Journaling is a great way to explore our inner world and offers numerous benefits like reducing stress, processing emotions, and improving our well-being. Journaling is also great for healing and our mental health.
Starting the healing process through journaling may initially seem intimidating, but we have a list of wonderful journaling prompts to help guide you.
Journaling prompts for healing:
1. How Do I Want To Begin Feeling?
To start healing through journaling, you need to assess your feelings and compare them to how you want to feel.
Most of the time, we’re operating in repetitive emotional cycles, and these emotions can cling to us until they become a daily pattern. To break this pattern, we need to identify how we feel, accept these feelings, and then focus on how we’d like to feel in this moment.
2. What Can I Let Go Of Right Now?
Are you holding onto a negative experience or emotion? What is easy to let go of right now? Maybe you’ve had a stressful morning, and it seems like today hasn’t gone to plan. Can you let go of this feeling?
There may be a few things that you’re holding onto, and it may be hard to let them go, and that’s okay. But, if there is something that is easy to let go of right now, in this moment, let it go!
Do you feel better? Does a small weight feel like it’s been lifted off of you?
3. I Often Feel…
We all experience various emotions, and dealing with them can be challenging. At times we keep experiencing the same emotions without releasing them. What emotion do you feel the most? Are you anxious, stressed, angry, or frustrated?
Make a list of which emotions you experience regularly. Next to this list, create another list of how you would rather feel instead of these emotions.
4. How Long Have I Been Feeling This Way?
Once you’ve identified how you’ve been feeling most of the time, take a minute to think about how long you’ve been feeling this way. Has it been for a few days? A couple of months? Or years?
There is no right or wrong answer to this question. We can hold onto emotions for a while, and when we start our healing journey, it can be hard to start working through some of the intense emotions we may have.
5. When I Think About My Feelings, What Are My Fears?
Take a minute to close your eyes and think about your feelings. When thinking about how you feel, what scares you the most? What are your biggest fears?
Are these fears stopping you from achieving your goals? How are these fears holding you back and preventing you from planning your future?
6. What Makes Me Feel Safe?
Traumatic events and experiences can alter our brains and our nervous systems. When we experience a traumatic event, we are often left feeling unsafe. This feeling of not being safe can affect other areas of our life.
Think back to a time when you felt really safe. What did it feel like? What makes you feel safe now?
If you want to do more work on feeling safe, here are a few steps you can take.
7. What Boundaries Do I Need To Feel Better?
There are many times when we violate our boundaries. Whether it’s because we want to help someone else even though we are mentally drained or whether it’s showing up for family members who only take advantage of us.
Whatever the case, an excellent way to start healing is to evaluate your current boundaries and see if there are more boundaries you need to put into place to heal.
8. List The Things That Bring You Joy
Make a list of the things that bring you joy. Is it your pet? It could be a hobby that brings you joy or going for a walk or even listening to your favorite music.
Once you have your list of things that bring you joy, you can plan to do just one thing on your list per day to bring you more joy.
9. What Do You Have Right Now That You’re Grateful For?
Writing down the things you’re grateful for is proven to make you happier. Have a look around and consider all the things you can be grateful for in your life.
Big or small, it doesn’t matter; creating a list of everything you are grateful for is also a great daily practice to increase positivity and help improve your mood.
10. What Can You Do Today To Encourage Self Love?
Taking the time to do small things for ourselves is a wonderful way to cultivate self-love and promote healing. For some people, this might mean treating themselves to a relaxing bubble bath, while others might prefer taking a walk in nature.
Whatever it is that helps you feel good about yourself, it’s important to make time for self-care.
One great way to encourage self-love is by incorporating self-love prompts into your routine.
By making self-care a priority, you can cultivate a deeper sense of self-love and appreciation for all that you are.
11. What Will Bring More Peace Into Your Life?
Sometimes life can feel overwhelming and chaotic. We need to slow things down and take a minute to determine what we can do to bring more peace into our life.
Mindfulness activities, exercising, getting enough sleep, and meditating are great ways to bring more peace into our lives.
12. Do You Have Fears For The Future, What Are They?
We constantly think about our future, and while thinking about our future can be productive, we can also have fears for the future.
Some of these may be financial, safety, or materialistic fears. By writing down our fears for the future, we’re identifying what we’re afraid of and can take positive steps to dispel those fears.
13. How Do I Feel Today?
Is today a good day? Assess how you feel today. Whatever the feeling is, determine what the reasons are for feeling that way.
How can you feel better today? If there is something good that happened today, write it down.
How do you feel now?
14. What Are My Bad Habits/Addictions?
Do you have any bad habits or addictions you’d like to work through?
Identifying your bad habits and addictions can help you figure out which feelings you’re suppressing through these bad habits and addictions.
Write down how you feel about those habits and addictions.
15. What Can You Do This Week Based On Your Needs?
Most of the time, we constantly care for others and often forget to take care of our own needs. So this week, take time to think about what your needs are.
What can you do this week to take care of yourself and your needs?
16. What Does Your Ideal Day Look Like?
We all have an idea of what our perfect should look like. What does your perfect day look like? What activities would you do on your perfect day, and who will you spend time with?
Creating our perfect day helps us determine what we need in our lives, whether it’s more peace or spending more time with ourselves or our loved ones.
17. Write A Love Letter To Yourself
Writing a love letter to yourself is one of the most beautiful acts of self-love. In this love letter, you can write everything you love and admire about yourself.
Write about your healing journey and how you plan to care for yourself better.
There is no specific direction or template that this letter should follow, and the content will come naturally to you when writing it.