Journaling For Mental Health & Emotional Balance
20 Prompts You Can Use to Start Your Journaling Practice
20 Prompts You Can Use to Start Your Journaling Practice
I often think that writing saved my life. My parents divorced when I was 11, and later that year I received a journal for Christmas–my mother probably saw that I needed a way to release the troubling emotions I felt during that time. I have kept a journal ever since.
Writing prompts for therapy might sound like a far-fetched idea, but I have experienced first-hand the powerful effects of letting out your thoughts and emotions on the page.
Over the years I have developed the journaling practice and shared it with students who also seem to benefit. So here I share with you a few free-writing journaling prompts for mental health.
What Is Free Writing?
Free writing is essentially stream-of-consciousness writing with an intention. It’s an excellent tool to identify things in the psyche that might go under the radar of our daily awareness. I use the term free-writing interchangeably with journaling since I recommend this writing style for journaling practice.
Journaling is like the perfect therapist: always available, never judgmental, and virtually free apart from a journal and a pen. Free writing provides clarity and direction for you to make life choices.
There are 4 guidelines for free writing practice:
Write by hand, with pen and paper, NOT on the computer.
Write without stopping or lifting your pen from the page — either for a fixed period–15 minutes is a good place to start– or a certain number of pages.
Don’t censor or edit while you write. Let anything come out, even if it is gibberish, or horrifying! Remember: no judgment. If you lose your train of thought or don’t know what to write next, then write, “I don’t know what to write and I bla bla bla…..” Eventually, something will come and you’ll get back in the flow. The thinking mind will try to edit strange ideas and sabotage your subconscious, which is where all the juicy stuff is.
Perhaps most importantly: do not share this! You will write more freely and honestly, if you know this is FOR YOUR EYES ONLY!
You Can Use Journaling Practice in Different Ways:
Use freewriting to “clear the decks” of your mind, downloading after you’ve had an argument, for example, or when you need clarity about which direction to take.
Identify habitual patterns, asking for clarity on why certain unhealthy habits arise in you. Ask open-ended questions like, “How am I getting in my own way?” or “why do I keep getting into trouble?” and see what comes out.
Incorporate this practice into your daily routine to keep creative juices flowing and encourage a more conscious approach to life. Ask for inspiration. Done with intention, freewriting can definitely be considered an awareness practice and lead you to increased creativity.
Ask specific questions when you have choices to make and are uncertain about a situation. You can use the journaling prompts below to get you started.
20 Journaling Prompts For Mental Health and Emotional Balance:
What’s going on for me right now is…
What really makes me happy is…
If I knew I could not fail, I would…
The last time I felt this way, I…
What’s not working for me right now is…
What I wish I could change.
What I need to accept is…
The most important thing in my life is…
What’s really bugging me right now.
If I could say one thing to ___________ I would tell them…
I know when I’m feeling good because when I feel good I ….
To be honest, I would rather…
What do I need to let go of?
Who do I admire and why?
What does my inner critic say? Respond to it in dialogue.
Journaling Can Change Your Attitude
Done regularly, journaling will help you become intimately aware of your patterns — how you think, what you believe and how you respond emotionally to all of the situations in your life. Getting to know yourself on this level makes you self-aware.
When we are aware of ourselves, we tend to become more kind and compassionate, both to ourselves and to others. We become more understanding and accepting.
All it takes to become self-aware is to spend time with ourselves, getting to know ourselves on the pages of our journal.