Journey Into Journaling: 4 Journal Prompts Witness Ourselves

Writing Our Way Back to Intuition

So you want to put pen to paper but you are not sure how to start?

Welcome. I’m thrilled that you decided to step into the world of journaling and I am honored to support you on your Journey into Journaling.

If you are ready to put pen to paper then this is the perfect place to start.

If you still need to gather your supplies, check out my last post.

Journaling is a fantastic practice to increase our ability to be with ourselves and to self reflect. This practice can lead to more self awareness, self compassion, and self acceptance. 

Journaling can help us to identify and explore our desires and wishes. This clarity can bring a focused determination to our daily choices. 

Journaling can help us to witness and reframe our experiences. This containment can help us learn and evolve, so we can live empowered & aligned. 

Journaling can help us identify and focus on moments of deep appreciation. Which can create space within us to experience more of what life has to offer.

Journaling at its core is about self expression.

Self expression is one of the cornerstones to living in alignment with our true, authentic selves.

Whether it is doodling or writing, this process of self expression promotes a more fluid and nuanced understanding of our experiences. Which in turn helps us to live in more empowered and aligned ways. It can help us garner a greater appreciation for our life, and gratitude creates more reasons to be grateful.

I have journaled for as long as I can remember. To me, journaling is about giving myself space to express myself fully and to witness myself. In my journal I give myself space to reflect and celebrate, space to release and reframe, space to affirm and reimagine. 

Within the pages of my journal, I am free to be me. I can say what my soul needs to say.

I can witness and work through problematic beliefs and behaviors without fearing what others will think of me. I can practice acceptance and appreciation. I can practice being compassionate, patient, and kind with myself. I can process and integrate new beliefs. I can dream as big as I give myself permission to dream.  

Putting pen to paper helps me to metabolize and release energy that would otherwise get stored in my body.

Journaling gives us space to metabolize emotions that could otherwise go unacknowledged or denied. Journaling gives us space to witness our behaviors so that we can feel empowered to make the changes that uplift us, and do things that bring us closer to our dreams.

Our journals are solely for our benefit and they can be used in any way that serves us. You can write about anything that you want to. In any form you want. Grammar, spelling, sentence structure, none of that matter here, unless you want it matter. 

You get to use your journal in what ever way feels best for you!

No one ever needs to read what we write, even us. It can just be said and that is it. Many of us benefit from revisiting parts of our journals but the point of journaling is not about creating a finished product. It is about in the moment release and expression. 

The point is to feel good, so if what we are doing does not help us to feel better, than we should choose a different practice.

Option anxiety is real.  Having limitless choices can feel overwhelming. So for those of you would would appreciate some guidance, here are some places to get started.

Journal Prompts for Getting Started Witnessing Ourselves:

1) Witnessing Our Day

This might be the most commonly held notion of a journal. A space to record daily experiences. This practice can help us hold space for how much we actually do and accomplish in one day.

This may seem basic, but the power of this simple practice should not be overlooked. 

One of the most powerful mindfulness practices we can cultivate is the witness consciousness. A practice of witnessing our own thoughts, behaviors, and patterns. 

Through the practice of witnessing the events of the day and noticing how we responded (or felt as a result of an experience), we can begin to become aware of ourselves on a deeper level. 

Witnessing can help us identify where we have power to change and evolve, and where we are giving our power away.

If you are unsure what to write, try just naming what you experienced today. This can come in the form of a list, or a stream of consciousness. There is no right or wrong here. 

Record what you saw and felt today, down to the tiniest of details. 

Here are some ideas to get you started:

• What did you experience today?  
• Where did you go today? 
• Who did you interact with today? 
• What did you see today?
• What did you smell today?
• What did you hear today?
• What did you taste today?
• What did you touch today?

Try to do this activity without shaming or judging yourself with a bunch of shoulds or could. All you are doing here is recording and reflecting on what actually happened, not what you thought should happen, what could have happened, or what you wanted to happen. (of course you can use your journal to process let downs and disappointment, too).

Just be aware of when you start to move away from naming and into shaming. 

Ideally we use journaling as a practice to help ourselves feel better. So if you do this and find you feel worse, try a different practice. 

2) Focus on Joy

This practice encourages us to take note of the little things that bring us joy or pleasure. Too often we spend our time recounting all the awful and horrible things that happened. In an attempt to vent, we loose ourselves in our upset. What we focus on expands. When we give ourselves space to look at and celebrate joy, we generate more reasons to be joyful.

Focusing on joy is a beautiful way of documenting and recording our life. 

When we focus on what is uplifting, we can begin to create more experiences that lift us up, rather than doing things that unconsciously beat us down.

Our society values productivity. As a result, many of us feel like we must be productive to be worthy or enough. We overlook all the tiny things that make us feel good, choosing instead to hold ourselves to an unrealistic standard of productivity. Because of this, it is radical to focus on the good, uplifting, and joyful.

We may begin to judge the goodness of our day not on how much we accomplished, but on how much joy we experienced.

When we create space at the end of the day (or in the morning) to reflect on what we have experienced, felt, said, and did that felt uplifting, we may begin to see that productivity is not the only way to generate good feelings. 

List 5 things that brought you joy today.

If you feel stuck, try answering any or all of these questions:

• What was the favorite thing you did or saw today?
• What brought you the most pleasure today?
• What is one (or more) things that made you feel uplifted?
• What is one (or more) thing you saw today that made you feel a sense of awe or wonder? 
• Who is someone it felt uplifting to interacted with today?
• What is one new thing you saw, learned or did today?

Don’t worry if your lists feel short in the beginning. Whenever we begin to cultivate a new practice it can take time to get used to it. Like anything, finding joy in the small things is a skill that we cultivate.

Start small and trust that as you give joy attention, more joy will find you.

Ideally we use journaling as a practice to help ourselves feel better. So if you do this and find you feel worse, try a different practice. 

3) Deepen into your feeling

The beauty of our journals is that we get to have all of our feelings. We get to bring our full range of emotions. The pages will never tell us we are being too much, or ask us to calm down. We are allowed to bring our full self to our journals. There is no need to deny our feelings. 

This is a nice way to deepen the first practice of “witnessing your experience.” It asks us to move beyond naming our experience, and explore how the experience made us feel.

When we focus on our feelings, we give ourselves space to explore what in our life is working (feels good, expansive, exciting) and what in our life needs to be tweaked (feels bad, constricted, yucky).

This practice can highten our self awareness, and deepen our intuition.

When we have clarity on how our experiences make us feel, we can focus on generating more experiences that feel good rather than focusing all our attention on the things that unknowingly grind us down. 

When we first begin to deepen into a relationship with our feelings, it can be awkward. Learning to identify with our feelings is like learning a new language. The language of our feelings is one we all know, it’s the language we are born with. Babies and children understand this language. Most of us are taught to to ignore our feelings, so we forget how to understand the messages speaking to us through our feelings and sensation. 

But fear not! The more you work on identifying and exploring your feelings, the more clarity you will gain. 

Lets Deepen into Our Feelings:

How did you felt today? How do you feel right now?

If you are feeling stuck with that, that’s ok. Deepen into a stream of consiousness just writing anything that comes to mind.

• List things that make you feel expansive, excited, lit up, thrilled, unstoppable:
• List things that make you feel constricted, hesitant, dull, unsure, timid:
• List things that bring you deep pleasure or satisfaction:

if you are still feeling stuck or uninspired….

Pick 3-5 words from the list below and write about an experience you had today (or this week/month) that made you feel that way.

I felt ___(pick a word)___ when:

Receptive. Crafty. Lively. Peaceful. Incandescent. Untethered. Grounded. Thriving. Tangible. Divinely Guided. Driven. Talented. Purposeful. Awakened. Blissed Out. Fierce. Free-Flowing. Fabulous. Healed. Sovereign. Openhearted. Visionary. Ready. Passionate. Glowing. Remarkable. Relaxed. Warmth. Luxurious. Brilliant. Whole. Optimistic. Adored. Precious. Whimsical. Glorious. Courage.

If you are super jazzed about living in alignment with you feelings, check out the Desire Map by Danielle Laport. Her work really helped me when I was first learning to re-identify with my feelings and felt sensations. It is quite liberating to live a life that is in alignment with how we want to feel, rather than making choices rooted in should’s or other people’s expectations.

Remember that like anything this takes practice. That is why we have our trusty journal friend to support us.

4) Declare Our Gratitude

This is one of my favorite ways to journal because focusing on gratitude can raise our energetic vibration. Feeling gratitude attracts more reasons to be grateful.  

Gratitude journaling is exactly what it sounds like: write what we are grateful for.

Gratitude journaling becomes easier the more we do it because grateful hearts have more to be grateful for. Let yourself feel grateful for the smallest of things. Let the gratitude train roll. 

Gratitude Journaling ties very nicely into all the other activities listed above. We can simply add:

“I am grateful I experienced ______ today.” or “I am grateful for feeling _____ today.”

If the beginning if this feels challenging that is alright. Gratitude thinking can be like a foreign language for those of us who are not attuned to the energy or gratitude. If you can, allow yourself to feel gratitude directed at yourself for starting something new and for choosing a new perspective.

What are you grateful for today? 

List 5 things in your journal that you feel grateful for.

If you want to push this a bit further add: Why you are grateful. 

I am grateful for ____ because_____.

For example: 

I am grateful for a bright spacious home because it makes me feel safe and expansive.

I am grateful for a colorful meal because it makes me feel abundant and nourished.

I am grateful for the ability to sleep in because it makes me feel lavish and rested.

After you list what you are grateful for, make sure to reread it, maybe read it out loud to yourself.

The experiences of reading our own gratitude list can raise our energetic vibrations.

You can even record your gratitude list and listen to it when you need a taste of gratitude. You can also display some of your gratitude moments in your living space so you can be reminded of all the reasons you feel grateful.

I will often revisit my gratitude pages when I am finding it hard to attach to feelings of gratitude. The previously journaled lists of gratitude helps me anchor into that feeling even when I am feeling full of grief and despair.

Gratitude journaling is a beautiful evening practice because it shifts our energetic vibration before we enter the dream world. The frequency of gratitude is magnetizing.

Let yourself really feel it. Notice how things change for you as you allow yourself to affirm and feel grateful.

Have fun with this. I hope you feel inspired and empowered to begin putting pen to paper!

Join me next time for some tips on getting deeper with our journals.