Being there for your kids - Note to Self

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

Your daily activities determine how you reach your goals and how you feel about yourself. When you are in a downward spiral of stuck-ness, there's not much movement. Progress is slow. To begin upward soaring, consider adding therapeutic journaling as a part of your daily regimen. It's a great habit to develop. In my new book, The Healing Journey: Overcoming Adversity on the Path to the Good Life, I explain how helpful therapeutic journaling can be to your healing process. Buy your copy at amazonbooks.com. Click https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Journey.../dp/B0CY9PQXMZ. Blessings, Dr. Jon

I'm Dr. John Robinson, and this is Teachable Moments. Have you ever written notes to yourself? I do it all the time. It keeps me on my toes and takes things off my mind that I want to remember. Grocery lists are ongoing. As I think of something, I add it to the list on the refrigerator. Post-it reminders are bound all over my house. Prompts me about what's next on my list.

If I have something I need to take with me the next day, I sometimes put it on the floor in front of my door. Yeah, I write lots of notes to my list. myself. The kind of notes to self that will benefit you on your healing journey are called therapeutic journaling. When folks are struggling with anxiety, stress, or depression, I frequently suggest this strategy to patients. So, Jan, I began to sum up and then suggest journaling. Do you remember journaling as a young teen when you were smitten by that cute guy who sat next to you in math class? Well, yeah, she stuttered. Who told you about that guy? How'd you know

about him. Really, just a lucky guess. Lots of young teens write down the events that are important to them. I was being foolish back then. Nothing came of it. But now, you're struggling with stress and depression, and you've hired me to be your guide on your healing journey. Okay, Jen left her uncertainty in the air. Here's a thought. We could modify your teenage silliness to help you on your journey back from stuckness to soaring. Let me tell you about therapeutic journaling. Thereafter, I explained that this type of journaling was a note to self, written daily, mostly as part of your nighttime routine, that captures the day's significant events and your feelings about them. To keep the task from being too burdensome, I encourage you to limit your journal entry to one single space page.

I also want you to rank your day on how much stress you have. Rank each day from one to ten, the higher the rank, the more stress. To help you get unstuck, try to be creative with the wide variety of feelings. you might have on a given day. Use a bound notebook and bring it with you each time I see you. Therapeutic journaling has several positive functions. It promotes mindful thinking, staying in the moment of the day. It focuses on how well you handled the stress or depression or anxiety, looking for the positive. Finally, it makes the healing process of therapy a daily activity. How well your patient buys into therapeutic journaling also speaks to their commitment to the healing process.

More on therapeutic journaling in my new book, The Healing Journey, Overcoming Adversity on the Path to the Good Life. Buy your copy on Amazonbooks.com. If my comments stir questions of your own, contact me through my website at www.org, thereformykids.com, or email me at John Robinson 0.0.bilsaf.net. I'm Dr. Jonathan C. Robinson, licensed to clinical psychologist, and author of Teachable Moments, Building Box of Christian Parenting, and my new book, The Healing Journey, Overcoming Adversity on the Path of the Good Life. Blessings, Dr. John. Teachable Moments, Building Blocks of Christian Parenting is available online at Amazonbooks.com

and in local and national bookstores. More on Dr. Robinson at TMC-P-I-N-C.com.