Self-Care Summer: Empowered - An Ode to the Power of Journaling

by Valerie Carmel Dorsainvil, LCSW, CCTP

     My self-care practice has always been journaling. It has been more than 20 years since I first began, and it continues to be the form that best helps me process, explore, and reframe the experiences of my life. Working with families who grapple emotionally with the illness and sometimes death of a child has the capability to reach the hidden unhealed parts of you.   Without a consistent and effective means of self-care, burnout isn’t a possibility - it’s an inevitability. 

     Journaling helps to protect from burnout by providing a release of stressful and potentially toxic perceptions and emotions. As a catalyst to gaining greater self-awareness and acceptance, it empowers you to maintain personal and professional limits and boundaries. These boundaries are protective factors against burnout. Additionally, when clients are encouraged and affirmed to use similar tactics, it strengthens the therapeutic alliance as your authenticity removes the weight of self-constraint and emboldens others to do the same. 

Empowered

A pensive stroke of a pen, maybe a frantic swirl. 

private moments recounted away from the world. 

Each word heavy with passion & my truth. 

Filling hundreds of pages, begun as a youth. 

Phases of this life, frozen in time.

Crave this space to reflect, explore and redefine. 

Untangling knots

Unraveling pains

Searching for clarity hidden within my brain. 

The inner workings of self, laid bare and raw

All held on your lines, both strength and flaw. 

There are no judgments. You embrace each grain

Of every emotion the heart struggles to contain.  

With you I am free

To fail

To be vulnerable 

To just not know 

To keep evolving from who I was, even a short time ago. 

This peace I’ve gained has liberated my soul. 

Birthing a boldness to speak stories untold. 

Showing me who I am, in a form most pure. 

My very own words reflected - of what I did endure. 

Valerie Carmel Dorsainvil is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a certification in trauma. She founded Sage Steps, a movement focused on the transformative power of self-care and self-awareness through journaling and will release her first book, Evolve Your MVP: A Woman’s Self-Help Guide on How To Journal for Personal Growth, in October 2019. She has been a social worker for almost two decades and resides in Florida.