
Journaling is a powerful tool that can enhance our lives and support our well-being. It can also add to our relationships at home, work, and play. When we journal we are recording a relative reflection of our feelings and experiences. When we share those with the ones closest to us, we learn more about ourselves and each other.
You can start a journal for just you and your partner to write in, daily or weekly, whatever you both agree to.
Couples Journals -
Keeping a couples journal with your partner can be a fun and interesting way to communicate and discover more about each other. Get a blank book and place it were it is accessible for both of you on a daily basis. Keep a pen with your journal. You can use the same color of pen or each have a different color of pen to use. You can also designate colors of pens for certain feelings, i.e., green = growth, blue = sadness, orange = joy, red = anger - you get the idea. If you are using the different colored pens, write in the front of your journal what you both have decided what each color signifies.
There are 2 ways to use your couples journal. You can each use a side of the book, the left page or the right page, adding the date each time you journal. Or you can journal after each other on the same pages.
You will both need to discuss what you personally and collectively want to accomplish through using your couples journal. Whatever it is that you want to accomplish, what your goals and intentions are, write that in the front of your journal. Keep in mind that what you want to accomplish can change, and if it does change, journal that change to each other.
If there is a specific problem or concern in the relationship, you may want to start journaling there. You can also use a couple's journal to tell each other, daily, how much you love each other and why. You can journal your dreams and hopes for the future, your children, each other, the world. Or combine any of these ideas, along with your own ideas. You have a blank palette, so fill in the space with what is most important for you and your relationship.
You can also add photos, poems, fortune cookie fortunes, even cutouts from magazines to your journal.
If you have lost an important relationship through death or some other change you can journal your thoughts and feelings to this person in the same way. This can be a very powerful way to move through loss, touching those fears and feelings that are still within.
However you decide to use the couple's journaling, be sure to journal the love and the joy, along with the rest of your feelings. One tip - If you are taking time to write to one another, keep clear about what is a fact and what are your feelings.
You can also journal with friends and coworkers using the same ideas.
Copyright 2003 Doreene Clement All Rights Reserved Doreene Clement is the creator of, The 5 Year Journal, a journal where you can journal your life in one book, for 5 years. You can tour the book at http://www.the5yearjournal.com
dkcomni@aol.com 480.423.8095
Feel free to pass this along to your friends. If you want to see my column, About Journaling, to subscribe http://www.the5yearjournal.com
AP - Israel resumed its Gaza offensive Wednesday, bombing heavily around suspected smuggling tunnels near the border with Egypt after a three-hour lull to allow in humanitarian aid. Hamas responded with a rocket barrage.
AP - Pink slips are piling higher as companies scramble to cut costs even deeper to survive the country's economic and financial storms.
AP - Pointing with concern to "red ink as far as the eye can see," President-elect Barack Obama pledged Wednesday to tackle out-of-control Social Security and Medicare spending and named a special watchdog to clamp down on other federal programs even as he campaigned anew to spend the largest pile of taxpayer money in history to revive the sinking economy.
AP - Senate Democrats beat a hasty retreat Wednesday from their rejection of Roland Burris as President-elect Barack Obama's successor, yielding to pressure from Obama himself and from senators irked that the standoff was draining attention and putting them in a bad light. Burris said with a smile he expected to join them "very shortly."
AP - Protests over the fatal shooting of an unarmed man by a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer turned violent Wednesday night with windows broken, fires set and train stations closed.
AP - Confronting a grim economy and a Middle East on fire, Barack Obama turned Wednesday to perhaps the only people on the planet who understand what he's in for: the four living members of the U.S. presidents' club.
AP - Rain and high winds lashed Washington state Wednesday, causing widespread avalanches, mudslides, flooding and road closures as the heavy snowfall that has buried parts of the state began to rapidly melt.
AP - The upcoming inauguration of Barack Obama is an attractive target for international and domestic terrorists, but U.S. intelligence officials have no information about specific threats to the Jan. 20 event.
AP - Jeremy Lin scored 27 points to lead Harvard to an 82-70 upset over No. 17 Boston College on Wednesday night, three days after the Eagles upset previously top-ranked North Carolina.
Reuters - At least four rockets fired from Lebanon exploded in northern Israel on Thursday, wounding two people, police and medics said, in an attack likely linked to Israel's offensive against Hamas Islamists in the Gaza Strip.
Reuters - President-elect Barack Obama will call for quick action on a fiscal stimulus package in a speech on Thursday aimed at reassuring Americans that he is determined to stem the economic crisis.
Reuters - A fresh wave of profit warnings and job cuts soured investor sentiment on Thursday after an employment report suggested U.S. job losses in December could be the worst in almost 60 years.
Reuters - In an abrupt switch, Democratic leaders began talks on Wednesday to swear in Roland Burris, appointed by embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to replace President-elect Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate.
Reuters - It took war, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and the collapse of some of New York's famed investment banks, but Manhattan apartment prices are finally falling.
Reuters - The case of Ali al-Marri, accused of being an al Qaeda "sleeper" agent and held for 5-1/2 years at a U.S. military prison in South Carolina, will be an early test for President-elect Barack Obama.
Reuters - Accused swindler Bernard Madoff should be jailed for violating a court order by mailing $1 million worth of diamonds, watches and other jewelry to friends and family, U.S. prosecutors told a court on Wednesday.
AFP - The Israeli army fired into northern Lebanon on Thursday after rockets were fired at the Jewish state, an army spokeswoman told AFP.
AFP - Israeli warplanes bombed suspected arms-smuggling tunnels in southern Gaza early Thursday, as diplomats worked to secure a ceasefire in an offensive that has killed 700 Palestinians.
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