Let in the AER: Week 2 Practice - 10 minutes of daily journaling (with prompts)
Journaling is a wonderful way to connect with your authentic self. It gives you a window into your thoughts and feelings, and can really build on your mindfulness practice. In fact, journaling is especially powerful when you do it right after you meditate. Knowing that you’ll have the ability to engage with and explore any thoughts you spent your meditation observing can help curb impulse to follow them while meditating. And it’s a great way to deepen and extend the self-exploration that mindfulness meditation primes you for.
Journaling, simply put, is just taking what’s going on in your mind and getting it out on paper.
As with observing your thoughts in meditation, the key is to not to judge yourself or anything that comes up as you’re writing. You can reflect on what you’ve written later. You can re-read and see what it tells you.
Aside from being an amazing tool for getting to know your truth, journaling can also help you shed stress, and make sense of feelings or thoughts that are brewing but not quite clear to you yet.
That’s why Let in the AER’s Week 2 practice is: 10 minutes of daily journaling.
There’s no single right way to journal, but I do have a few tips from my own experience and what works well for others, to set you up for getting the most out of your journaling practice.
Suggestions for Journaling Success
Grab a pen (or pencil or marker or crayon) and your journal or a favorite notebook or pad of paper (or just loose-leaf paper works in a pinch). While you can journal using an app on your phone or computer, doing it by hand helps you avoid distractions and the urge to edit as you type. Plus, journaling by hand heightens your connection with yourself and your mind. That said, if typing or tapping out journal entries is more accessible to you, do it that way! If both typing and writing are difficult for you, you can speak and record journal entries. Remember: The goal and purpose is to get your thoughts out of your head and somewhere more tangible, to give them air, and be able to revisit, reconnect with, and reflect on them.
Find a quiet place where you can be uninterrupted and distraction-free for 10-15 minutes. This might be a closet. It might be the bathroom. Do what you gotta do.
Take a few deep breaths to get centered or arrive at the practice, if you need to.
Set a timer for 10 minutes.
Start journaling and don’t stop until that timer goes off!
Don’t edit. Grammar, spelling, and punctuation don’t matter here. It doesn’t need to be cohesive and coherent. Just keep writing. Keep the pen gliding across the page, the cursor moving across the screen, or the flow of talk going.
Let the entry go where it wants. Go with whatever comes up, even if it’s a total tangent or a new topic from what you started with.
Don’t filter yourself. Write about the thoughts, ideas, reflections, experiences that are asking to be written about. Don’t hold back. Don’t worry about what anyone else is going to think of it, because this is not for them. This is for you.
If the idea to “just sit down and write” overwhelms you and leaves you blinking at a blank page, use a journal prompt to get you going.
11 Potential Prompts to Get You Flowing
I believe strongly in…
I care deeply about…
I feel true to myself when I…
I feel most like myself in/around…
Today I’m feeling…
Something that came up in my meditation that I’d like to explore further is…
Something that happened or that I did recently that made me feel true to myself was…
Things or situations that feel like barriers to authenticity for me right now…
These days, I’m really enjoying… because it helps me feel…
Something I watched, listened to, or read recently that really resonated with me is… because…
An authentic part or aspect of myself that I would like to share more with others is…
Finally, a reminder: Approach journaling (and whatever comes out of it) with inquiry instead of judgment. Let it be a mission to get to know yourself better and to give voice to parts of you that might not otherwise be heard.
Let it be cathartic. Let it be an exploration. Let it be a safe place.
