Tips to Combine Journal Prompts and Quotes to Heal

Journal writing has the power to heal. 

Recent studies indicate that journal writing helps people identify and process troubling feelings or events, and find good in a challenging situation. This post is Part 4 in my Healing Series.

One study where journal writers were divided into three groups revealed...

"Writers focusing on cognitions and emotions developed greater awareness of the positive benefits of the stressful event than the other two groups. This effect was apparently mediated by greater cognitive processing during writing.”  This report was published in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine 2002, authors Ullrich and Lutgendorf. 

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Readers of this blog are aware that my adult son died at the end of last year, and it is a tragic loss.

Each day I choose to get out of bed, and find something meaningful, kind, and healing to do.

I notice when I'm consistent with self-care routines, I experience less stress, anxiety, and feel more present in my life.

In fact, I don't think I'd still be standing without amping up self-care.

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I put a new twist on my recovery from this trauma by combining grief journal writing with uplifting quotes that I continue to recite, ponder, and visualize.

I'm sharing them with you, because I hope when or if you are grieving or feeling despair they can help you.

I continue to use prayer, body work including chakra aligning, meditation, yoga, and nature walks to come to terms with the loss of my loved one. 

Are you experiencing sorrow, whether it's the pain of going through a divorce, being laid off from a job, or other major life change?

The powerful pairing of journal writing and insightful quotations can bring comfort, and has led me to greater self-awareness. 

NOW ON TO THE JOURNAL PROMPTS

Designate a notebook as a grief or healing journal, and be sure to use paper and pen or colored pencils. This tactile way of writing will help you connect with your senses, and is a tangible, grounding way to discover the health of your inner life. 

Journal Prompt 1

Ask yourself: Am I willing to admit I need support and do I choose to speak with friends, relatives, a grief group, or a counsellor about my emotional pain? Explain.

Then, journal to record what your pain feels like in your mind, body, and heart. 

Journal Prompt 2

When you feel vulnerable (like now), you may need to keep your thoughts, feelings, and some of your reactions private. 

A grief/healing journal is a good place to write about those things you're not yet ready or comfortable talking about with others. 

Journal writing can help you vent intense emotions, and free up self-compassion for your frustrations, confusion, or troubling thoughts. 

"A grief journal is a safe, nonjudgmental place to share raw emotions about death, change, fear, anger, and heartbreak so let your feelings rip!" Nancy Andres

Journal Prompt 3

Do you think you have to be strong, silent, or grieve alone? Do you know that grief work has no rules or regulations about intensity, duration, or style? Share what you think or feel about this.

Journal Prompt 4

Are you willing to increase self-care while grieving, and do you need a reminder to treat yourself with Tender Loving Care (TLC)? Write about this now.

Journal Prompt 5

Do you regret past attitudes or behavior? You can't change how you acted then, but you can do things differently starting right now. Write about self-forgiveness. Use the quote below for inspiration.

Journal Prompt 6

I'm noticing a slight improvement in my outlook over the last couple of days. I sense that my practice of making a gratitude list and counting my blessings each day has improved my perspective. 

Do you think focusing on gratitude would work or not work for you and why? Write about that now.

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Here are several links to illustrate how journal writing, meditation, self-compassion, color energy work, and radical self-care can help you move forward. 

Healing and Recovery through Self-compassion

Colors for Self-compassion, Healing, and Recovery

15 Healthy Ways to Nix Stress

Self-care Activities to Encourage Optimal Health

Journaling about stressful events: effects of cognitive processing and emotional expression

Use Crown Chakra Energy to Integrate Mind, Body, Spirit



Thanks for coming by and letting me share with you. It helps to know you're out there and care.

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Tips to Help You Beat Mother's Day Blues

Do the lovey-dovey Mother’s Day ads in the media make you cringe? Perhaps you can identify with me. If my emotions are left unchecked, the closer the holiday gets, the more stressed, moody, angry, depressed, teary, and out of sorts I feel.

Posted updated 4/11/2023

Some women are childless by choice. They were wise enough to know they were financially, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually unwilling to bear and raise children. Others may have a physical condition or personal reasons that preclude them from bearing or raising children. 

Some like me have had sketchy or tumultuous relationships with our children or mothers, through death or circumstances like estrangement, addiction, and mental illness. 

Most don't receive flowery Mother’s Day greeting cards or more than brief calls on Mother's Day. We also don't want to give empty gifts to people that don't treat us nicely. We just wish the day would disappear from the face of the calendar. 

I’m one of many women who grew up in a dysfunctional family. My mother grew up without a mother, and spent part of her childhood in an orphanage. At times, as an adult, my mother was severely depressed. She couldn't mother me in a consistently healthful way.

I’ve taken many steps to heal the trauma I experienced as a child, and am grateful I vented, mourned, and released much of the frustration, anger, and sadness I felt about the past. 

New life skills I adopted as an adult helped me reframe my concept of mother and mothering. Now I practice self-care skills that give me the love, safety, concern, and mothering I missed out on as a youngster. 

When I made the decision to imagine standing in my mother’s shoes, I saw her as she was before she was a mother. It's only then that I found myself appreciating her as a whole person, someone who had her own life, her own struggles and problems to solve. 

When I became willing to look at my mother from a different perspective, I found forgiveness, compassion, and hope for us both.

I use the day to honor those I hold near and dear as surrogate mothers, daughters, sisters, and mentors. I celebrate the healthy choices I’ve made that empower me as a woman and bring out the best in me and my relationships. 

I acknowledge AND APPRECIATE THOSE WOMEN WHO ARE DOING A GOOD JOB AS MOTHERS. Chances are your children will grow up to be self-sufficient and happy in their own skin, because that's the example you are modeling for them.

Understanding these things doesn't mean I'm free of blue feelings around this time of year. Although it’s been three decades since my mother died, bittersweet memories of our life together surface now. 

I've learned if I truly surrender my longing to have people in my life "fill in" or "make up" for past losses and grieve those that have actually died, my blues do eventually lift. 😌

Today I'm sharing ideas and tips that continue to help me. I envision them helping you too! Here goes...

18 Tips to Beat Mother's Day Blues

1. Know that you’re not alone. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Population Survey of 2014, 47.6 percent of women between age 15 and 44 had never had children, up from 46.5 percent in 2012. This represents the highest percentage of childless women since the bureau started tracking that data in 1976. 

2.Write in a Journal to get a better handle on thoughts and feelings of isolation, grief, anger, abandonment, and love. Connect with that tender, courageous human being inside you that needs your encouragement. For ideas see journal prompts and quotes to help you heal here. 

3. Participate in a bereavement group. Give and get understanding from those who are in a similar situation.

4. Reserve A Few Hours of Time to Help a Shut-in, Friend, or Relative. Make a home cooked meal or cookies, read aloud, or take on a few errands they haven't been able to do.

5.Call a loved one who lives across the miles for a phone visit or write a handwritten note to someone you’ve lost contact with. Giving love makes you better able to receive it.

6.Invite Someone to Join You for Brunch, Lunch, or Dinner. Recognize you aren’t the only one who may feel lonely or out of sorts at this time of the year.

7. Spend Time Pampering Yourself. Give yourself a facial, get a deep tissue massage, soak in a bubble bath, read a mystery, watch a DVD, or do something you ordinarily put off doing.

8.Get out of town, book a weekend get-away to a spa or dude ranch, or any change-of-scene place you think you would enjoy. If you can't afford a vacation, visit a museum, art gallery, park, or nature trail to fill up on beauty.

9.Exercise until those endorphins kick in. Keep the good vibes going by playing a sport or dance for fun.

10.Grab a half hour of sunlight early in the day or before dusk, when sun’s rays are less intense. Sunlight helps the body produce vitamin D, a mood elevator.

11.Take a nap, a good way to replenish vitality and restore your spirit.

  

12.Pick wildflowers or get yourself a bouquet of sunflowers. Yellow is s sunny color and its energy cheers you up.

13.Attend a religious, communal, or support group meeting to feel a sense of community and comfort. 

14.Listen to music or play a musical instrument that inspires you.

15. Read How to Celebrate Mother's Day If Your Mom Passed Away, from someone who has been there .

16. Set up an appointment for psychological counselling. Sharing with a pro who listens with an objective ear can help you see yourself and your situation in a new light. Read Tips to Help You Choose a Psychologist.

17. Tap into the lovingkindness inside yourself. Be your own best friend. Focus on things you’re grateful for, affirm your talents and assets, and give yourself radical self-compassion for as long as it takes to feel better. Then continue to be gentle with yourself every day of the year.

18.Write and say your own affirmations or use the ones below. Recite them aloud, when you feel blue, lonely, less than, and perceive “lack” instead of abundance. Please feel free to take what you like and leave the rest.

"I Face Challenging Situations with Grace."

"I am Confident in My Own Worth and Love Myself."

"I Accept My Mother and/or Children as They Are, and Affirm Our Relationships are Teaching Us Things We Need to Know."

Wishing You a Happy Mother's Day.

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Do you think Mother's Day advertising has gotten way out of hand? 

How do you want to spend Mother's Day? Any tips for me? 

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