Journal Your Way to Inner Peace: Here's How

A young woman writes in her journal

If you’re new to journaling, it can feel daunting staring at a blank page, unsure what to write or how to begin the first sentence. It's a common feeling, but don't let it stop you from trying this powerful practice. Journaling has been studied extensively and has been shown to have a range of benefits for our mental health. Here are 10 reasons why you should try this self-care practice to find inner peace:


It will give your mental health a boost

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Journaling is a therapeutic outlet that’s often used to manage mental health issues like depression and anxiety. When you write about your thoughts and emotions, you externalize them and it allows you to gain perspective and clarity. This process can help you identify negative thought patterns and triggers, empowering you to challenge and reframe them. Moreover, journaling provides a safe space to express yourself freely, without fear of judgment from anyone. Dumping your feelings and thoughts on a page can be very cathartic, and it’s better than the alternative of letting them spiral out of control.

It can boost your immune function

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The connection between journaling and immune function may take you by surprise, but research supports it. Chronic stress is known to weaken the immune system, making you more susceptible to illness. By reducing stress levels, journaling indirectly enhances immune function. When you write about your feelings and experiences, you’re letting go of all those bottled-up emotions and the tension that goes with them. It’s an effective form of stress relief and it also encourages mindfulness, which has also been linked to a stronger immune response.

It helps you cultivate gratitude

Journal with the phrase on the cover: "Today I am Grateful"

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Gratitude journaling is all about reflecting on the things you’re thankful for in life, which often go over everyone’s heads because we’re distracted by everything going on around us. By focusing on the positive aspects of your life, you will be able to shift your perspective from scarcity to abundance, which may help you feel more content. Gratitude journaling also promotes self-awareness by encouraging you to pay attention to the present moment and appreciate the little things. Over time, this practice can rewire your brain for positivity, helping you adopt a more optimistic outlook that will serve you much better than a negative one.

It can help you process trauma

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Journaling can be a powerful tool for processing and healing from traumatic events. When you write about your experiences, thoughts, and feelings, it helps you make sense of what happened and how it affected you. This is a process that allows you to externalize and organize your thoughts, making them more manageable and less overwhelming. Through regular journaling, you can gain insight into your trauma, identify coping strategies, and ultimately, facilitate healing and recovery.

It can help you enhance your memory function

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Studies have shown that writing things down makes them easier to remember. That’s because writing engages cognitive processes that can enhance memory function. Journaling requires active engagement with the information, so it’s a great way to commit things to your long-term memory, making them easier to remember later on. Moreover, journaling promotes introspection, which can help strengthen the connections between different memories. Over time, journaling can make your memory sharper, which will help you remember not just experiences for longer, but also details and information.

It can help you develop your emotional intelligence

overhead perspective of a woman's hands writing in her journal

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Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize, understand, and manage your own emotions, as well as the emotions of others. This is an essential life skill we’re not taught in school, and it helps us develop our own well-being and also have healthier interpersonal skills. Journaling can help you develop emotional intelligence by promoting self-awareness, self-reflection, and empathy. When you write about your thoughts and feelings, you become more attuned to your emotional state, allowing you to identify and regulate your emotions more effectively. This, in turn, will help you develop insight into the thoughts and feelings of other people. It will make social interactions easier to navigate and help you build stronger relationships.

It will help you achieve your goals

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Another great thing about journaling is that it can help you set and achieve your goals. The most important part of goal-setting is making sure your intentions are clear and drawing a plan of action for what needs to be done. Achieving our goals is a process that requires several steps and using journaling to regularly reflect on your progress, celebrate your successes, and identify areas for improvement will help you stay on track. It’s a marathon, not a sprint, so whether you have personal, professional, or academic goals, journaling can help you achieve them.

It’s a great way to practice self-discipline and accountability

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Consistent journaling requires discipline and commitment, which can translate into other areas of your life. When you set aside time each day to write in your journal, you’re establishing a routine that reinforces self-discipline. Journaling isn’t something you have to do because someone else gave you the task. You’re doing it for yourself because you know it can help you feel better, think better, and strengthen your mind. It’s one of those habits that encourage accountability and encourage more personal growth than you realize.

It can help you develop your sense of self-confidence

a woman writes in her journal while smiling

For women, celebrating and loudly acknowledging our successes is often discouraged. We’re taught to believe that when women do it, it’s boastful and when men do it, it’s confident. Well, it can be difficult to unlearn that and embrace your self-confidence, but journaling is a powerful tool. In your journal, you can be as boastful as you want about your accomplishments and become more confident in expressing your admiration for yourself. It also allows you to reflect on your setbacks, identifying the things you’ve learned in the process and how much further you still have to go. By regularly doing this, you will cultivate a sense of pride that will be easier to express in other ways, build your overall confidence, and become more sure of your self-worth.

It can make you more creative

a woman adds photographs to her personal journal

Last but not least, journaling encourages creativity by providing a space for exploration, experimentation, and expression without any limits. If you decide to engage in stream-of-consciousness writing or journaling prompts, you will be able to tap into your subconscious mind and unlock new perspectives. Journaling can also encourage you to be more expressive, build your vocabulary, nurture ideas, connect with yourself, and explore your inner world a lot more in-depth.

Discovering the healing power of journaling can be a transformative journey. Whether you’re going through any kind of hardship or you just want to focus more on your well-being, adopting this practice will add many great benefits to your life.

a woman giving the side eye to a man

Have you ever met someone who seems overly confident, self-centered, or even downright rude? Maybe they constantly talk about themselves, disregard your feelings, or even manipulate situations to their advantage. And, if you're anything like us and countless other Latinas, you might've thought, is this person just a purebred a**hole, or are they a narcissist?

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Image by Sayuri Jimenez.

Nathalie Molina Niño has never been one to shy away from breaking barriers, and now, she’s focusing her attention on a new mission: demystifying corporate boardrooms for women, especially Latinas. Molina Niño is the President of Known, an asset management and financial services firm, a veteran tech entrepreneur and builder capitalist, and a board member at the iconic lingerie Brand, Hanky Panky, and others.

Like many corporate boards, Hanky Panky hadn’t publicly disclosed its board composition until recently. After the brand survived the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, Molina Niño decided it was time for more women, specifically more Latinas, to know what it means to be on corporate boards.

Coincidentally, the decision to finally be more vocal about this topic aligned with the start of Hispanic Heritage Month, which served as the perfect kick-off to the work.

"Something that rarely gets talked about and I think almost gets kept opaque by design is boards,” she explains in a recent Instagram announcement. “[This Latinx Heritage Month], that’s what I’ll be talking about.” Her goal? To equip more Latinas with the knowledge they need to navigate onto for-profit boards, where they can thrive and build multi-generational wealth.

For-profit corporate boards often feel like an exclusive club. And in many ways, they are, especially for Latinas, who hold the smallest percentage of board seats in Fortune 500 companies compared to other racial groups. According to the latest report from Latino Board Monitor, while Latinos hold 4.1% of these board seats (compared to 82.5% held by white people), only 1% go to Latinas. Molina Niño, a first-generation American of Ecuadorian and Colombian descent, is part of this boardroom minority.

When asked about her experience as a Latina board member during a recent Zoom interview, she said, “It’s been lonely. There’s not a lot of Latinas on boards.” She went on to explain that even serving on boards of Latina-founded businesses gets lonely because, “A lot of the times, people who serve on their boards represent their investors and, as a result, [...] you still don’t see a lot of Latinas on those boards.”

This lack of representation drives Molina Niño’s determination to increase Latina presence in corporate boardrooms. By sharing her insights, she hopes to give Latinas a roadmap to claim their seats at the table. “If you don’t know where to go, it’s impossible to figure out how to get there,” she says.

The Road to the Boardroom

Getting onto a for-profit corporate board isn’t an overnight achievement, but it’s not an unattainable dream either. People often think you need to be a CEO or have a certain type of background, but that’s one of the biggest myths about boards in Molina Niño’s experience. What they’re really looking for is expertise — whether that’s in finance, marketing, sustainability, or even technology. If you have that expertise, you’re already an asset. It’s simply a matter of which road you should take.

Understanding what boards are and how they operate is key to unlocking opportunities. For-profit boards serve as the governing body for companies, overseeing direction and financial stability, and guiding CEOs and executives in decision-making. But Molina Niño emphasizes that not all for-profit boards are created equal.

“There are two kinds [of for-profit boards] [...]. There’s the publicly traded business board and then, on the privately held side, there are, I would argue, two types of boards [...] the traditional business board and the venture-backed business board,” explains Molina Niño. Traditional businesses are often family-owned or long-established and may only form boards to meet requirements, like securing financing or transitioning through an ESOP. Venture-backed boards, on the other hand, are typically filled by investors who hold major stakes in the company.

According to Molina Niño, understanding the difference between them is how you can create a successful strategy. With publicly traded business boards, the whole world is privy to them, so, “The way that you get in there is a little bit more transparent. Sometimes those publicly traded companies will hire a recruiter to help them find new board members,” explains Molina Niño. For private companies, on the other hand, there’s no legal requirement to make announcements. As a result, most people don’t know anything about them or their inner workings.

“Usually what happens in traditional businesses that don’t have venture-capital investments is that the Founders, Executives, or the board members, if one existed already, they usually go to their friends,” and people they deem experienced to fill board seats. In other words, it’s the founder’s decision, and that’s an entirely different approach than hiring recruiters. When it comes to venture-backed business boards, the seats on the board are filled by whichever investor writes the biggest check.

This is why an understanding of the different types of boards and acknowledgment of their own strengths is what will help Latinas define a sound strategy. Whether that’s working with a recruiter, networking and connecting with founders to build trust, or making the biggest investment.

The Path for Latinas

For Molina Niño, the key to getting more Latinas into corporate boardrooms is education. Knowing what a board looks like and how it functions is how you can position yourself to get on it. In openly talking about this, without the mystique it’s usually shrouded in, Molina Niño is providing women, especially Latinas, with invaluable insights. “If we had Latinas understanding what are the three types of for-profit boards I think that, on their own, they would be able to figure out what their best chance is and adjust their careers to make themselves more competitive,” states Molina Niño.

When asked about the impact of increased Latina representation in boardrooms, Molina Niño flips the narrative. “Boards don’t help Latinas by offering them seats; Latinas help businesses thrive by being on their boards,” she says. “The whole point of sitting on a board is that you have experience and expertise, and as Latinas, you also have some cultural experience that everyone wants. [...] At the end of the day, we [Latinas] have to realize that we have a ton to offer and we have to be selective about where we put that expertise,” she explains.

As demand for access to the Latina consumer rises, Molina Niño predicts that more Latinas will find themselves recruited into boardrooms. But she’s not content to sit back and wait for that moment. By openly sharing her journey and insights, she’s making sure other Latinas know their worth and have the tools to claim their place at the table. “I realized that quietly being on boards that helped me personally is not helping other Latinas. [...] I was lucky enough to have friends who could advise me and share their experiences, so that’s why I’m doing this,” she stated.

With Hispanic Heritage Month as the backdrop, Nathalie Molina Niño’s mission is clear: “My goal is just to give Latinas enough information so they can make a plan for how to eventually get on a board that they’re paid to be on and that will eventually help them build generational wealth.”

flags of latin american countries fly behind performers wearing culturally traditional clothing

Ever noticed how September in Latin America is just one big celebration? As we wave goodbye to summer and avoid winter as long as we can, the streets come alive with parades, music, and festivities. Many Latin American countries celebrate their freedom this month, commemorating their hard-fought battles for independence from colonial domination. Let’s dive into these significant days and understand what makes each unique.

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