When you lose someone or something you love, it can have a major impact on your wellbeing. And while grief is a normal response to loss, normal does not always mean easy. When the pain of loss is too much to realize, your body and mind might work to avoid it. There are times when this avoidance or denial can serve you. But there are other times when this protective defense actually gets in your way. That is when a grief journal (and grief journal prompts) can be especially helpful.
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Why Grief Journals Help with Healing
There are so many benefits to using a grief journal for healing. Using a grief journal can improve your mental health and lift your spirits. What’s more, journaling about your loss can be an effective way to ensure you are tending to your grieving process.
If you have experienced a difficult loss, you may be tempted to try and rush your grief along. Maybe you’ve heard of the stages of grief and feel tempted to power through them as fast as possible.
After all, grief hurts. And who wants to stay in that pain for long? But as a certified grief informed professional and someone with lived experience with loss, I know too well what can happen when you push yourself to feel better fast. You may risk stifling your natural grieving process and inadvertently develop complicated or prolonged grief.
Using a grief journal can counteract the instinct to avoid or rush the process. Journaling around your loss offers a safe, structured, routine way to get those tough emotions expressed.
3 Reasons Why You Should Start a Grief Journal
Here are 3 big reasons why you should start a grief journal today.
1. A grief journal can build resilience.
Research has found that long-term journaling can increase resilience. The American Psychological Association (APA) defines resilience as “the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or significant sources of stress — such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems, or workplace and financial stressors.” Therefore, using a grief journal can better equip you to navigate your grief journey.
2. A grief journal can promote stress relief.
Studies have shown that journaling regularly about your thoughts and concerns can help with stress reduction. Grief journals not only provide a space to pour your heart out, but they serve as effective ‘grief containers’. A grief container is an example of the containment technique, which is a therapeutic visualization exercise in which one’s thoughts and feelings are expressed and managed in a controlled, safe space.
Grief journals offer the perfect amount of containment for the emotions that arise during grieving. You can express them on the page and then close it up and put it away until you are ready to dive in again.
3. A grief journal can help you move through your grief (instead of around it).
When faced with the pain of a major loss, you may find yourself suppressing or avoiding your emotions. This doesn’t always happen consciously, either. Sometimes your brain and body may suppress your feelings automatically, in an effort to protect and preserve. This can serve for a time, but it can also prevent healing in the long run.
Using a grief journal provides you with a structured opportunity to tap into those emotions, express them, and get them processed. This necessary processing of your grief allows you to experience the pain, move through it, and start to heal your wounds.
How to Use a Grief Journal
When it comes to journaling around grief, there are no rules about how to go about it. Some people find it helpful to free write their feelings. Others find that grief journal prompts help them to better express their emotions and process their grief.
In my experience, grief journals that provide a balance of both are really helpful. See below for my top therapist-recommended grief journals (including one that I created myself for my clients to use).
Top 5 Therapist-Recommended Grief Journals
Here are my top 5 therapist-recommended grief journals:
- Grief Journal “My Healing Journal” from Promptly Journals: This beautiful journal from Promptly Journals features carefully curated and useful prompts that can serve as an emotional outlet for your grief.
- Free Grief Journal from the Center for Creative Counseling: This free printable grief journal from the Center for Creative Counseling was designed with you in mind. The free downloadable journal contains over 20 thoughtfully written prompts designed to promote healing.
- How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed: A Journal for Grief by Megan Devine: From the amazing author that brought us It’s OK that You’re Not OK, this platitude-free grief journal provides validation, compassion, and creative journal prompts that encourage open and honest dialogue with your grief.
- A Daughter’s Grief Journal: Daily Prompts and Exercises for Navigating the Loss of Your Mother by Diane Brennan: This grief journal from Licensed Mental Health Counselor Diane Brennan is specifically geared towards the unique pain surrounding the loss of one’s mother. Carefully-written prompts tap into the mother-daughter connection and support you in finding a path forward.
- Navigating Grief: A Guided Journal: Prompts and Exercises for Reflection and Healing by Mia Roldan LCSW LCDC: This elegantly designed grief journal offers a calming aesthetic and supportive map for grief healing.
Grief Therapy Subscription Box
If you are looking for additional support, the Mourning Dove Grief Therapy Box is a lovely monthly subscription box was specifically created to nurture healing for those navigating grief and loss. Featured monthly themes include things like journaling, self-care, wellness, art therapy, and meditation. This monthly box centered around grief healing makes a nice gift for yourself or someone else.
Free Grief Journal Prompts
If you are interested in free grief journal prompts, you can download my free grief healing journal here. But here are a few prompts to get you started:
- What I want to remember most is…
- I’m scared that I will never be able to…
- If I could go back in time, I would…
- This hurts so much because…
- I’m afraid to let myself really feel…
For more grief journal prompts, download the full grief journal PDF here. Or, submit your info below to download your free copy.
Interested in Grief Counseling?
If you have experienced the loss of a loved one and you live in Pennsylvania, the Center for Creative Counseling can provide online grief counseling with a certified grief informed professional.
The Center for Creative Counseling offers online grief counseling to residents all across Pennsylvania, including busy metro areas like Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Erie, and Villanova, or more rural spots like Somerset, Lancaster, or New Hope, PA.
Whether you live in Wexford, PA, or Squirrel Hill in the heart of the city of Pittsburgh, or somewhere in the Pittsburgh’s South Hills, you can receive online grief counseling through the Center for Creative Counseling. No matter where you live in Pennsylvania, the Center for Creative Counseling has you covered.
Plus, the Center for Creative Counseling offers additional online therapy services like family therapy and art therapy as well. Please visit our Services page for more info.
Online Grief Counseling in Pennsylvania
The Center for Creative Counseling provides online grief counseling all over Pennsylvania. With online grief counseling, you get work through your grief from the safety and comfort of your own home.
I offer a free 15 minute consultation to make sure I am a good fit for what you are looking for. If you want a grief counselor who is dedicated to supporting you along your grief journey (and you live in Pennsylvania) I am here to help. Click below to schedule your free consultation today.
Getting started is easy – just schedule your free 15 minute consultation with me by visiting the secure client portal and click “I’m a new client.”
References
- Baikie, K. A., Geerligs, L., & Wilhelm, K. (2012). Expressive writing and positive writing for participants with mood disorders: An online randomized controlled trial. Journal of Affective Disorders, 136(3), 310–319. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2011.11.032
- Dibdin, E. (2022, March 31). The Mental Health Benefits of Journaling. Psych Central. https://psychcentral.com/lib/the-health-benefits-of-journaling
- Ford, B. Q., Lam, P. J., John, O. P., & Mauss, I. B. (2017). The psychological health benefits of accepting negative emotions and thoughts: Laboratory, diary, and longitudinal evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 115(6), 1075–1092. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000157
- Schaufel, M., Moss, D., Donovan, R., Li, Y., & Thoele, D. G. (2021). Better Together: Long-term Behaviors and Perspectives after a Practitioner–Family Writing Intervention in Clinical Practice. The Permanente Journal, 25(2), 1. https://doi.org/10.7812/tpp/20.250
- Smyth, J. M., Johnson, J. A., Auer, B. J., Lehman, E., Talamo, G., & Sciamanna, C. N. (2018). Online Positive Affect Journaling in the Improvement of Mental Distress and Well-Being in General Medical Patients With Elevated Anxiety Symptoms: A Preliminary Randomized Controlled Trial. JMIR Mental Health, 5(4), e11290. https://doi.org/10.2196/11290
- Stessman, E. (2022, December 30). How to make journaling a habit in the new year, according to experts. TODAY.com. Retrieved March 13, 2023, from https://www.today.com/shop/how-journal-mental-health-benefits-t255576?bestsellers=true
- Tartakovsky, M., MS. (2022, February 22). 6 Journaling Benefits and How to Start Right Now. Healthline. Retrieved March 13, 2023, from https://www.healthline.com/health/benefits-of-journaling#how-to-start
