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Resources to support your Journey
by
11.03.2023
4 min
If you find yourself falling into the same self-defeating thought-loops or if your emotions have the tendency to take control, then it’s time to start video journaling. Through video journaling you bring the subconscious into the conscious, thereby allowing you to recognise and redirect your mind’s activity.
The issue is that living in this overstimulated world leaves little, or no, space to reflect. ‘To make the subconscious conscious’ can sound like a daunting and unobtainable task, especially in a world where no one wants to be still, physically or mentally. It seems we have become ‘human doings’ rather than ‘human beings’. Yet, at Innate, we want to reclaim our mental capacities for the betterment of ourselves.
The benefits of journaling in general are well researched and documented. For example, it helps with processing the past, emotional regulation and self-awareness. Krpan et al. (2013) found that expressive writing significantly helped people with major depressive disorder (MDD). You can read more here. Similarly, Pennebaker (1997) asserts that ‘[b]y writing, you put some structure and organization to those anxious feelings…[and so] it helps you to get past them’.
Video journaling builds on these benefits, but increases their potential in three ways:
1. It is accessible and easy.
Nowadays, we rarely carry paper and pen, but almost always have our phone nearby. This means you can record the experience in real time, enabling the most honest entries; not how you remember it, but how it happened.
2. You don’t need to rationalise, just record.
When you journal through writing, you have to try and encapsulate your experience into words. However, when you are in the midst of a painful experience, it is extremely difficult to convey your feelings at all.
However, video journaling allows for an enriched form of communication, relying on senses and not rationale. Using video creates depth to the entry, in that you can see, hear and almost feel yourself in that precise point of time. You don’t even need to speak. What would have previously been subconscious and repetitive activity is authentically logged, bringing it into the conscious, and then it can be reflected upon when the time is right.
3. Innate helps you reflect effectively.
Up until now, you could simply use the camera on your phone as a video journal. However, the design of Innate Mood is such that you record to rewire and reclaim the capabilities of the mind, as it guides you in creating a dialogue between your past, present and future self.
When you make a journal entry, you will categorise it under an emotion. Then, at the end of the current entry, a past recording will appear from the opposite category. For example, you make an entry under anger and after you have finished logging it, you will be met by a previous recording of you being peaceful.
Then you can respond to the old entry with any new thoughts of that experience; you re-watch your past, and potentially painful, experiences, from a distance and can respond constructively. This process is called cognitive reappraisal which means ‘altering emotions by changing the way one thinks’ (McRae et al., 2012); by changing your mind, you can change thought-loops that determine your experiences of daily life. At Innate Mood, self-reflection is not just deciphering what the self is, but directing ourselves to what we want to be.
Does this sound like something you want to try? If so, follow these three simple steps:
Are you tired of the negative thought-loops and detrimental habits? Unfortunately, these won’t change until you do. Come join the community at Innate Mood who are becoming emotionally regulated and eradicating those pesky self-defeating thought-loops. All you need to do is start reflectively effectively.
References
Krpan, K.M., Kross, E., Berman, M.G., Deldin, P.J., Askren, M.K. and Jonides, J., 2013. An everyday activity as a treatment for depression: the benefits of expressive writing for people diagnosed with major depressive disorder. Journal of affective disorders, 150(3), pp.1148-1151.
McRae, K., Ciesielski, B. and Gross, J.J., 2012. Unpacking cognitive reappraisal: goals, tactics, and outcomes. Emotion, 12(2)
Pennebaker, J.W. (1997). Writing about emotional experiences as a therapeutic process. Psychological Science, 8(3) 162- 166.