Looking back at the notebook journal

          At first, since I had never used a journal, it was a little difficult to express myself in the notebook. In the past, I usually kept things to myself and did not talk them with anybody. By doing this journal for the class, it taught me that sometimes in life you do not have to keep things to yourself because every person has the right to liberate themselves from what is disturbing or affecting their daily life. This journal opened that path for me to know that by writing what bothered me or just talk about my day, could indeed relax me a little from the daily tension of the university or other problems that I might have.

          In this journal I talked about many things, and I actually think that I might have expressed myself more than usual. Sometimes I arrived from the university and was full of stress so I took the notebook and started writing all that was in my head and when I finished it felt good to let it out of my system. I think the primary objective of the journal exercise was for us students to write about what firsts came to our minds and when we got the hang of it, we actually write more than the first time and about deeper things to find our inner self.

          When we started doing this journal in august, I was passing through difficult times, this I rather not express publicly, and by doing this journal I did find a little about myself and confirmed others. First of all, I confirmed that I’m a very stressful person. I wrote many times about having stress and not being able to control it, something I’m working on at the present. I also found out that being a reserved person is not always good, that sometimes letting things out it’s the best way to feel better. Feeling relieved by talking about things that torment me through the day, let me know that there are other options apart from keeping all to myself.

Since this journal helped me finding out things of me, I took advantage of it and some days wrote on the notebook 2-3 entries per day at different hours and it helped me pass through a tough day. I think this journal did me well, at first what I talked before about helping me find a little about my inner self and then helping me pass through difficult days without having stress thoughts that hold me from having a normal day. Apart from class, I will keep doing this exercise for my own good since it helped, writing what first comes to my mind and letting it all out to feel more relaxed.