The healing power of journalling

Journalling is a powerful tool anyone can use. Camelle Ilona shares her personal experience of journalling and how others have used it as an outlet for grief, hope and clarity

My friends call me the “Journalling Queen”. I love to journal. I currently have a 1,400+ day journalling streak in my Day One App and I journal about everything! Conversations, prayers, ideas, worries, Scriptures, breakthroughs… even the things I don’t yet have language for. My journal has been my place of honesty, intimacy, creativity and prayer for years. But, even with all that practice, I found myself unable to write about one thing: my mum’s passing.

My mother lived with Alzheimer’s and dementia for 17 years. Seventeen years of slow fading. Seventeen years of loving her, while painfully grieving her at the same time. It was the kind of grief that builds quietly, layer upon layer, until one day you don’t recognise the weight you’re carrying. By the time she passed, I had words, books and journalling prompts for everyone else’s healing… but none for my own.

I remember one morning, sitting with my journal open, pen hovering, heart cracked. I whispered Psalm 23:3 under my breath: “He restores my soul” and, for the first time in a long time, I let myself write, not as an expert but as a daughter. A daughter who missed her mum. A daughter who needed God to hold the pieces I couldn’t.

That morning, something shifted. God met me on the page. And that is the heart of why I journal; why I teach journalling; and why I believe it is a powerful spiritual discipline for women today, especially those carrying silent grief, unseen responsibilities, and emotions we don’t always feel permitted to express.

When you write the words your heart feels, they become prayer and prophecy. Vulnerability leads to authenticity and that authenticity leads to authority.

Journalling as a spiritual discipline
We often think of journalling as a hobby, but throughout Scripture, we see writing used as a spiritual tool. ‘My tongue is the pen of a ready writer’ the Psalmist writes. God told the prophets, “Write the vision.” The scribes wrote what God whispered, and their words still transform us thousands of years later.

When we write, we slow our breath, we quiet the noise, and we bring our whole selves before God – mind, body, heart and spirit.

Journalling gives your emotions somewhere to land. It calms the nervous system, untangles racing thoughts, and makes space for God’s voice to rise above the noise of life. It turns the overwhelming into the understandable and transforms the pain into process and prayer.

Two stories of release
Earlier this year, during an online Grief & Loss Journalling Experience I led with participants from Kansas USA, I witnessed the power of journalling in a way I’ll never forget. One of the participants was a woman who had recently miscarried. She hadn’t spoken about it much; the pain was too deep and too complex for everyday conversation. But, in that quiet, guided journalling moment, something happened. She began to write the words she couldn’t speak. Tears became sentences and that silent sacred space became her release. Her writing captured what her heart had been holding.

In that same session, a man going through a painful divorce described his mind as “spaghetti”! It was tangled, chaotic and impossible to organise. By the end of the journalling experience, he told us he felt clarity for the first time in months. His mind had settled, his emotions had space to land, and he finally felt grounded again. That is the power of taking intentional time to think, feel, process and find your Divine flow.

From loss to clarity
It’s almost a year since my mum’s passing, but grief has no timeline. Many women reading this are carrying losses no one sees – the loss of a loved one, the loss of themselves, the loss of peace, dreams, confidence or hope.

If that’s you, remember, you don’t have to be strong all the time, hold it all in, or have the right words. Just start with honest words. Even if it’s messy, painful or just a whisper of ink on paper, God will meet you on the page.

My prayer is that your journal becomes a sanctuary, a place where your heart is safe, your emotions are welcome, and God sits with you on every line. Write bravely, heal gently, and may your own words transform you, then transform others through the life you live.

CAMELLE ILONA 
Speaker, author and journalling facilitator, helping people think, feel, process and flow. Visit www.camelleilona.com