If you’re not writing, you don’t know what you’re missing.  Writing gives you a perspective you won’t get any other way.   Everyday thoughts and emotions swirl in your head and heart always barely eluding your grasp.  Then they fester and eventually surface at times and in ways you don’t want.  However, pouring your thoughts on paper (or screen as the case may be) tames them.

We store our memories and their attached emotions in the limbic area of the brain.  The limbic is not quite the subconscious because we are aware of it, but it is not as easily accessed as other parts of the brain.  The neo-cortex, or frontal lobe, is the power house for logic and ration.  When poor patterns of thinking trap us, it’s because we are dealing with our emotions and memories without getting logical perspective.  The physical act of writing (or typing) builds a bridge between the neo-cortex and the limbic system.  The result: you process your emotions logically instead of… well… emotionally.*

So even if you never publish a word, there is benefit in writing.  You will be more in touch with what you are feeling and why.  Being more connected with yourself makes you more settled and stable.  So, write!

(* The sources documenting how emotional memories of the limbic system function are many.  This is certainly not my original thought, but it is so well and widely documented that it can be considered common knowledge.)