Journals for Empowerment

Journaling Techniques

Journaling Techniques

Feeling a little stuck? Not sure what to write or how to start? At a loss for ideas? There are a range of journaling techniques that you can use to get your thoughts on to paper.

In the Journal for the Modern Goddess we have allowed space to use three different journaling techniques.

Asking Yourself Questions - In our guided sections (Dreams and Inspirations; Moving Forward; Gratitude and Happiness), we provide a number of questions that allows the journal owner to ask herself. By asking herself the questions she can start to journal her answers and allow her answers to flow.

Our questions are guides; therefore any journal writer can ask herself a range of questions such as “how do I feel at this moment in time?” “What makes me happy?” “What changes are going on around me and how do they affect me?” etc.

Asking yourself questions provides you with prompts to move from not writing to writing, and from there you can allow your pen to flow.

Guided Meditations - Our journal comes with a companion guided meditation CD and we encourage the journal owner to write down her experiences from the meditation and if there are any actions she may need to take to move her forward in her life.

Meditation allows a person to relax and journaling directly after listening to a meditation CD is powerful because the insights you gained through your journey can be put onto paper immediately.

Free Flow Writing - We have also offered journal pages for the journal owner to write whatever she feels like without being guided. Some call this “intuitive writing” and others call it “free writing”. Free flow writing has one rule, and that is, there are no rules.

Free flow writing is you put pen to paper and write whatever comes into your head. If it is “I don’t know what to write”, then you write that and any thought or feeling, you write and you don’t stop. At first you may set yourself a time limit of 10 minutes and over time you may increase the time.

During this time you do not worry about punctuation, spelling, grammar, capitalisation, paragraph breaks etc. Do not worry if it doesn’t make sense, because you are writing purely for you. Free flow writing leads you places you never would have imagined. Allow your thoughts to flow and your pen will naturally move without you having to think about it.

Other techniques include:-

Qualities and Attributes - Write down the qualities and attributes you possess and then write down ones you wish you did. Identify one quality you demonstrate well and write about the how and the why, then identify on quality you wished you possessed, and write how you could demonstrate it in your life. You’ll be amazed what comes forward during the writing process.

This technique can be adapted to use words that describe how you are feeling in this moment and you can write about why you are feeling the way you do.

Dialog - Another technique is to dialog. Dialogs are imagined conversations between two or more people or higher beings. It could be a dialog between two parts of a person.

Dialoguing could involve writing a conversation between a present or past relationship, someone who is living or deceased. It could be about your role as a mother, sister, aunty or friend. Dialoguing could involve writing about an event or circumstance, traditions, cultural background, marriage, religion.

Dialoguing helps you move through any patterns, resistances or disagreements you may be having with yourself or with others. If you need to discuss a situation with someone, this technique can be powerful as it will allow you to form your thoughts so that you can say what needs to be said in a constructive and diplomatic way.

List Making - List making is a great way to help writers block. You could create a list of 100 things you are grateful for, or if 100 is a little daunting start with 25 or 50. Some examples are listing ways you could nurture yourself, how you can improve your life, what you wish for, places you would like to visit, things you value in life, ways to be more creative, ways to be more productive etc.

Once you have your list you can ask yourself questions to get the writing process flowing.

Overall journaling can be an effective tool of healing and self-empowerment for everyone. There are many more techniques beside the ones I’ve mentioned; however it is recommended that you find the techniques that suit you. Once you become confident in journaling, explore and experiment with other techniques.

Happy journaling!