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.
The Healing Powers of Anxiety: How I Reduced My Anxiety & Let It Heal Me
I’ve come to believe that every emotion has a purpose. If there was no purpose for an emotion, our bodies wouldn’t produce that emotional experience. Now, this definitely doesn’t mean every emotion is pleasant, and it doesn’t even mean that we accomplish the purpose of the emotion each time it arises, but I do believe that every emotion – even anxiety – arises for a good reason.
For me, anxiety served as a helpful way to block out other emotions that it wasn’t time for me to address yet. Anxious thoughts are distracting, they keep us busy and leave us with no time or energy to address deeper matters. The unpleasant physical sensations associated with anxiety are also very good at convincing us to turn around and run from what we’re feeling because anxiety feels really unpleasant to sit with.
Anxiety is a natural, protective response of the human body that we’re all capable of calling upon. But, looking at my mother and grandmother, I can see that there is definitely an intergenerational dynamic to my relationship with anxiety. Part of that intergenerational dynamic is also being completely oblivious to the fact that we have anxiety. And what a grand plan that is! If you don’t even know you’re anxious, you’re an extra step away from getting to the root of the hard things you don’t know how to address yet.
Find Comfort With These Journal Prompts For Sadness
Sadness visits us all from time to time, and sometimes its hard to know how to help yourself when you’re feeling sad. These journal prompts for sadness are here to help you find comfort in yourself when you’re sad.
What does the sadness physically feel like in your body? Where in your body do you feel the physical sensation associated with sadness? What do the physical sensations feel like? If you had to describe the physical sensations as a color and shape, what color and shape is the physical sensation? Where in your body are the physical sensations located? How big or small does your sadness feel?
If you take deep breathes and move around a bit, do the physical sensations associated with sadness change? If so, how?
Is there a location in your body that feels nice (or neutral) right now? If so, spend a few moments breathing in and out deeply and focusing on this location in your body. Write about what this experience was like.
Self Talk For Anxiety To Get You Through Anxious Moments
I find that when I want to improve my self talk in a particular area it helps to record myself talking to myself the way I want to. I use the ThinkUp app for this, but you could also easily do this with any recording device on your phone. (The ThinkUp app is a nice way to add pictures and sound and organize your recordings into various lists if that’s something you’re interested in.) Then, if I’m feeling anxious, I can just play the recordings I made for myself on the topic of anxiety. With practice, this eventually helps positive self talk come more naturally in the moments its needed. If this feels totally hokey and annoying to you, that’s okay! I’ll be honest, when I first started doing this I was crawl-out-of-my-skin-uncomfortable, but that eventually passed.
The best positive self talk for your anxiety will be unique to you, but it definitely helps to have some examples of positive self talk for anxiety to work with, so here are a few examples of positive self talk for anxiety to get you started!
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?
Let Happiness In With These Happiness Journal Prompts
Happiness is often something we desire, but it’s less common to actively reflect in a “big picture” way on what actually brings us happiness. These happiness journal prompts are designed to help you explore what happiness feels like, what it means to be happy for you, and what does and doesn’t bring happiness to your life. Grab your journal and let’s get started unpacking your conceptions about happiness and your experiences of happiness.
Finish this sentence with the first thing that comes to mind: “To be happy I need _____.” Why do you think this is the first thing that came to mind? Write one paragraph arguing that you need this thing to be happy. Write one paragraph arguing that you don’t need this thing to be happy.
When did you feel the happiest today? Write about everything you remember from the experience. What physical sensations were associated with feeling happy? How did you know that you were feeling happy? What about the experience made you happy? What thoughts were associated with the experience?
Write about a time in your childhood when you felt happy. What physical sensations were associated with feeling happy? How did you know that you were feeling happy? What about the experience made you happy? What thoughts were associated with the experience?
Night Journal Prompts For A Peaceful Heart
Ending your day with journaling can be a relaxing way to ease out the hustle and bustle of the day. Journaling at night can also help you connect with yourself, understand yourself better, and ease into sleep. In this article you’ll find night journal prompts along with four fun night journal exercises that incorporate poetry, music, meditation, and free association into your journaling practice.
Night journal prompts
Here are a few night journal prompts to end your day with! Choose a few night journal prompts from the list below and use them every day, or mix up your night journal practice and choose different prompts every night.
What’s one thing I can do to make myself feel cared for this evening?
How connected with myself did I feel throughout the day today? How grounded (in the present moment and connected to my body) did I feel today? How often did I check in with myself today to see how I was doing and what I needed?
Healing Journal Prompts For Mental Health
These journal prompts are designed to help you work through difficult emotions when they arise and to help you explore the state of your mental health and consider what better mental health looks like for you. I’m not a therapist and this isn’t the same thing as therapy, these are simply questions that have helped me improve my own mental health. A lot of the journal prompts on this website are journal prompts for mental health, so feel free to explore and find journal prompts that are a good fit for you. Check out the suggestions for more mental health journal prompts at the end of this article, too.
Sweet Valentine’s Day Journal Prompts
Valentine’s Day is a wonderful time to reflect on the love in your life. These Valentine’s Day journal prompts are designed to help you notice and honor the love in your life so that you can experience love in all its forms. Use these Valentine’s Day journal prompts to recall loving memories, explore your love language, learn more about your approach to self love, reflect on the different types of love, and understand what love means to you. Happy Valentine’s Day!
Valentine’s Day journal prompts for recalling loving memories
Think about a time in recent years when you felt loved by someone. Write about the memory in detail. How did you know you were loved? What feelings did you experience? What physical sensations did you experience? What thoughts went through your mind?
Think about a time in recent years when you felt love for someone or something. Write about the memory in detail. How did you know you loved this person or thing? What feelings did you experience? What physical sensations did you experience? What thoughts went through your mind?
Think about a time in your childhood when you felt loved. Write about the memory in detail. How did you know you were loved? What feelings did you experience? What physical sensations did you experience? What thoughts went through your mind?
Journal Prompts For December
Journal through the month of December with me with these December writing prompts! These December journal prompts explore a variety of topics. In December, we’ll journal about rest, obligations, the feeling of home, and pivotal life moments, among other topics. We’ll also do a few fun journaling exercises involving poetry, free association, our dreams, and personality tests.
Journal Prompts for December 1st
Write a list of the 5 people you feel closest to right now. For each person, write down a few reasons why you’re grateful to have them in your life.
Journal Prompts for December 2nd
What activities help you feel rested. Why do you think these activities help you to feel rested. Are you happy with how often you incorporate these activities into you life. If not, how can you incorporate restful activities into your life more often?
Journal Prompts for December 3rd
Take the MOTIVES personality test. Do you think the personality test that you took accurately reflects something about your personality? What about the results of the personality test didn’t surprise you? What surprised you? If the personality test resulted in any new insights for you about who you are, what can you do with this information in your daily life?
Journal Prompts for December 4th
How have you changed in the last year? How do you feel about these changes? What led to these changes in your life?
Morning Journal Prompts For Emotional Wellness
Starting your morning with journaling can be a nice way to ease into your day. Journaling in the morning can also help you begin your day with intention and self-connection. In this post you’ll find a few daily morning journal prompts to choose from along with four fun morning journaling exercises that incorporate poetry, music, meditation, and free association into your journaling practice.
Daily morning journal prompts
Here are a few morning journal prompts to start your day with! Choose a few morning journal prompts from the list below and use them every day, or mix up your morning journaling and choose different prompts every day.
How am I feeling emotionally this morning? What do I need emotionally this morning?
How am I feeling physically this morning? What do I need physically this morning?
How are my energy levels this morning? How can I honor where my energy levels are at today?
How grounded am I feeling this morning? (i.e., how in the present moment and connected to my body am I feeling?)
What do I want to accomplish today?
How am I planning to build self care into my day today? In other words, how am I planning to take care of myself today? How am I planning to take care of myself emotionally today? How am I planning to take care of myself physically today?
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).
Journal Prompts For November
Journal through the month of November with me with these November writing prompts! These November journal prompts explore a variety of topics. In November, we’ll journal about things we’re grateful for, how our concepts of femininity and masculinity impact our lives, the experience of being awed, loving memories, and childhood fears, among other topics. We’ll also do a few fun journaling exercises involving poetry, free association, our dreams, and personality tests.
Journal Prompts for November 1st
What are you most looking forward to this month? What one thing do you most hope to accomplish this month?
Journal Prompts for November 2nd
Write about at time that you had a strong gut feeling. What do you remember about how this experience felt? Why do you think you had such a strong gut feeling? How did you respond to this strong gut feeling?
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!
Journal Prompts For October
Journal through the month of October with me with these October writing prompts! These October journal prompts explore a variety of topics. In October, we’ll journal about how emotions feel in our bodies, self-care, self-talk, happiness, fear, and our relationship with time, among other topics. We’ll also do a few fun journaling exercises involving poetry, free association, our dreams, and personality tests.
Journal Prompts for October 1st
Write out something positive you commonly say to yourself. Write out something negative you commonly say to yourself. How does hearing the positive phrase impact you? How does hearing the negative phrase impact you? Were there other people in your life who first said these things to you?
Get To The Root Of Your Anxiety With These Journal Prompts For Anxiety
When I’m feeling anxious, I’m usually tempted to “run away” from the anxiety by ignoring that it’s there. Unfortunately, this doesn’t usually help to resolve my anxiety or the underlying reasons I’m anxious, and even worse it tends to cause my anxiety to build up until it feels large and unmanageable. I have found that taking deep breathes, running cold water over my wrists and/or face, and leaning into the anxiety and expressly acknowledging to myself that I’m anxious helps. Making these coping mechanisms a habit has helped my anxiety, and learning to acknowledge and lovingly accept my emotions as they arise has helped reduce my overall instances of anxiety.
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.
Journal Prompts for Shadow Work: What Do Your Pet Peeves Say About You?
What can your pet peeves tell you about your shadow self?
Everyone feels annoyed sometimes. Maybe it’s loud chewing, slow walking, or showing up late, whatever your pet peeves are, they have a story to tell about your past and how you experience life. They even have a story to tell you about your shadow self.
Shadow work is all about making aspects of ourselves that are unconscious, conscious, or in other words, bringing these aspects of ourselves out of the shadows and into the light. This is how we meet our shadow self and integrate our shadow self. When something is unconscious, however, that inherently means that it’s difficult for us to see. Exploring how we interact with others, or in other words, understanding that others are our mirror, can help us to bring our shadow selves into the light.