablet, smartphone, anywhere, anytime.2. I can format to my hearts content. Bold, underline, italics, highlight, bullet, 1,2,3 etc...3. I can create a General Notebook with sub-categories, that is, a notebook within a master notebook, categorized by year.4. I can tag my journal entries. This is an incredibly useful tool, because, I can tag a note or series of notes, let's say, "happiest day of my life" then search that term in the future.5. I can copy & paste or clip entire Web articles into my journal entry.6. Journal entries are automatically time stamped with date, time or location (optional).7. You can share a journal entry (if you wish), useful if your working on a project with others.8. You can back up your data through cloudhq.net to a plethora of different apps (Dropbox, Google Drive, box & lots of others), then you can backup (I use Google drive) to backup my journal entries & other files to a personal external hard drive. I'm pedantic (lol).8. You can delete, undo, backspace etc...I'm sure there are many more pro's that I haven't covered. I just wanted to share some thoughts for you to consider.Happy Journaling :)

It was interesting to me when I first scanned through this book how many similar ideas I had over the years and had applied on my own. Seeing this made me feel like I had been doing some things right and useful for myself. The additional ideas and methods gave me a feeling that it would be worth pursuing the idea of journaling for the rest of my life.Shortly after receiving this book my sister had gone through 13 hours of surgery for throat cancer. I considered sending her this book thinking she had been through so much that it might help her to journal her feelings and thoughts. I reconsidered because she never really seemed like a journaling person. I was very surprised and pleased when she was able to talk again, although with a lot of difficulty, that she had started journaling on her own, before I had ever suggested the idea.When she told me that, I immediately wrapped up the book and sent it to her. I know that she will get at least as much out of it now as I would. A good book with lots of good ideas that anyone can use and appreciate.

Journal to the Self is a great book for anyone that is seeking self happiness whether you are in therapy or not, whether you journal daily or never journaled. We spend so much of our time doing for others that we often loose sight of self, especially, our inner self. Journal to the Self provides many journaling techniques. Journaling is primarily for our own eyes. Not all techniques are for everyone. That's okay. There is something here for everyone. Enjoy!!!

Journaling always seemed like a great idea to me, and then after 3 months of self pitying sludge and several pages of "I don't know what to write in here" it was all too dull, and I would quit. Journal to the Self does a fantastic job of offering various techniques to keep your journaling going, and/or giving it some focus. Each technique is described clearly and concisely, and the I found the author's tone reassuring. There are classic excercises such as unsent letters, and novel exercises such as clustering which give a quick picture of the associations one is making. The book is easy to read, and is organized so that it is easy to locate the descriptions of each technique when revisiting to book as a reference. I am finding the information in this book very valuable.

I owe this writer a lot of thanks. I taught freshman English for twenty years. During that time, my students were required to keep journals. I shared many techniques with them, and many of of those techniques I took from this book. Rereading it as a retired English teacher with just my own personal journal keep, I discovered techniques I had forgotten about. The book written in 1990 is a bit old fashioned; there are no chapters on keeping an online journal or even using your iPod to update the journal. Still it was a very good reread. I know why I kept this book. I know why I taught many of the techniques.

some great techniques for journaling. I tried most of them and liked them. They did not have some profound impact on my life, but it gave journaling a little more dimension and made it intresting. If you do get this book remmeber that it has ALOT of fluff( useless info); flip through the pages, get the gist of the techniques and go for it. It took me about an hour to read this way. It very boring if u read every page

I remember having a diary in my middle- to early high school years and thoroughly enjoying writing in it and occasionally reviewing/appreciating how I captured my life's events on paper. Then I grew up and, sadly, forgot writing. Since then there were many challenging times in my life when I tried to resume journaling but the attempts quickly sputtered. I am thankful to have this book to I spire me to keep on trying and exploring the various ways to fill my journal; to remind me to be patient with myself; to show me how I can allow myself to simply write without judgment, to enjoy the process. I have since reclaimed my old notebook from my book shelf and restarted writing again.

What I liked was how the author debunked a number of misconceptions about journaling.I liked the choices and variety of journal writing styles and approaches.That being said, for the causal journal writer...as I thought about practicing the ideas presented in the book, I felt overwhelmed and undisciplined.A wall that kept coming up was....this will consume huge amounts of time and energy. Probably, a very good place to start writing a journal entry. :-)I loved the book and I will recommend it to others.

I bought this book to delve deeper into journaling. I have been keeping journals for 8 years, so I am certainly not new to it, and have tried many techniques but when I looked at the index it still seemed to offer new tools.I read it within two days, and now it's all outlined and bookmarked all over the place. It's a great book, which besides delving into psyche of journal keepers, sharing people's experiences, also offers easy to use tools for any kind of journal keepers.If you have never kept a journal, this will get you started, give you options of what/how you can write, new techniques for you to explore. If you are experienced, you will still find things in here to inspire you.

great book-as advertised.

I always thought that writing a journal would be a waste of time, but this book has changed my views completely. The book takes you gently into the wonderful world of journalling and how it can impact your life. The various ways to begin writing a journal; stream of conscious, using spring boards, dialoging, writing lists of 100 etc.Its amazing and finally very useful to access resources that you never knew you had.I heartily recommend this book to everyone.

A real find for the journaller... lots of great ideas on writing techniques/ and ways to unlock your creative juices... plus therapeutic tips for letting go of past issues. A book to keep.