Similar to letter writing is journaling. Journaling is an intellectual act of simply keeping a record. Many people will do this following a loss. In some ways you are literally writing your own history. The act of journaling is a very intellectual process. We use our thinking to mark our situation. I have worked with many people who have used journaling as a way to tell their story and connect with their loss. Almost everyone I have worked with raves about the benefits of journaling saying that simply by writing things down there is some relief. By writing it down you are telling your story and when we are able to tell the story we move towards a place of transformation. So this heady and thinking-oriented practice helps in telling the story and in so doing also connects the writer with the emotions connected to the loss. Many times the writing is focused on the emotions and describing their strength and nature. Those who journal say that this is a boon since one can go back to any point in the written history provided by the journal and remember what was happening at that point in time. They say that simply by reading the words they can remember clearly the depth and nature of the emotion they were feeing at that time. This makes journaling a powerful and useful tool since grief is often so foggy and hard to contain. It sometimes acts like smoke, you see it and then in a moment’s time it simply disappears. By using your intellectual side you are marking your experience and telling your story in a way that can be of great help.