Why we journal.

We need time to mentally process emotions; in the past we had to do a lot of repetitive things: knead bread, plow fields, pound laundry on rocks. While our bodies were occupied our minds had time to sort through experiences and think about them in different ways. Today I can ditch 95 percent of those repetitive tasks and do "productive" stuff much more, BUT I really can't, because I still need to allow time for processing and sorting through, mentally, what happens. If I don't allow my mind time to sort through it, both by getting enough sleep and by spending time just being, thinking, writing my thoughts or drawing or hiking or meditating, praying, I will feel frustrated, tired, angry, confused, anxious, uncertain. Given enough stress without time to process, my mind will cease to work properly. For good mental and spiritual health, I must allow time to just be, to think, ponder, ruminate, expound, explicate, turn over and inspect my life. Writing my thoughts is one way to sort it out. There are other ways. The brain keeps working on figuring things out; give it time.