What you have to say to yourself matters

Journaling | Intuition Development | Emotional Wellness

inspiration in your inbox

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
Emotional Wellness & Emotional Healing So.Lightly Living Emotional Wellness & Emotional Healing So.Lightly Living

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.

Read More
Loving You: Affirmations For Self Worth
Emotional Wellness & Emotional Healing So.Lightly Living Emotional Wellness & Emotional Healing So.Lightly Living

Loving You: Affirmations For Self Worth

Self worth is a feeling of care, respect, and love for yourself. Let’s talk about why self worth matters, and how you can use these affirmations for self worth to work on developing your self worth. Plus, I’ll show you a couple other resources including a free printable, for improving your self worth!

I once felt confused about what self worth is and wondered why it didn’t seem confusing to other people. I remember learning about self worth in elementary school and being absolutely perplexed; we sang a song with lyrics that said, “I’m special, you’re special, too,” and I just remember thinking, “How does that even make sense?” In hindsight, I understand that my childhood experiences taught me that self worth was a bad thing to have. I also now understand that plenty of other people also find self worth to be a confusing topic.

So what is self worth? Self worth is a feeling (a felt connection) to yourself as a person deserving of care, respect, and love. One of the reasons self worth was so confusing to me was because I would have intellectually agreed that I deserved care, respect, and love, but I couldn’t feel any of that. In fact, I couldn’t feel much of anything because I was pretty disassociated and didn’t know it. There was also a whole subconscious part of me that didn’t believe I was worthy of care, respect, and love, because I didn’t experience much of that as a child. Until I could learn to connect with that part o me, the feeling of self worth was pretty elusive.

Read More
Affirmations For Perfectionism
Emotional Wellness & Emotional Healing So.Lightly Living Emotional Wellness & Emotional Healing So.Lightly Living

Affirmations For Perfectionism

Struggling with perfectionism can be rough. Appearing “perfect” is rewarded in school, the workplace, and in plenty of other facets of life. Perfectionism provides us with the illusion that we can gain acceptance, love, belonging, and safety with hard work. But in the end, perfectionism takes a heavy toll on the body, mind, and soul, and it robs us of an authentic connection with ourselves and others.

Perfectionism has been a long-time struggle for me. I grew up in a household with a mother who used perfectionism as a coping mechanism to deal with an abusive childhood she refused to acknowledge, and she passed both the abuse and the coping mechanism of perfectionism on to me. I could still lower the standard I hold myself to (I definitely consider dealing with perfectionism an ongoing journey), but I cannot describe how freeing it was to finally “give up” and look at the reasons behind my drive for perfection rather than distracting myself with to do lists, tasks, and activities.

On the journey to let go of perfectionism, one of the early things I worked on was changing the way I talk to myself. At first, I thought all the going on about positive self talk was really hokey, but I now understand just how important talking to myself gently is. Affirmations for perfectionism were game changing for me, so below I’ve put together a few examples of positive self talk for perfectionism that I hope will be helpful to you as well!

Read More
Self Talk For Anxiety To Get You Through Anxious Moments
Emotional Wellness & Emotional Healing So.Lightly Living Emotional Wellness & Emotional Healing So.Lightly Living

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!

Read More
Self Care Journal Prompts For Nurturing Mind, Body & Soul

Self Care Journal Prompts For Nurturing Mind, Body & Soul

We get a TON of messages about what self care is and what self care isn’t. Despite all those messages (and maybe in part because of them), there was a time when I honestly found self care really confusing. In large part, this is because I was looking outside myself to answer my questions about what self care looks like.

We’re told self care is getting a pedicure, or buying ourselves a treat, or setting boundaries, or standing up for ourselves, or taking a bubble bath, or we’re told that thinking self care is pedicures and bubble baths is a “not deep” silly way to talk about self care. What I learned when I began to use journaling to really listen to myself is that self care can be a bubble bath, pedi, setting boundaries, or pretty much anything else that actually makes me feel cared for by me. Writing it out this way it seems so obvious, but this was truly lost on me for a long time.

Self care was definitely not something I was taught growing up, and I didn’t really know how to listen to myself to find out how I needed to experience care. It turns out that the self care I most needed was learning how to hear myself over the noise of ingrained coping patterns and societal messages. Journaling became my designated time to sit and listen to myself and hear about my needs and desires. As my journaling practice helped me connect more deeply with myself, I also learned to hear myself throughout the day. This made self care so much easier! Sometimes I fall into old patterns and quell my own voice and needs to accommodate someone or something else, and sometimes life is just hard and that makes self care difficult, but it is so much easier to meet my own needs now that I know what they are!

I wrote these self care journal prompts with the hope that these prompts will help you nurture your connection with yourself and learn what self care looks like for you.

Read More
Grounding Journal Prompts For Embodiment

Grounding Journal Prompts For Embodiment

Explore what it means to be connected and attuned to your body and your five senses with these journal prompts designed to help you on the journey to live an embodied life. We’ll begin with journal prompts that explore your connection to your five senses, and end with journal prompts to help you reflect on what it means to you to live an embodied life.

Write about a childhood memory of having a pleasant emotional response to a sound, scent, or taste. Write down everything you can remember about the experience and how it felt. What emotions did you experience? What physical sensations were associated with those emotions?

Think about a texture that you find pleasant (this could be a food texture, clothing texture, etc.). Write about this texture in as much detail as possible. What does it feel like? What emotions do you associate with it? Why do you think you find this texture pleasant?

In an average day, how often do you consciously pay attention to and experience pleasant sensations associated with sound? Take a few deep breaths and then try to lightly focus on only the sounds you are hearing for 5 minutes. Describe the sounds you heard. How did you feel focusing on sound for a few minutes? What emotions arose for you? What physical sensations were associated with those emotions? What thoughts arose?

Read More
Night Journal Prompts For A Peaceful Heart

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?

Read More
Morning Journal Prompts For Emotional Wellness
Journal Prompts So.Lightly Living Journal Prompts So.Lightly Living

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?

Read More
Get To The Root Of Your Anxiety With These Journal Prompts For Anxiety

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.

Read More
Mindfulness Prompts for Connecting With Your Body

Mindfulness Prompts for Connecting With Your Body

What does it feel like when your mind and body are connected?

The way in which our minds and bodies interact with each other has a profound impact on our daily lives and our physical and emotional health. Spending some time reflecting on our mind-body connection in a big picture sense can help us to identify what’s working for us and what’s not when it comes to cultivating mindfulness in our daily lives. I invite you to explore - and journal about - your mind-body connection. If it feels helpful, use the journal questions below to start.

Read More
Journal Prompts For Finding The Sacred In The Everyday
Journal Prompts So.Lightly Living Journal Prompts So.Lightly Living

Journal Prompts For Finding The Sacred In The Everyday

What is the difference between the mundane and the sacred?

Attention. Attention elevates everyday mundanity to the realm of the sacred. Routine tasks are – almost by definition – tasks we don’t pay close attention to. Choosing to religiously focus our attention on some of these tasks throughout the day creates a liturgy of living that reconnects us with ourselves and the world.

Applying lotion is a routine daily task. Attention transforms this routine into the sacred: putting on lotion slowly, noticing the body part you’re applying lotion to, noticing how the lotion feels on your skin, and reminding yourself “this is my body.”

Quickly shampooing your hair and washing your face before you jump out of the shower is an everyday task.

Read More