Journaling Practice Toward Self-Understanding

Journaling is an incredibly useful tool for increasing our self-understanding. Often, we struggle to really parse out our thoughts and feelings, or end up stuck in cyclic thoughts because we can't get them out anywhere. Journaling is great for this. Journaling is also fantastic for learning to more deeply connect with ourselves. 

I find that knowing what to write can a challenge, and my solution is simple: ask a question to yourself every day you journal. It doesn't have to be the whole purpose of the journal entry. You don't even have to ask the question at the start; you can write what you need to write to lead into a question. The question can be as specific and present focused as "how am I feeling right now?" or "what's causing this anxiety?" to something as broad as "what do I care about? What are my values?" or "what do I want to achieve in the next decade?" or "what kind of friend do I want to be?". The important thing is not exactly what the question is, but the act of asking the question.

 The better we get at asking ourselves questions about how we're doing, where we want to be, and how we want to get there, the better in touch with ourselves we will be, and the better we become at intuiting how we want to behave and respond in the world. 

To leave you with a few more potential prompt questions:

what can I do right now to bring me one step closer to my future?

What have I done/can I do today to honor my values?

What do I need to take care of myself right now?