If you've been reading anything that I've written, or even if you haven't, it's pretty safe to say that I've been through my fair share of tough life experiences.

With that being said, I've had to get super creative with ways to cope with some of these not-so-great life experiences. One way that I've been able to cope with some of the things that I've gone through is by journaling about any and all emotions that I've been feeling.

Journaling is a great self-care tool to have in your arsenal, but don't just take my word for it.

In fact, there are 83 benefits to journaling. "Effective journaling" is a process that I have used in my life that has tremendously helped my mental health, and if you're like me, and dealing with quite your fair share of heavy things, I'd highly recommend this practice.

I started journaling this past summer as a way to get out all of the feelings that I was dealing with that stemmed from my bout of anorexia. I then started journaling about the anxiety that I was dealing with, and I later started journaling about my moods and the highs and lows associated with that.

The bottom line is that journaling has improved my mental health because it allows me to freely and creatively express my emotions without fear of judgment by anyone else.

That's honestly such a validating and sacred experience to me.

If you're like me and struggling, this experience of effective journaling, or putting your feelings down on paper in a coherent, cohesive way, can help you, too. Effective journaling lets me know that I have my own private space, in ink and paper, to say everything that I would most likely never say out loud about the things that I've been going through.

That's a big deal, especially when you live in a culture that practically shoves the idea of "you have to be perpetually happy all the freaking time" in your face.

Let me just say, no one, regardless of if they're dealing with anything heavy or not, is happy all the time. That's just simply not real life. Journaling gives me the freedom to creatively express the sometimes negative emotions that I've been feeling, without fear or judgment from anyone in this "perpetually happy all the time" culture that we seem to be living in.

Journaling can help give you that freedom to be exactly as you are, at this moment, too.