Review of Journaling Power by Mari L. McCarthy and a Giveaway!

Please join me in welcoming Mari L. McCarthy, Chief Inspiration Officer for the journaling community, Create Write Now. Journaling can be a powerful tool, and if you are on the fence about trying it, I encourage you to check out Journaling Power: How to Create the Happy, Healthy Life You Want to Live, a great self-help memoir by Mari L. McCarthy. I promise you'll be inspired by her story of how journaling helped her physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Mari is currently on tour with WOW! Blog Tours, and I'm offering a giveaway of one print copy of this book to a U.S resident so see below for details!

About the Book: 
Journaling Power teaches you how to put the ultimate self-healing tool right at your fingertips--journaling. Through Mari L. McCarthy's moving personal story, you'll discover how pen-to-paper journaling leads to self-growth and life-changing transformation. You'll also learn that numerous medical studies prove journaling literally unleashes a healing agent that empowers your life in ways you've never imagined. 

About Mari:
Mari L. McCarthy is The Journaling Power Guide and founder of CreateWriteNow.com. Her blog provides journaling for transformation and healthy living ideas, information and inspiration for keeping a daily pen-to-page Journaling for the Health of It™ Practice. You can also download the FREE e-book (http://www.createwritenow.com/download-free-writers-block-tips), How to use Your Journal to Cure Writer's Block Now. More life-changing e-books can be found in Mari's Personal Transformation Journaling Library and in CreateWriteNow’s store (http://store.createwritenow.com/ )  
Find out more about the author by visiting her online: 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CreateWriteNow

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CreateWriteNow

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/MariLMcCarthy/videos

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/create-write-now

My Review: 
I’ve journaled on and off over the years, but have only recently realized that the powers of therapeutic journaling can extend to many different areas of our lives. While I knew a little bit of Mari’s background with multiple sclerosis before reading Journaling Power, the whole picture of how she tackled her symptoms through journaling is fascinating.

She writes: "Pen-to-paper journaling solidifies the link between mind and body in many ways. It enables us to discover that we really live in our whole bodies, including our physical and figurative hearts, as well as in our heads."

Mari’s story of writing to help heal her body (she eventually was able to stop taking a plethora of prescription and over-the-counter medications) is inspirational. On her journey, she also reconnected with her creative side and began pursuing dreams she never thought before possible, even starting up a business that enables her to be prosperous and fulfilled in many different walks of life. I found Journaling Power to be the perfect mix of memoir, testimonials on the benefits of therapeutic writing from journalers Mari has worked with in the Create Write Now community, and medical studies that examine the use of journaling with patients.

By combining all these elements into one book, Mari skillfully weaves a convincing argument on how anyone struggling with time management, unresolved emotions, health issues, blocked creativity and more should give this type of writing a try. She also sprinkles different journaling prompts throughout each chapter to help get you started. I finished the book eager to get my journal and pen back out and work on my own productivity issues in the hopes of getting my creative writing career back on track. I highly recommend this book to anyone searching for more answers in their lives. It doesn’t matter if you don’t consider yourself a writer—according to Mari, we are ALL writers!

Paperback: 146 Pages
Genre: Self-Help/Memoir
Publisher: Hasmark Publishing; 1 edition (September 12, 2016)
ISBN-10: 1988071216 ISBN-13: 978-1988071213

Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ndtMtUfs5s

Other Thoughts:
I've tried Morning Pages (where you write three pages longhand each day to start out your day) but haven't myself consistently sticking with them. I got excited when I read about an alternative to Morning Pages, what Mari McCarthy calls Night Notes. Experts have found that people who struggle with insomnia often do so because they their brains haven't finished processing their emotions and worries of the day. She recommends using Night Notes (writing three or more pages in the hour before bedtime) as a way to unwind. While I typically sleep pretty well, I find myself having one or two nights a month where I lie awake in bed at night worrying about work deadlines, things going on in our family's lives, or household finances. I decided to start trying Night Notes to see if I could settle into a more relaxed sleep at night. Mari provides some journaling prompts in case you are having trouble getting started, but I found my pen taking off across the page pretty quickly on its own. I write about the stresses of juggling work with being a taxi service to my kids, appointments I need to schedule, movies I've seen, creative projects I'm working on, and bills that have been hanging over my head. I've found that I haven't had one of those "insomnia" nights ever since I started, so while it may seem like I'm writing about whiny, petty issues in these nighttime journaling sessions, I do believe they are helping.

Want the chance to win your own copy of Journaling Power: How to Create the Happy, Healthy Life You Want to Live? Enter the Rafflecopter form below. I'll choose a winner on Friday, Oct. 28. Good luck!

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