Work deadlines, bills to pay, health concerns, financial trouble, erring relationships with loved ones --- problems surround our small universe every day. We come up with various solutions to these problems, from decorating our work area with Post-its and adding reminders to our pocket organizers to making personal amends, because we want order in our lives. But there is more to life than finishing work on time, popping vitamins, relying on digital assistants, and preserving camaraderie. Our inner lives are as complicated as the big world out there, and that is why we must make an effort to understand our selves more and make better choices in the future.

There are many paths to self-discovery, and journaling is one.

-> How does journaling help us?

Journaling helps us find meaning in our pain and allows us to process our emotions. By honestly jotting down our thoughts and feelings, we are able to know the truth of who we are or where we are going. Writing the words on paper (or typing them on the computer) allows us to release the energy out of our body and see it in a physical form, that is, the string of meaningful sentences that cover the pages of our dear diary. Psychologists say that this process is important because all healing and creative growth helps make the unseen, seen and the invisible, visible.

"A daily journal is an opportunity for reflection on our lives," says Joan Mazza, a psychotherapist and licensed mental health counselor. "It provides us a place to organize our thoughts and feelings, a way to settle down, to sort out our concerns and frustrations. It is a venue for planning our days and our lives, a space for evaluating our place in the world and the legacy we wish to leave."

Scientific studies show that writing about emotional upheavals in our lives can improve physical and mental health and help us recover and move on. Researchers like James W. Pennebaker, M.D., professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, and Joshua M. Smyth, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at North Dakota State University, have done studies to prove that journaling is good not only for the soul, but for the body as well.

Pennebaker's first studies, in the late 1980s, examined healthy people who are into journaling. His research concluded that people who wrote about the most traumatic events in their lives stayed healthier than those who wrote only about trivial events.

In 1999 the Journal of the American Medical Association published a research conducted by Joshua M. Smyth at the State University of New York at Stoneybrook, which showed that writing about a stressful experience reduces physical symptoms in patients with chronic illnesses. Smyth's team monitored 112 patients with arthritis or asthma. The subjects were asked to write in a journal for 20 minutes three days in a row about either an emotionally stressful incident or their plans for the day. Of the group who expressed their anxiety on paper, 50% showed a large improvement in their disease after four months. Only 25% of patients who wrote on neutral topics showed any relief of symptoms.

Journal writing about traumatic events, however, can be difficult and time consuming and should be done very carefully. Smyth suggests notifying either your health care professional or someone close to you before you attempt this exercise.

-> What to Write About If you are ready with your pen and notebook but have not thought of anything to write about, use these ideas to help prompt your journaling activity:

• Something that you are thinking or worrying about too much
• Something that you've been trying to finish or achieve
• Something that you feel is affecting your life in an unhealthy way
• Something that you have been avoiding for days, weeks, or years

Explore how a topic relates to other aspects of your life, such as career or relationships. Write continuously and don't think about spelling or grammar.

-> Journaling Techniques

There are many ways to write on your journal. As you go through the writing process, experiment on your own and find out what works best. Deborah Bouziden, a certified journal technique instructor for the Center of Journal Therapy in Denver, suggests these techniques:

Unsent Letters - Write letters to individuals or organizations that you never intend to mail. These letters can be good tools for closure-offering you a way to say things you would have liked to say, but were never given the chance.

Dialogue - Carry on a conversation with another person or thing in writing. The form would be similar to a movie script where you would use your name (or "Me"), then the name of the other person. Example:

Me: You write your words. Friend: what he or she says.

Character Sketch - Describe someone or something. Talk about not only outward appearances, but also what is going on with this person inside. Step away from yourself, and write how other people see you.

Snapshot - What do you see in a picture? Freeze-frame an event in your life, then write about that one, single moment.

Summaries - In writing summaries, you tell what happened in one of your life's events. Summaries can be one paragraph or five pages.

Free Write - With free writing, you just begin. Some writers set a timer. Whether you use a time or not, just write. Do not stop, even if you find yourself changing direction. Let the flow of words streaming from your subconscious manifest on paper.

-> Tools You will be happy to find out that journaling tools are mostly available wherever you are. Get a pen and a diary from a nearby bookstore. Buy a cheap notebook from a paper shop or a convenient store. Reuse old school notebooks that still have blank pages. If you're the type who likes to peck on the keyboard, you can always use a word processor (just remember to save the document every time) or sign up for an online journal using the Internet. Online journals or blogs (short for web logs) have encouraged many people to write about and publish the goings-on in their lives and let family and friends read their posts. Some "bloggers", however, opt to lock their journal entries and keep everything to themselves. If you want to try blogging, point your browsers to these sites:

• Blogspot (www.blogger.com)
• LiveJournal (www.livejournal.com)
• Diaryland (www.diaryland.com)
• BlogDrive (www.blogdrive.com)

Blogging software and hosts abound in the World Wide Web and most of them are free. Posting an entry is also as easy as using your word processor.

-> Writing about Life

Life-based writing is one of the most reliable and effective ways to heal, change and grow. Your journal can serve as a link between your past and your future. Personal writing is for anyone who desires self-directed change. It requires no special talent, skills or experience -- only a willingness to explore life's special moments, to make choices and be led toward psychological healing and spiritual discovery.

Joan Mazza writes in her book From Dreams to Discovery, "Journals provide a safe place for us to ventilate our most personal concerns, fears, hopes, and desires. It is the one place where we can be totally open and honest with ourselves, without fear of judgment, rejection, or criticism. We can complain and be as inappropriate and immature as we like, in ways we would never allow ourselves to be publicly. In our own time and style, we can reflect on what we have written and see it in a larger perspective."