A widows health journal is an amazing way for her to acknowledge how her grief has affected her health and well-being. Daily writing can help you identify where your health currently stands: mentally, physically and spiritually.  From that point you can journal what you need to focus on and how to move forward in a positive way. Are you emotionally hungry?  Is your intense loneliness causing you to emotionally eat?  Write out what is eating at you and explore how to replace your habit of numbing your grief by compulsively over eating.  Writing about your relationship with food will be key to your success in struggling with weight gain/loss. Get a new journal devoted entirely to healing your broken heart and indirectly your health.  Be sure to get a journal that is inviting and attractive to you.  Your health journal is a sacred place in which to explore your deepest thoughts and feelings.  Begin to understand how your feelings are affecting your health. Your health journal will only be of value to you if you actually use it on a consistent basis.  Example, ten minutes a day just before bed time or immediately after you get up.  Through daily journal writing you will begin to discover how your grief is affecting your moods and indirectly your health.  Exploring on paper will help you gain a sense of awareness and clarity. The first few months after the death of our spouse we may either stop eating or eat in excess to find some comfort.  From a health perspective we aren’t doing any good to our self-esteem and yet eating/drinking/partying are all ways we cope. As a Grief Coach, I work with widows who are trying to heal their relationship with food, weight, people and social interactions.  When you’re trying to heal your relationships it seems like progress is very slow.  This is where it’s important to look back in your journal and see how far you have come.  It may take a year or more of work to achieve healthy status: mentally, physically and spiritually.   This doesn’t seem like a bad trade off, compared to standing still and not making any progress. What kind of widow do you want to be?  Do you want to be kind, wise and resilient?  Now I want you to really think about this next question – What does a woman have to confront in life in order to become kind, wise and resilient?  Yes, pain and struggle – it’s about growing stronger as we keep overcoming the challenges of being a widow. For me, a health journal is an excellent tool that allows us to heal.  Recording the details of your life experiences and how they relate to your health is important.  This may seem like an overwhelming process, so remember it’s important to go at your own pace. Your health journal will allow you to document your unique story.  While it may be difficult, I encourage you to embrace your story.  Use your journal to reflect where you are and where you want to be.  As a widow I understand what you are going through, and it’s big.  But I can also see your strength and that’s more powerful.  This grief journey isn’t easy, but we widows can do hard things. Turning to your health journal is a healthy step forward.  Take a moment to reflect in your journal about what happened in your life today.  In your journal you can process what you are feeling and come to positive conclusions enabling you to make changes. Allow yourself to feel your emotions and to keep track in your health journal about what you are doing.  How is it affecting your health?  What are you willing to do about it?  In the end you have to take control of your health and a great tool is to document your grief journey in a private health journal.