Bonus: Suggestions for Themed Journals

The Themed Journal is a powerful practice, especially for working on important topics or “sticky” problems in your life.

Here are a few suggestions of themes, with a few notes for each one. I hope this inspires you to try one of these themes for yourself and gives you a good sense of how to use the Themed Journal for any topic you choose, including ones not mentioned here.

People Pleaser Journal

People pleasing is a common struggle and the cause of a lot of suffering. If you have the tendency to put other’s needs ahead of your own, you often feel taken advantage of and perhaps you feel resentment build up in your relationships because they feel unequal, this is one for you.

Take the advantage to check in every day to bring awareness to moments where you fell into people pleasing patterns. What happened? How did it feel? How could you act differently and what fears does that bring up?

Self Abandonment Journal

Related to people pleasing is the tendency to abandon oneself. This can also take the form of putting others’ needs first all the time, but it can also happen without anyone else involved. For example, a numbness to your own needs, a tendency to put lots of pressure on yourself and not take self care seriously, or a tendency to be very harsh with yourself whenever you show any weakness.

If you have a fear of abandonment in relationships, it’s very likely that you have a habit of self abandonment - and you may not even be aware of it. Keeping a Themed Journal on the topic for a few weeks will be eye opening.

Inner Child Journal

If you encounter an inner child of yours which feels highly charged, consider starting a Themed Journal for it. For example: a journal for the 8 year old version of me who’s hurt and confused because he’s getting bullied in school and no one’s helping him.

Returning with consistency to this inner child of yours who experienced neglect can be deeply healing. Try writing letters to your inner child or use writing to initiate a dialogue.

Surrender Journal

This is one for the control freaks among us (speaking as a recovering control freak myself). If you’re a high performer, you’re highly reliable and you’re great at keeping things under control, you’re probably not so great at letting go and surrendering. And that may be the cause of more problems in your life than you realize.

Control is excellent when applied to areas of your life that are actually in your control (e.g. habits). And it’s potentially disastrous when applied to every other area of life (e.g. attempting to control other people).

Use a Themed Journal to reflect on: when are you mis-applying control? When are you causing tension and stress in your life where simply surrendering would be a much more appropriate response? How can you take baby steps towards more surrender?

Fasting Journal

Fasting is a great way to set processes in motion. And I’m not just talking about fasting in the sense of: not eating.

Whenever you remove something from your life, it will be challenging and confronting. Especially if it’s something you use to distract or soothe yourself such as:

• Social media
• Gaming, movies, shows
• Smoking, vaping, alcohol, caffeine…
• Pornography
• Sugar
• …

Remove one of these from your life and journal about what happens.

Courage & Cowardice Journal / Integrity Log

This one can be pretty confronting, but therein lies the value. What are moments in your day where you are being cowardly? When are you being dishonest (even if it’s tiny little white lies), when are you not staying true to yourself (even if it’s to avoid upsetting someone)?

What are moments in your day that made you feel bad and how would you have handled them if you had more courage?

Money Journal

Money is a charged topic for most people. A money journal is a chance to get to know your own relationship to money more closely. What fears do you have around money? When are you in denial or delusional about your finances? What about money makes you tense up?

Exploring this consistently for a few weeks will be revelatory!

Desire & Shame Journal

Perhaps the only topic even more charged than money is sex, intimacy and desire. What is your relationship to your own desire? Are you allowing yourself to feel desire, feel desired and experience pleasure? Or are you contracting at the mere mention and hiding most of this part of your life in the shadows of shame?

The scarier it is to think about, the more you’ll likely benefit from writing about it.

Reminder: One at a Time

Maybe you find many interesting themes as you look through this list. That’s great! But remember that you’ll gain far more by taking it slow. Have only one Themed Journal at any one time. Give your time and attention to one topic at a time instead of trying to rush and cover several at once.