Journaling | Intuition Development | Emotional Wellness
Tune In To Your Inner Voice
Access the healing powers of your inner guidance through journaling exercises, daily journal prompts, tools for building intuition, and resources for emotional wellness & emotional healing.
Warm Gratitude Prompts For A Grateful Heart
Let’s explore what it means to be grateful (and even what it means to be ungrateful) together. These gratitude prompts will help you recall grateful moments and memories, reflect on what you’re grateful for and how it feels to experience gratitude. These gratitude prompts are also designed to help you explore messages you’ve received about gratitude since childhood and delve into how those messages might be impacting how you experience gratitude today. Grab your journal, and let’s get started!
Gratitude Prompts
What are you grateful to have experienced in the last year?
Did you experience gratitude today? What are you grateful for about today?
When you were a child, did the adults in your life express or exhibit gratitude? If yes, what kinds of things were the adults in your life particularly likely to express or exhibit gratitude about? How did they express or exhibit gratitude (in other words, how did you know they were feeling grateful)? How have these childhood experiences influenced the way you express and experience gratitude today?
What is something that feels like of silly to be grateful for, but that you’re still grateful for? Why are you grateful for this? Why does it feel a little silly to be grateful for this?
Relaxing Summer Journal Prompts
Check out these summer journal prompts to celebrate summer!
What was the best part of your spring? What do you want to remember about this experience?
What was the hardest part of your spring? What made this experience so difficult? How did this experience make you feel?
What will you miss about this spring? What will you not miss about this spring?
Are there habits or routines that were part of your spring that you want to leave behind as you move into the summer?
What are you most looking forward to this summer?
Where in your life do you want to experience growth? What does a growth in this area of your life look like? What’s one easy first step you can take to encourage growth in this area of your life?
What positive impacts does the summer season tend to have on your mental health? What negative impacts does the summer season tend to have on your mental health? Are there ways that you can accentuate the positive impacts and mitigate the negative impacts?
Spring Journal Prompts To Inspire Renewal
Check out these spring journal prompts to celebrate spring and the fresh start it represents as you journal.
What was the hardest part of your winter? What made this experience so difficult? How did this experience make you feel?
What was the best part of your winter? What do you want to remember about this experience?
What will you miss about this winter? What will you not miss about this winter?
Are there habits or routines that were part of your winter that you want to leave behind this spring?
What are you most looking forward to this spring?
Where in your life do you want a fresh start? What does a fresh start in this area of your life look like? What’s one easy first step you can to creating a fresh start in this area of your life?
Festive Christmas Journal Prompts To Kindle Your Holiday Spirit
Merry Christmas! Christmas journaling is a meaningful way to spend your holiday whether you’re journaling on your own or with loved ones. Below you’ll find Christmas journal prompts for your individual journaling practice or Christmas memory journal, family Christmas journal prompts for kids and adults, and Christmas journal prompts for couples.
If you want to do a little Christmas themed journaling this year, here are a few Christmas journal prompts to get you started!
What were your Christmas traditions when you were growing up? How did your Christmas traditions change over time as you grew older or as changes happened in your life? How did you feel about those changes then? How do you feel about those changes now? Are there any Christmas traditions you had as a child that you still participate in now? Are there any Christmas traditions that you had as a child that you’d like to bring back?
What are your Christmas traditions now? Do you remember when these traditions started? Are there any new Christmas traditions you’d like to start?
What’s the best Christmas gift you ever received? Who was this gift from? Why was this gift so meaningful to you? How did you feel when you received this gift?
Cuddle Up With These Comfy Winter Journal Prompts
Winter is a wonderful time to turn inwards and self-reflect. As you cozy up at home with your journal, check out these winter journaling ideas to make the most of your time inside.
What is your favorite indoor winter memory? Describe the memory in detail (visual, emotional, scent, sound, etc.).
What is your favorite outdoor winter memory? Describe the memory in detail (visual, emotional, scent, sound, etc.).
What sound do you most associate with winter? Why? When do you first remember making this association? What feelings and memories do you associate with this sound?
What movie do you most associate with winter? Why? What feeling does the movie give you?
What positive impacts does the winter season tend to have on your mental health? What negative impacts does the winter season tend to have on your mental health? Are there ways that you can accentuate the positive impacts and mitigate the negative impacts?
Journal Prompts For Positive Self Talk
We can be so used to the way that we talk to ourselves that we don’t notice when our self talk is impacting us negatively. When I really started paying attention to the way I talked to myself and questioning my self talk, I was surprised to see how unkind I was being towards myself. Working on changing my self talk was one of the first steps in my healing journey (read a little more about that here, if you’d like). Working on my self talk was part of how I learned to create safety for myself, and this felt sense of safety unlocked the door to a bigger emotional healing journey.
Paying attention to the way I talked to myself and journaling and reflecting on my self talk was very helpful to me, and I hope it will be helpful to you as well. To that end, these journal prompts for positive self talk are designed to help you take an inventory of your self talk, evaluate your self talk and explore the roots of your self talk, and make a plan for creating positive self talk.
Journal prompts for positive self talk
As you work through these journal prompts, keep in mind that some of your self talk may be full phrases or sentences that you consciously say to yourself in your mind. However, some of your self talk might be fleeting thoughts that cross your mind without being fully put into words, and your self talk may even be a pattern of behavior or pattern of emotional response without accompanying words (I like to think of this as the internal equivalent of all the non-verbal cues that get exchanged when you’re communicating with someone else).
Get Into The Spirit With These Happy Halloween Journal Prompts
Celebrate Halloween while you journal with these fun Halloween themed journal prompts for adults. These Halloween journal prompts will help you explore Halloween memories and Halloween favorites. We’ll also do a few fun Halloween journaling exercises that involve reading Halloween poetry, a Halloween themed free association exercise, and a spooky creative writing exercise designed to help you learn more about you.
Journal prompts for Halloween
What’s your favorite thing about Halloween? Why is this a favorite? What emotions does this favorite thing evoke? What was your favorite thing about Halloween as a child? Why was this a favorite as a child? What emotions did this favorite thing evoke as a child? Are there any similarities between your adult and childhood Halloween favorites?
What’s your favorite movie to watch to celebrate Halloween? Why is this a favorite? Write about what you remember from the first time you watched this movie.
Find Freedom With These Journal Prompts For Perfectionism
I saw a Gloria Steinem quote that said, “Perfectionism is internalized oppression,” and I thought, “Ugh, that is, unfortunately, very true for me.” It took me many years to realize that my perfectionism stemmed from a traumatic childhood. In fact, it took me many years to even realize that my childhood was traumatic. (You can read a little more about that in my post on What I Wish I Knew Earlier about Healing Psychological Trauma if you’d like.) When I accepted and began to process the ways in which my childhood traumatized me, it was easier to see the ways that I continued to function by the rules of my childhood. In childhood “perfect” behavior was required from me in order to “earn” love and the right to have emotions, set boundaries, and be my own person. The rules were always unclear and ever-changing, and even if they had been clear, I would never have been able to live up to them. The end result was that I continued to endlessly strive to be more and more perfect in every facet of life to earn love and the right to simply be a human with my own emotions, body, and opinions. I’m very much still a recovering perfectionist, but I know that I have the tools now to continue to step away from perfectionistic tendencies and it’s something I’m actively working on.
These journal prompts are designed to help you explore what your perfectionism looks like and the “whys” behind your perfectionism. I hope they’re helpful to you on your journey to overcome perfectionism!
Cherish Your Memories With These Memory Journal Prompts
Keeping a memory journal is a fun way to reflect on your life and to safekeep memories so that you can revisit them and reminisce later. Keeping a memory journal can also help you see patterns in your life. When you keep a memory journal you will begin to see what moments in your life feel the most important to you, what you value in life, and how your daily experiences impact you and string together to create the story of your life. If you’ve ever considered writing a memoir, keeping a memory journal is also a great way to get started. With a memory journal, you’ll have plenty of inspiration to pull from for a memoir in the future.
A Real Life Dream Journal Example Entry Illustrating The 7 Key Elements Of A Dream Journal Entry
How to start a dream journal
Starting a dream journal might seem a little daunting, but once you get into the hang of it, dream journaling can be a really interesting and rewarding journaling practice. When you’re starting a dream journal it can help to see a dream journal example to get some ideas. I enjoy dream journaling because I like working with symbolism and it’s a great way to learn new things about myself. Dream journaling is also a wonderful way to get insight into the emotions and experiences that your mind, body, and soul are focused on working through. When you’ve been dream journaling for a while, you might be surprised to find out what’s going on with you at the deepest levels! Dream journaling also helps you tap into your intuition and learn the language of your subconscious mind which yields great benefits in waking life, too.
What Is Shadow Work?: How Your Shadow Self Can Free You To Live Authentically
Your shadow contains everything you don’t know about yourself, so how can you meet your shadow self?
What does “shadow self” mean?
Psychologist Carl Jung described the shadow as unconscious aspects of personality. These shadow parts of our personalities are not necessarily good or bad, they are simply parts of who we are that we aren’t aware of. The shadow self is composed of aspects of our personalities that it feels too scary to see. Our shadows are made up of parts of ourselves that we don’t think should be there for whatever reason. Our shadow selves could contain desires we don’t think we should have, emotions we don’t think we should have, and needs we don’t think we should have. The idea that these aspects of our personalities are undesirable might come from childhood, our culture, or significant experiences or relationships in our lives.
Journal Prompts for Shadow Work: Do You Judge Yourself?
What does it mean to judge yourself?
Here are some common examples of self-judgement: Going over a conversation or interaction in your head afterwards and chiding yourself for something you said or did. Berating yourself after you express an emotion or show vulnerability. Holding yourself to a standard of perfection and picking apart everything you could have done better. Being hard on yourself when you forget to do something or when you don’t know how to do something.
What I Wish I Knew Earlier About Healing Psychological Trauma
Your body intuitively knows how to provide you with deep emotional healing & your body wants to heal you.
I’ve read a lot of things about the process of emotional healing and healing psychological trauma that I agree with and that make sense to me. But I also know that these ideas resonated with me earlier in my life at a time when I was deeply confused about how to go about the process of healing psychological trauma and desperate to get it underway. None of the things I read actually told me anything I could connect with about how to emotionally heal or what it looked like. A lot of what I read felt more like a simultaneous truth and platitude to me.
Shadow Work Prompts For Childhood Trauma
What were you not allowed to talk about when you were growing up?
Families, like other social groups, have rules. Many of these rules are unwritten. Some of these unwritten rules tell us what we’re allowed to talk about and what we’re not allowed to talk about. If the family you grew up in was dysfunctional in some ways, there may have been many topics that couldn’t be discussed. Without self-reflection, we can unknowingly carry these same rules into our future friendships, romantic relationships, and our new families. Perhaps most detrimentally, we can also carry these rules into our relationship with ourselves.
Shadow Work Journal Prompts For Taking A Memory Inventory
What do you remember, and what don’t you remember?
While we commonly recall past experiences, it’s less common to consciously reflect on what we do and don’t remember from earlier times in our life. These journal prompts encourage you to take a step back and look at your memories with a big picture view.
I invite you to grab your journal and write about times in your life you remember clearly and moments and eras you have few or no memories from. If it feels helpful, use the journal questions below to start.