Need Inspiration for Getting Started? Here are 25 Go-To Journaling prompts
Growing up, I was number four out of five kids, an almost middle child. I learned early on how to work from the middle to bring people together. When I first tried to explain to my mom, early in my career as a lobbyist, what I did for a day job, she said, “Of course, you’ve always been the one making peace in the family, helping everyone else get along.”
I loved hearing that, as it came from someone who’d been watching me my whole life.
I made my mark as a professional advocate. I had great clients and was super selective about bringing new ones on, using my voice to educate stakeholders, policymakers, and the public in order to bring folks together around positive change. It was easy to serve the greater good this way—speaking up for those not at the table. Over the better part of two decades, I helped women rise into leadership positions, represented arts and cultural organizations to build a more vibrant creative community, enhanced children’s rights through systematic changes, established community endowments by diverting gambling revenue, and elevated Iowa’s once nascent high tech industry to one of national prominence. But here’s the thing. While I could represent others with aplomb, standing up for myself was a whole other kind of cat. That part of me had been quashed at an early age to get along better in a big family with busy parents, with an all too typical-for-the-times upbringing that missed the emotional support that helps one develop a healthy sense of worthiness.
Liberation arrived like a magic wand waving over my 50th birthday. It might have been menopause, seeing both kids through college, a culmination of experience that brought me to the point of enough-already, or some other nebulous milestone. Whatever it was, I knew in my heart that what I thought and felt mattered, and it was worth standing up for.
The biggest hurdle to starting down this track was that I’d simply buried my truth. It took a lot of inner work to drop patriarchal expectations, outdated beliefs, and fears that weren’t mine to begin with. Better understanding myself called for a good bit of curiosity, patience, and humor to sort and sift through the gunk. That’s how journaling brought me home again. I’d consider situations while journaling, asking questions like, “What’s this about?” “What’s my lesson here?” and “Why do I feel this way?” Then answers would come through my writing, giving me the words and truth to hang onto.
The revelations often started with a prompt. My pen flowed glimpses of consciousness that my mind had locked away. It was truly like magic. It brought healing, helping shed a lot of the old baggage that had kept me living small. That is the power of spiritual journaling, as shared in my recent blog post Calm in the Chaos: Spiritual Journaling for Beginners.
Coming up with a prompt can be tricky; it’s a how-to question that comes up a lot in my workshops. I’ve created a brief list to get you started; a handy companion to print and tuck away for those moments when you’re feeling stuck.
Conversation Starters (or Writing Prompts)
When you want to engage in an easy give and take, here are some general questions to get started. Remember, dive in and don’t spend any time at all thinking or self-editing. What’s most important is to keep your pen moving faster than your head.
A three-part question:
Right now I am feeling…
I would like to feel…
What is getting in the way or holding me back?
I hope for… [remember, dreams of all sizes matter!]
I feel the love inside me grow when…
Love looks like…
My favorite ways to give love are…
My favorite ways to give myself love are…
Things that make me smile…
I feel happiest when…
For me, satisfaction comes from…
Wouldn’t it be nice if…
Ten favorite things about me…
Ten things I am grateful for and why…
Happiness comes in small packages like...
Ten things I love most about [name a person/place/thing] ____… (This is a particularly helpful exercise when you’re feeling ouchy about a particular person!)
If I could have any superpower, I’d choose [ ____ ] because [ ____ ]
To feel better, I like to… [list the ways, then post it somewhere to refer back to when you’re feeling out of sorts.]
If all of my fears disappeared, I would be free to…
One little step I can take today is…
I feel good when…
I’m feeling angry and resentful, so today I shall forgive [person or situation, even if it’s yourself!]…
Self-care looks like…
Freedom looks like…
See where your free-writing takes you!
Then, when you find you’re wanting something more and your curiosity calls for an answer, try another kind of writing prompt that is especially powerful for moments when you’d love to engage your soul for an answer or some direction. Simply ask, “Self (or Soul, Source, Universe, God, whatever resonates!)...”:
What is my next step?
What would you have me know?
What would you have me ask?
What is the lesson at hand?
What is my part in this?
Where am I to shine a light of forgiveness (knowing that every pain covers a need to forgive, if only for your own peace)
What are my feelings telling me?
Experiment with your journaling and what feels like go-to starters, and come up with your own prompts. Lots of times, it can be as easy as turning a sentence around with the word “Why…?”
When you ask, an answer is always given. You simply need to be in a place of hearing or receiving it. This is a process you can read more about in my workbook, Refine Your Magic.
Prompts help you sort, sift, and distill to discover, to know your authentic self better, and to tap into your inner well of knowledge and your truth. Journaling encourages your own inner voice to rise, so speak your own truth and return to your authentic self and own sense of innate worthiness.
Self-advocating and being self-responsible is not selfish. It is liberating to know that as much as we love others, it’s essential to honor and love ourselves, our hopes and dreams, even more.
