With a cute journal near, your favorite beverage in hand and a list of fire journal prompts, it’s near impossible to not feel limitless. If your weakness is journal prompts for better mental health, especially in the realm of not taking things personally, then you’ve struck wellness gold. While journaling can be used to reflect on happy, heavy or pivotal moments, it can also be a great way to reprogram your thinking habits. These journal prompts for mental health and self-knowing are sure to get you on the right path. Take note of these journal prompts to rediscover life as someone who no longer takes every thing personally.
How Journaling Helps
The importance of journaling has become even more clear in recent years. Research has shown that journaling reduces stress and anxiety, helps with grief and healing, promotes self-awareness and accountability and manages negative feelings. Journaling has earned its spot as one of the key mental health tools for maintaining wellness and balance. As part of your self-care/prevention tools, it allows you to notice your inner thoughts. Journal prompts for mental health, self love and manifestation have rewritten the power of taking a few minutes of self-examination and listening.
When it comes to taking things personally, there is much inner work to do to arrive at an easeful space. Looking at the root of your behavioral trend of taking things personally or self-blaming, therapy, reading self-help books and journaling are all useful places to begin. Don Miguel Ruiz’s second agreement from his bestseller ‘The Four Agreements’ advises readers to not take anything personally. The idea is to practice non-attachment and to resist over-thinking or over-analyzing what is. It may be easy to take things personally if that is a habit that you’re used to or have grown up around but journaling may offer an alternative response. Assigning time to journal, releasing the thoughts and widening your view point will all be beneficial in breaking the habit of taking things personally.
How to Journal for Mental Wellness
Routine/Timing
There are many ways to approach journaling but the most important step is to find a routine or a time in the day that best suits you. If you enjoy getting thoughts onto the page in the early hours of the day, then put aside time in your morning routine for journaling. If you have some time during lunch times or the evenings where you want to unwind and have a check-in, then allocate that time.
Set Page Goals
Giving yourself a goal may be useful if you want to expand your capacity for self-writing. Some people aim for three morning pages or gradually build up to that. Others set a timed goal of 5 minutes each day.
Free Write
There may be days where you have something that you specifically want to bring to the page. Allow space for you to write freely without any limit or expectation if this is the case.
Audio Journaling
If you’re not yet used to carrying a pen and notebook around, then audio journaling might be for you. Using voice note apps to get thoughts off your mind or to respond to prompts verbally also works as an alternative to writing.
Guided prompts
A very popular way to journal is by making use of journal prompts. Guided prompts are useful if you’re new to journaling and learning how to express your thoughts and feelings in an organized way. Calling on journal prompts for mental health or prompts for anxiety are examples of how to confront some of the unaddressed feelings that may be building up. Eventually, you might be encouraged to write personalized prompts.
12 Journal Prompts for Not Taking Things Personally
In my visions, what does my most balanced self look like?
What usually causes anxiety in my body?
Who do I usually feel anxious around? Why?
What about this situation makes me uncomfortable and what about it makes me feel confident?
How can I use my sensitivity to focus on any other potentially healthier versions of this story?
How would I react/respond to [x scenario] if noone was around and I could authentically express myself?
Are there any negative patterns that I can unknowingly fall into that I or others have noticed?
What spaces/people/life-giving activities make me feel safe and myself?
What spaces/people/activities drain me and make me feel guilty?
How can I remove myself from these people/spaces/activities? (Draft responses and ‘exit plans’ that you can use)
What am I grateful for today?
How can this help me to move beyond this moment with complete happiness?