Broken to Blessed

The Healing Power of Journaling: A Merge of Spirituality and Self-Discovery

February 14, 2024 • Michelle Hall • Season 2 • Episode 29

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Have you ever sensed the profound power of words to heal the deepest wounds of the soul? Join me, Michelle Hall, along with the insightful Dr. Radisha Brown, as we navigate the transformative journey of journaling. Our heart-to-heart unfolds the incredible ways this practice can guide you from the shadows of your subconscious trauma to a place of conscious healing and clarity. Dr. Radisha, a licensed therapist with a zeal for mental wellness, brings her vibrant personality and expertise to light as we explore journaling as a portal to self-discovery and reclaiming your life's purpose.

Trauma can leave us feeling powerless, but our discussion reveals that the key to healing is never held by those who inflicted the pain. Instead, we find strength in strategies like the "empty chair" exercise and journaling, which become our silent allies, allowing us to voice our emotions and step into our authenticity. I share heartfelt stories, mine and from those I've coached, illustrating the cathartic release and sense of ownership that comes from pouring our innermost thoughts onto a page. Dr. Radisha and I emphasize that while professional therapy is irreplaceable, journaling can be a personal sanctuary, a safe harbor for those waves of emotion that need to be acknowledged and embraced.

As our conversation comes to an end, we merge the spiritual with the introspective, highlighting how the interweaving of prayer and journaling can profoundly impact personal growth. Dr. Radisha's faith-driven insights and my coaching experiences converge to inspire you to embark on this journey towards wholeness. Together, we champion the holistic approach to wellness, inviting you to prioritize your mental, physical, and spiritual well-being and join us on this path of transformation.

Dr. Radisha Brown
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Journey to Freedom Questionnaire

Michelle Hall:

Do you have a journaling routine? If not, you may consider starting one after listening to the interview with my special guest Today. I have on the show Dr Radisha Brown, and she talks about the benefits of journaling on mental health and healing. Dr Radisha drops some gems, not just about journaling, but about healing as a whole. I love her personality and her energy and she is so knowledgeable about the healing process. You guys don't want to miss this one. Let's get into it.

Michelle Hall:

I'm Michelle Hall, a Christian Life Coach and the host of Broken to Blessed, a podcast designed for women survivors of childhood sexual abuse, where the goal is to empower, encourage and inspire women survivors who are on their healing journey to keep on going. Healing is possible. I know that to be true because I am also a survivor and I've done it, and I'm here to help you do the same. Hello, esteemed ones, and welcome to this episode of Broken to Blessed. And today I have a special guest and we're going to talk about the benefits and the importance of journaling. So I have today Dr Radisha Brown, licensed therapist and part-time gangster.

Michelle Hall:

She believes that if you work in mental health, you will need a little inner thug to get through the tough days. She is known as the number one breakup therapist for her no-nonsense approach to helping individuals heal after breakups. She wrote about her fight to take back her life after ending a toxic relationship and gaining 80 pounds. She shares her story in her best-selling book and journal, girl Get Off the Couch. She is super passionate about all things mental health. That includes providing resources to help clients on their healing journey. She is the owner of Just Publish, where she helps other therapists and coaches become instant authors with her already done for you journals. Her work is guided by faith and the simple idea that when we connect the dots of our past experiences with our present pain, we can position ourselves for a powerful future. Dr Radisha, welcome to the show.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here. I love, love, love the work that you're doing, and so I am at your disposal. Love talking about mental health and how it can help in the healing journey, having these conversations. So let's do it, girl.

Michelle Hall:

I love your bio so I said I had to read it. Normally I don't read bios, I let people introduce themselves, but I just thought yours was a little unique. And you know, I just wanted to get that out there.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

So that's probably my life story unique.

Michelle Hall:

Yes, yes, you got, you got a lot going on in the bio, but that's, that's awesome, that's awesome. So I know that you are the owner of Just Publish, where you create journals for therapists and coaches, and we'll talk about that a little later, but I want to talk with you about the importance of the journaling process. So what is that?

Dr. Radisha Brown:

Journaling. Journaling is super important and it's a therapeutic tool in our toolbox as licensed therapists and coaches to help clients heal on their journey, whatever for trauma they've experienced, especially sexual trauma Right. So often when we experience trauma, our subconscious stores it in the back of our brain, removes it from our conscious level awareness and stores it to our self subconscious. It knows it happened, but if we sit in that all the time in our conscious level awareness, we wouldn't be able to do all the things that we need to accomplish to basically get through the days Right. And so our brain is designed God created us, created us in such a way so that when we experience really difficult events, really traumatic experiences, our brain goes into survival mode. And what happens in survival mode it pulls away. That it pulls away in stores in the back of our brain and our subconscious is really awful event, all the details surrounding it, how I felt, where I was, how it felt to me and the changes it did to me. It says, oh, I can't think about that all the time. I got to survive, I got to go to work, I got to take care of my kids, I got to go to school, I got to do all these daily things.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

So God created it so that that trauma gets stored, so that we can get through the day. But the end result of that is that we get disconnected from ourselves, and journaling helps to reconnect our subconscious with our conscious level awareness. So it's such an important tool as we heal right and so often, you know, when we go to traumatic experience, especially sexual trauma, we it changes how we see ourselves in this world as well as how we see the world right. We see danger everywhere we go. We disconnect from our feelings because it feels too much, and so journaling is just that process. It provides clarity to help us reconnect with ourselves and our and I like to say our true, authentic self, the true authentic self where that trauma has not changed us, but we get back to who we are and who we are destined to be in this journey.

Michelle Hall:

You know it's so good. I love how you explained the conscious and subconscious, because I know that is the case with most sexual abuse victims. Survivors is what I call them, and I know that's that's what I did as a kid. I was abused around 10. And I didn't have words for it at the time. I just said, you know, I just stuffed it down, right. But when you stuff it down, is that the process of it going into your subconscious? It's not present with you all the time.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

Absolutely, because the way God designed our brain is that, when to to protect us from danger, to protect us from that thing that's happening or that has happened, that we need to not think about constantly, so that we can survive. Because if we sat in all the experiences, all the trauma and most of us have experienced complex trauma, and what I mean complex trauma is not just one thing that happened to us, it's a multitude of things that happened to us. I experienced sexual trauma. I was abandoned, I was, you know, no one was there to protect me, my mom didn't believe me, my daddy touched me, like there's so many layers to the things that have happened to us. We can't sit in all of that at one time. So in order for us to survive, to get through the day, to get through life, to keep living, our subconscious kicks in the gear. You know, god creates us to survive.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

Each moment in danger comes in all shapes and sizes. It's not just the physical aspect of the danger but the emotional aspect of the danger, and so we sense that danger are. And when we've experienced danger, our subconscious says, oh, can't think about that all the time. Got to grab that and store that in the back of our suitcase. We call it stuffing down, we call it disconnecting, we call it we get numb to it. We, you know we, we pretend like it didn't happen. All those things just help us survive, right, and so that's why you are a survivor when you have experienced trauma, because you found a way, even if it's an unhealthy way, right, we found a way to get through it so that we can survive this experience, yeah.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

However, when we live in that sense of survival, when we live in that place, we are not walking in our true, authentic self. We're carrying the hurt and the pain with us, right? So the trauma that we experienced was not our fault. It was not my fault. There was nothing. I said nothing, I did nothing. I could have done nothing. I thought nothing. I didn't do enough of to cause what happened to me. Nothing, right. However, our responsibility is for our own healing journey, right, I don't accept any responsibility for the things that happened to me, because I didn't get a choice, in that my power was taken away from me. However, a part of me getting my power back is taking ownership of my healing journey. That's where it is.

Michelle Hall:

And that's a very powerful statement. I have said that before and I think a lot of survivors are resistant to that concept because they want some accountability from the perpetrator and for some it's very difficult for them to accept that their healing is their responsibility. It's not anyone else's responsibility to heal them. It's kind of like they are looking for vindication. And people's experiences are different and I don't judge anybody's experience as far as to the extent that they were hurt and harmed. But I have talked with people who are like this person needs to accept or need to admit what they did, or they need to apologize or they need to do these things. And I tell people you have to be able to heal, go through your healing journey. If you don't get anything from the perpetrator because you have no control over them and likely if they did it, it's very likely that they don't care. They're never going to acknowledge wrongdoing or anything like that, especially with sexual trauma, and so many people get stuck there.

Michelle Hall:

So I know this is not about the journaling part, but what would you say to a survivor who feels stuck because they're waiting on or they want some vindication from the perpetrator?

Dr. Radisha Brown:

Right, it's a human expectation. We expect, as humans, that folks will take responsibility for hurting us. But here's the truest statement the person that hurts you cannot be the person that heals you. The person that hurts you cannot be the person that heals you. Amen.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

And even with the validation, even with acceptance, that does not change the experience, that doesn't even change how you feel about that experience and it does nothing for you truly in your healing journey. We think it's going to. We think, with some level of responsibility, lock them up, blast them out on Facebook Everybody know this happened. Even with that, it doesn't change the work that you have to do. And so I challenge all of my trauma victims to understand, to shift their mindset around, what healing really looks like and what do I need to heal. And so we do exercises, as a licensed therapist, to help get that validation, even without the person that did the thing that hurt us. So we do exercise that's called the empty chair, where I'm talking to that person. The victim is talking to an empty chair, but that empty chair represents the perpetrator, it represents the person that hurt me, and I get to say all the things I need to say to that person so that they understand the level of hurt I experience. So there are ways in which to get that validation internally without having any connection, without that person, the perpetrator hurting us, never admitting to it Because the reality is especially dealing with sexual trauma.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

It is a very rare thing for perpetrators to openly admit or acknowledge that this thing happened, oftentimes for themselves. They have to disconnect from the experience so that they don't walk around thinking, oh, I'm just the awful person, I did this really horrible thing to my daughter, I did this really awful thing to my wife, my girlfriend, I did this really awful thing to my niece, my cousin. So they disconnect from the experience. So oftentimes, when victims confront them, they immediately get a denial of what happened, even if they know it happened. You immediately get a denial, and so it sets you up for more trauma if you're not prepared for that experience and prepared for that response. And so what I want your audience to understand is that the person that hurt you will never be the person that heals you ever, and that scenario, those two things, are not aligned. And that even without that person taking responsibility, you can still take your power back in your healing journey.

Michelle Hall:

Yes, yes, that is a powerful word. A powerful word. So can you share with me some specific examples, either from your life well, probably from your clients not naming anyone, of course about how journaling played a significant role in improving their mental well-being? Right, how do? You journaling in your practice.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

Right, absolutely. And so part of why I create journals for other therapists is because I just truly believe it's a powerful, powerful tool in our healing journey, and I've seen that firsthand from my clients, but I've also seen it for my own self and my own journey. After a very difficult divorce and breakup, I started journaling to help me process all the things that happened to me, because oftentimes we distance ourselves, especially when we've been in long-term relationships, from all the things that hurt us, because we just kind of wanted to work Right. And so I drove headfirst into my healing journey, and part of that tool, part of the tools I use, was one, seeing a therapist, but then two writing down my story from my perspective, my experience and taking ownership for my own self in my journey and the things that I contributed to how things ended Right. So that's always a really hard thing to find our levels or responsibilities in relationships and when things don't work in relationship. And so I started journaling day to day, looking back over my life, looking back over the trauma that led me to a person that was a serial cheater. It's all connected. It doesn't seem like that in that moment, but it is all connected, and so I went through that process over the course of two years, journaling just for myself and my own healing journey, and then I shared that with a friend that was going through a similar situation.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

I said, hey, here's my story, here's how I got through it, and I shared my journal entries with her. She read them and she called me crying late one night. She was like, oh my god, oh my god, this is me, this is what I went through. Oh my god, this is so powerful. You need to share this with other women. And I said, oh my god, that's like sharing my most intimate detail. It's like somebody's seen me naked. And so that's what journaling provides the safe place for us to process and say and be the person and talk about our experience without judgment, without anybody looking at us and trying to change our mind and our change, our experiences. It's just me and my thoughts and the safe. And the thought of sharing that with other people was like, oh my god, that's like me stripping naked.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

But eventually I ended up publishing my book Girl Get Off the Couch and Journal and it really has opened up a lot of conversations with women. It has helped so many women on their healing journey and it was therapeutic right. It was therapeutic for me in seeing the journey that my life had taken good ways and bad ways and really helping me charter my future and what I really wanted that to look like and what changes that I needed to make for myself to reach the goals I had set for myself emotionally, physically, spiritually because we are whole beings, we're not just one thing right and so that was part of me taking back my power, and so that journal turned into a book and my personal journal turned into a book and a journal, and so that's how powerful journaling can be and I'm such a believer in it. I see it in my clients, I require it of my clients. There's ways to do it. You can.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

I'm old school because I do it with paper, pen and paper, but there's electronic journals you can use. You can use your notes app. The whole purpose in journaling is to create that safe place to just be you, without judgment, without justifying, without minimizing, without filtering my experience. It's just the place to be me, and so often we don't get that in our journeys because we're struggling to be the perfect whatever right the perfect daughter, the perfect wife, the girlfriend, the perfect coworker, the perfect church member, the perfect pastor's wife, the perfect pastor, the perfect confidant, the perfect friend. All these places where it's coming at us to be somebody during, help us just to be who we are.

Michelle Hall:

And that is so that's such a powerful statement as well, because having experienced trauma, safety is so important.

Michelle Hall:

Safety is so important and oftentimes survivors do not feel comfortable sharing their innermost thoughts and feelings with even a close friend, Because you're so vulnerable and it is whenever you journal and you allow yourself to be honest and open and free. It is kind of like being naked, and I can definitely see the power in that, and I've journaled as well. I don't journal consistently, but I do find power in being able to write things out that I'm feeling or things that I wouldn't say I can get it on paper. So that's to my next question how do you think journaling writing down, or whether it's in an electrical system, it's in an electronic app? How does that differ from verbal?

Dr. Radisha Brown:

Right. So verbal conversation happens with another person and so, regardless of who that other person is, be it my best friend, be it my daddy, my mama, my kids it goes through a filtering process in our brain. And so when we are in verbal conversations we're thinking about especially as women I don't wanna hurt their feelings oh well, they couldn't handle what I really was thinking Ooh, I really shouldn't say it like that. We're constantly filtering out our thoughts in verbal conversation, even with ourselves sometimes, and so when you're writing it down, it frees you from that filter because it's just your brain and the paper. That's the only thing that's working your thoughts in the paper and it removes that filtering process and you get really raw, really authentic, really quickly, and you're able to say the things that you verbally wouldn't say, like oh my God.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

Oh, I can't stand when my mom just criticizes me, she hates. I think my mom hates me right. When you say that a lot, you immediately even now I'm saying it like oh my God, I shouldn't say that: immediately, immediately, our brain says ooh, that's not the norm, you're going against the grain. You can't say that Somebody's gonna think ill of you and so. But I can write that and not feel judged about it, because that's my authentic experience and there's something leading me to feel that way and we cannot feel that in which we don't acknowledge we can't heal that in which we don't acknowledge. So if I never acknowledged that there's some level of disconnect with me and my mom, because I think she doesn't like me, because I see how the way she treats me, the way she talks to me, versus how she talks to my siblings or my dad or my partner or my kids, if I'm never able to acknowledge that I'm never gonna heal that. I'm just gonna go through life feeling that internally and just kind of getting through it the best I can.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

And most people the reality is that most people will just get through it. They, most people don't walk in the courage or take forth that courage, that courageous step required to start this healing journey. Cause healing is difficult. There's a lot of ugly, crying, there's a lot of uncomfortableness, there's a lot of hatred and emotion and pain and yelling. That's what real healing looks like. It's not this picture, perfect experience, that where you just grow overnight and you become this different person. There's some digging up, some dirt and stuff that you've tried your best your entire life not to think about, not to talk about, and so journaling helps you to start that journey. Before you're able to verbally say it, you can write it. This happened to me, this person hurt me in this way, this is what I went through right, and so it provides this tool, this vehicle to help you along the journey.

Michelle Hall:

Yes, yes.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

That's good, so thank you.

Michelle Hall:

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Dr. Radisha Brown:

One of the things that I recommend is a timer. Give myself five minutes a day to write. To just write Five minutes, you think, oh my God, five minutes. Five minutes is really quick, goes really fast and it can be. What are my intentions for the day? What are my goals for the day? What happened yesterday?

Dr. Radisha Brown:

Start off with just bullets and words and not these necessary long paragraphs, but just get into the habit, because anything that we practice, anything that we do 100 times, whatever you do 100 times, your brain starts to create this pattern.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

It requires 100 times of doing something. And so for 100 days straight, if you can, you do five minutes of journaling every day, whether it's electronically or written down, your brain will get into habits and will record that as your new habit, as your new pattern, and then you'll be able to use that tool in your toolbox for the difficult days, for the days where you feel like I can't do this, no more, this too much, or I can't walk the next step, because life feels really heavy, and so journaling helps to relieve that burden. Truly, it really does, and so we want to provide that as licensed therapists, as healers, as coaches helping that along the journey, and even as a licensed therapist, right, I can't. Somebody asked me and they were like can't you just give yourself therapy? No, because it will go through a filter process. Right, right, I'd be like no.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

I'm fine.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

Oh that's perfect sense. Yeah, we should bury them in the backyard. Yeah, that'd be fine, right, if it's just me talking to myself, especially about somebody that hurt me, right? And so we need that third party, that neutral party, to help us walk us through that process, and journaling helps to serve in that way, and so it also provides a tool to process with your culture, your therapist, Like, oh my God, last night I had these thoughts, especially with sexual trauma because we distance ourselves from the experience that we forget.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

And sometimes it comes, we're triggered by certain things in our life. Right, we can be triggered by sounds, we can be triggered by something. We see, something, we smell something visual that is a reminder. And so what happens when we are triggered? We don't think about the memory, we think about the emotion attached to it. The misconception of flashbacks and flashback experiences is that we somehow go back to the experience and think, oh, this was going on to me. No, we immediately attach ourselves to the emotion when we're triggered. I was so angry, I was so scared, I was so frustrated. And then it comes out. It comes out in weird places, it comes out with random people and they're like hey, what's going on? Like at a meeting, right. And so you had a church meeting and somebody said something that's familiar to what your perpetrator might say and you have this big emotional outburst like oh, my God let me tell y'all.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

And you're just going off on people and everybody's looking at you like what is wrong? Is she all right? And so that's how it really transpires, and so you could record that as something that happens, because oftentimes we don't make the connection. We just say, oh, they just got an attitude, I don't know what their problem is. We don't make the connection that it was really. We were triggered in that moment and it really it was a reminder of something really awful, terrible to happen to us.

Michelle Hall:

Yeah, and I think I was. I did an episode podcast episode a few weeks ago about the connection between money and trauma and how to handle money, and I was talking with someone about it and they were like I never thought about that. I'm like, oh for sure. I'm like, oh yeah, you know. I'm like, you know I had.

Michelle Hall:

I had experiences, of course, as a child that was related to money and how my mom handled money or what was available or what was not available, and how, how that steered me, you know, as far as how I handle money, and so it's, yeah, it seems like pretty much or so much of how we operate in our day to day lives has some correlation to something that we dealt with in childhood. Whether good or bad it's, it has to all be bad, but whether good or bad, it all stems back and I think a lot of people just don't, they just don't think about that, and that's very interesting. Now you've talked about how journaling is just you and the paper and how you can be unfiltered and how you can be raw and safe. Is there any any time when someone perhaps shouldn't journal because of the rawness and the you know, maybe they don't feel safe yet to actually write down some, some things.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

When they're not ready to handle the trauma right. And so I often in my therapy practice, when I'm working with clients, I tell them the difficulties associated with healing, because what will happen is it will change the way you see yourself and change the way you see others, and it will also change your friend group. And so that's always the caution caution that I give to people that are like, hey, I'm ready to heal and I said, well, wait a minute, are you ready to change everything in your life? But that's what he was going to give you. It's going to change you Is it's going to automatically change who you think are your friends, and what they've been gaining from you versus what you've been receiving is going to change how you see yourself. It's going to change how you interact in the world, and people are not going to like it.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

There are people in your life benefiting from you living in survival mode. Either is because they can get money from you, either is because they can get you to do all the things they don't want to do, either is because they can always count on you. They don't have to show up for you, but you always there for them. And so there are people in your circle that are benefiting from you being this version of yourself, not the true version of yourself, but this version of yourself. And so I say the same caution with journaling as I say with healing, because journaling is just a tool in your healing journey. If you're not ready to change those things in which I just mentioned, then you're not ready for healing and you're not ready to journal. Right. And so it's an individual, individual decision, right?

Dr. Radisha Brown:

Ten years ago I wasn't ready for this healing journey. It was too hard and I couldn't think of the disruption it would cause in my life, right, if I was ready, really if I wasn't ready to see all the things that was happening, wasn't ready to see what was happening in my relationship, I just wasn't ready. I was living. I was living in denial.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

People often think of denial as being a bad thing, but it is also a way for us to survive. It is often a way for us to survive, and so when we're not ready, we will move to the denial or disconnection of all the things to help us survive. And so if you're not ready for the journey and it may take, hopefully it won't take 10 years, right, but on average it takes 10 years from the time the first thing happened, whatever to the time you decide, hey, I'm ready to change some things in my life. On average, it's 10 years, 10 years. And so if you're not ready, then you're not ready. But when you get to that point, when you sick and tired of being sick and tired of being sick and tired, there is nothing, no one, no situation, no money, no food, no resource, no job is going to stop you in that journey. I can testify to that.

Michelle Hall:

I can testify to that Because it is about readiness Right.

Michelle Hall:

And if you're not ready and you try to address some of these things or you have a coach or a counselor just trying to get you to address things, that can actually cause probably more damage because you're just not ready to face those things and I think a lot of people, like you said, the friend group or your family that are around you, they will likely not be accepting or liking the new version of you, because I noticed a lot of changes in myself when I went through my healing journey, where I was more of a people pleaser, and especially in my marriage, and it was just so much. And as I started to emerge, as I started to heal and emerge as a new person, folks were like you're not the same. I'm like, no, I'm not Right and you shouldn't be. You shouldn't be the same if you're going through a healing journey. But it's not pretty, it's not easy, but I'd just like to hear what you have to say about Once you get through that healing process. What does it feel like?

Dr. Radisha Brown:

It's good. It is good, it is deserving. It is a new way of life and a new way of thinking. You literally become a new person and oftentimes, even now, I think about my life before and how I thought and how I operated, and I'm like God, I don't even know that girl. I don't even know that girl. That's how healing impacts you and that's how different you become. On the other side, because you start to put boundaries in place around your connections, your relationships, how people speak to you, how to interact with you. You put hard boundaries in place and the way people connect and interact in a relationship you develop after you have, after you're on your healing journey, looks completely different.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

People pleasing is a trauma response and so often in the healing journey you're like God, I'm exhausted from pleasing everybody. Jesus, I think I'm going to focus on myself now and people are like wait a minute now. You always come. Set up the baby shower was for everybody, and now you talking about some. That ain't part of your healing journey. You know what I'm talking about.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

Yes, people are going to get attitudes. They're going to be like she thinks she's all that. You know, she always set this up for everybody. Now she don't want to do it. Now you get the, now the name calling comes in and all of this, and then you walk away like, oh my God, this is what they thought of me, this is how they used me before. I saw what was happening. And so you are really a new person, and I often say you become your authentic person, because the person that trauma developed isn't who God intended for you to be. It's not. You become your authentic person and a new person, and so it is a different life, a different way of thinking and a different experience. And I can tell you from personal experiences also the work that I do with my clients it's free. It is completely freeing, because you don't carry that baggage of this thing all the time with you yeah, I've said that so many times that it's so freeing and you feel powerful.

Michelle Hall:

You feel because you release that baggage and it's heavy. It is so heavy, right, and I've talked with people who are not healed yet and they don't know what it feels like on the other side. I try to explain. I'm like it just feels good. It feels good because you're not burdened. How do you think you would feel if you were not carrying all of this stuff? And so, yeah, that's good. So journaling can be free form. People can just write what they feel like they want to write. But I know that you create journals, specific journals. So tell me about the type of journals that you create and what they're for.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

Right. So I create journals for other therapists and coaches around mental health, and so these are very specific tools for specific symptoms. So I create anxiety journals for folks experiencing anxiety, and so the way it works is I create them, the therapist purchased it from me, and then they publish it, they sell it, they work with their clients on it, and so I create therapy journals. I create trauma journals that are not designed to a specific trauma event, but they are designed for trauma, and then the therapist that purchased them, the coaches that purchased them, may personalize them, because I just think it's such an important way to help clients get this breakthrough, because sometimes we feel stuck in our journey right, but like I've been doing this healing thing, but now I'm at this place I don't know how to go forward. Journals help to push us to the next level in our healing journey, and so we have anxiety journals for those that that's their primary issue, that they're experiencing trauma journals if that's the overriding issue or struggle they're having. We have affirmation journals, gratitude journals, self-care journals and prayer journals, because, as a Christian woman and therapist, I believe that prayer is such an important tool.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

Prayer is a tool in our healing journey, bringing to something greater than ourselves, helps us to hope and have faith that our life can change. It is such an important foundational piece for us to get through really tough days but also on our healing journey. So we always include or have prayer journals available as well as just line notebook journals, just blank line notebook journals. So, depending on the therapist's approach, depending on the coach's approach in their programs they can just do the line journals where it's free form, no questions, just helping clients, just helping clients just record what's going on.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

Or if it's specific to a certain struggle they're having, such as anxiety, which there are prompts to help guide folks in their anxiety journey, to help them get to the root cause of with surrounding anxiety, because oftentimes we don't know, we're not connecting it to the thing that already happened to us or we're not connecting it to the fact that I feel like somebody abandoned me or I'm fearful that people will leave me. We're not consciously walking through life with those thoughts, right, those are stored in our unconscious level awareness. So journal just helps to bring that forth in our healing journey and it really is helpful when you are working with a coach for your breakthrough so that they understand. Hey, these are the things I'm saying to myself so they can help you unpack those negative self-talk, so that you can change and become the person and work in your purpose, in this journey.

Michelle Hall:

That's awesome. That's awesome. So I do have some coaches that listen into the podcast. So how? Now these are these are journals that you sell to therapists and coaches. You don't sell them to individuals, right as far as to use like a client.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

Right. So these are tools for individuals that that will publish these, these books. These are books that will be published, so technically, anybody can purchase them and publish them. But I encourage those that are experts in these areas or their focus on these areas. Because here's the thing of you if you publish an anxiety journal, folks are going to name the one to characterize you as an anxiety expert. So you're going to get all these people and be like, oh hey, girl, you work with anxiety, I got anxiety, how can I work with you? And so that's not really your calling, that's not your mission, missionary, missionary.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

But if that's not you, then that's probably that that product is not for you. But they're available to everybody to purchase. But they are designed to be published as a, as a published book that you will offer to your clients, to your audience on social media, to your private practice clients, to your coaching clients to help them. There are two for helpers, to help other people. So that's how they're, they're designed, but technically anybody could, could purchase them. But I just caution people the especially the anxiety and trauma journals, because those are very, very specific and and the folks needing that service need people that are familiar, that are experts in that area, to guide them, because that's what people will expect if you publish that type of type of product.

Michelle Hall:

Okay, all right. So tell my listeners how, if there's anybody out there, some therapists or coaches who are listening in, how they can purchase one of those journals if they have a need.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

Hey. So if you are interested in purchasing and publishing your journal, come on over to just publish. co. That's just publish. co. Or you can find me on social media at Dr Radisha Brown. Listen, I post nuggets and snippets on your healing journey and I'd love to help you. Love to help you in your journey. So come on over to the Gram. We have a good little time in the Gram, so come on see us.

Michelle Hall:

Great. I will put that information in the show notes for folks to reference. I'll get all of your social media handles and your website and put all that in the show notes for those who want to connect. Let me tell you this has been a wonderful conversation. I am so glad. I had been wanting to get you on the show for a while and I you know it was the perfect opportunity and I so thank you for coming on and sharing with my listeners about the power of journaling, whether it is a guided journal or a free, a free flowing journey based on what you need, or it could be both, but I appreciate you being on and sharing your knowledge and your expertise.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

All right, thank you. Thank you so much and I want to encourage the listeners that to continue on your your healing journey. It is not easy, it is not going to be a cakewalk, but you deserve to feel whole, happy. You deserve all the good things and all the blessings that God has in store for you. So this year is about leveling up in our mental health and our physical health and our spiritual health. Girl, we are waiting on you. Come on, join us on this healing journey, girl.

Michelle Hall:

Yes, It's a good journey to beyond.

Dr. Radisha Brown:

Absolutely, absolutely. Thank you so much, boo. I appreciate being here, had a good time. You know you can always reach out.

Michelle Hall:

Thank you. Thank you for joining me on this episode of broken to blessed. Subscribe to the podcast and share it with all of your sister girlfriends. This podcast may be the catalyst to their healing journey. And remember life can get better. You just have to do the work. God bless.

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Michelle Hall

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