Guided Journaling

What is guided journaling and why should you do it?

Hi! It’s Elizabeth from Starkey and Bodhi, and I wanted to share with you some of my experiences on this subject!

When my therapist first told me to journal out my feelings, like the mature adult woman I am, I rolled my eyes and laughed. I wasn’t too keen on the idea. I have felt ENOUGH. I sure do not want to go through it all again.

What happened with ME, is the trauma caused chaos and confusion in my mind. Sometimes I could recite time stamps and exactly what happened of certain traumatic events. Sometimes the traumas were so close together, I don’t know which came first and which came last. Some things I don’t even remember. Every one of those instances bring out fear in me.

Journaling helps that. My therapist said, “This doesn’t have to be a ‘Dear Diary’ type thing. It can be as simple as writing down the date and one sentence saying, ‘Today sucked.’ or ‘Today I felt happy ALL day.’ If you want to go into deeper than that, you can.” When I finally got over my attitude long enough to actually do what the professional told me, I learned how eye opening journaling really is. Even those one sentence, “Today sucked” entries unlocked something within me. Even if I didn’t feel like writing it down, I acknowledged that I, as a HUMAN, had an emotion. An emotion I was allowed to feel! Then, I could take that a step further and think (or write down) what exactly made the day so terrible. Did something trigger me? Did I not get enough sleep? Did I not drink enough water? Was someone rude to me?

There are ALL kinds of fancy journals out there that you could spend money on, or you can just spend $0.50 on a spiral notebook from the grocery store! It just depends on what makes you happy.

Would you rather purchase one and be done with it? Here’s an inexpensive gratitude journal someone gifted me. I found it on Amazon for $4! (I use the 40 I AM’s as my affirmations I speak over myself every day.)

If you want to do more than just write your daily feelings down, this site has an expansive list of specific, guided journaling topics to choose from.

One more resource before you go is this site talking about putting your traumas down in words!