Harness the power of journaling to help you make sense of a global-scale health scare.

At this time when we are faced with death and the threat being among the infected, unless we make our living by writing, some of us might scoff at the idea of spending some of our time writing in the midst of the chaos of disrupted routines and implementing contingency measures in our professional and personal lives.

Actually, it’s healthy  to find the time, in the midst of reorganizing our lives to deal with the COVID contingencies, to sit down and write down the things that are swirling through our heads and the corresponding emotions they wring out of us.

To help you get started, here are our tips to optimize your journaling:

Write for yourself first of all.

This means you can relax about grammar and style. They’re not priorities at this point. This also means being honest—the most honest you can be with yourself. Otherwise, you’ll undermining the positive effects that journaling will have on your overall attitude toward the COVID crisis.

Mine the situation for ideas if you’re the creative type.

Events like the global COVID-19 crisis are rife with insights and lessons for us humans, which we can later take on board to guide us, but with these things, it’s usually better if the artists and writers gave voice, color, shape, or words to the rest of the world’s feelings and ideas and make it resonate.

Mine the situation for ideas if you’re in a position of leadership.

While we certainly hope there wouldn’t be another crisis like this, there will be others in the future despite our resistance to the idea and whatever new measures we adopt to avoid catastrophic events. So it pays to pay attention and take careful notes to give yourself ample ideas for what to do better to help more people next time.

Engage the humor in the situation.

There’s humor in even the darkest times. And we’re not in the darkest of times yet. In any case, as the title of the book by comedian Terry Braverman goes, When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Lighten Up. Laughter is still the best medicine. And we need to be cured of other things if we are to stay sane and alert to live through this.

Make it part gratitude journaling.

Take your cue from a gratitude journal and include an inventory of things you are thankful for, because even in this scary time, you can still find a number of things to be grateful for. That sudden freedom and time you get from not having to commute to work? That counts, right? Surely you can seize some of it to something positive and productive. Oh, and still being able to laugh? But first, you have to be aware of gifts like this in a time when it can get quite easy to just reel off the negatives.

Make some part of it a shared activity.

You can share the less personal parts of your journal notes with friends and family to help them avoid overcome anxiety and depression. Sometimes it takes just a few well-analyzed passages to help someone realize they’re worrying way more than they should and mobilize them to do something constructive instead.

And if you have stumbled on some especially inspiring insight or helpful ideas, why not share it with a wider audience. Same thing goes if you have a particularly uplifting story to tell. The world could use it.

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