Why You Should Try Art Journaling
Cat Williams is a freelance writer and advocate of using art journaling as a healing tool. To find more info on the benefits of journaling, go to her website: http://www.self-help-healing-arts-journal.com/
Art Journaling is a fairly new form of artistic expression that combines self-help with creativity. Art journaling is taking the diary, or journal, one step further by adding doodling, drawing, coloring, magazine cutouts, stamping and other forms of visual expression to the words you write. You don’t have to be an artist to do art journaling. You just have to have a notebook or journal, writing tools, and perhaps magazine, scissors and glue.
The arts have been known for their healing powers for centuries in other cultures. Today the U.S. therapy field is beginning to realize that creating art is a powerful healing tool. Researchers have found that keeping a journal has a positive impact on physical well-being. Psychologist and researcher James Pennebaker (University of Texas-Austin) believes that regular journaling strengthens immune cells, called T-lymphocytes. Pennebaker says that writing about stressful events helps to come to terms with them, thereby reducing the impact of these stressors on physical health. Other research has shown that journaling decreases the symptoms of asthma and rheumatoid arthritis.
Aside from what the scientists have discovered, there are many more benefits to journaling that we journalers have long known. Being creative without feeling you have to be “an artist” is a wonderfully freeing feeling. It can help you deal with all kinds of emotional problems, and bring you joy and a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction.
Some other benefits of journaling include:
- Clarify your thoughts and feelings
- Get to know yourself better by putting your thoughts on paper
- Reduce stress
- Solve problems more effectively
- Track patterns, trends and improvement and growth in your life
- Gain surprising and valuable insights into yourself
- Get a broader and more accurate perspective on yourself
- Provides a safe way to express negative feelings
- Can get your creative juices flowing
Remember being a child and coloring, glueing and cutting? Remember how fun that was? We all yearn to be creative, and it’s a shame that only children and “artists” are encouraged to be creative.
Pick up a pencil, crayon, or marker and start art journaling. Your project doesn’t have to be worthy of an award, but it does have to be something that brings you pleasure. So don’t be afraid that someone will judge you on your art. You don’t need to show it to anyone. It is a journal after all.
Heightened awareness, relaxation, vitality, healing, self-worth, and the ability to connect with others are a few of the words used by people who have found their inner self through art journaling. So go on, get out some paper and markers and start art journaling. You’ll get lost in your own creative world in no time, and find yourself feeling free and alive.
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