Journal Prompt: Releasing Sadness through Storytelling

I read a story the other day about a woman who’d had a terrible experience and was struggling to work past it. She said she read a story about trading memories for butterflies and although this was simply a metaphor, it intrigued me enough to do a little digging and figure out what she was talking about.  I found the story and wanted to share it with you to see if it resonated with you in any way.  Here’s the story if you want to read the whole thing.

“I will trade you one terrible memory for a memory I have of a young pine tree covered in butterflies.

A hundred monarchs resting on their long flight have lit here, on these green needles.  You reach out.  The tired creatures crawl onto your arms, wings slowly parting and closing, parting and closing, as they breathe.  They rest, covering you in magic.  You spin in the sunlight, laughing.  You are very small, and they glow like candles behind colored glass.

I will trade you one awful, inescapable thing for this one golden moment in time, this moment of honeycomb light and a warm autumn day tapering to endless evening.

Look, you have made the trade.  You can take your memory back anytime, but you do not need to bear it always.  Now I will hold it for you so that for a while it can be smaller and further away.

Look at the butterflies.”

After reading this, is there a memory that comes up for you that you’d want to trade for butterflies?  Is there someone in your life who you wish you could take an awful memory from them and replace it with butterflies?  How did this story play out in your feelings and what did it make you think about?

Journal Prompt: Using Mindfulness to Create Self Love

This journal prompt is also a mindfulness practice that I’ve done many times over the years with people and in general it’s a good one to practice, especially this time of year when we might be feeling a bit chaotic and saturated with all of our responsibilities.  It’s called Kind Thoughts.  The goal is to try and do this practice maybe 2-3 times during the week and then journal about your experience.  If you want to journal before trying it and then again afterwards, that’s a great idea too.  Do whatever works for you.

Sit on the floor or a chair in a comfortable position and close your eyes.  Pretend in your mind that someone you care about very much walks into the room and sits right next to you.  Notice what it feels like to sit with this person and how they make you feel.  Let's send this person some good wishes and kind thoughts.  Let's send them happiness, health, safety, and kindness.  How does it feel to send these wishes to this person?  Was it easy to do or hard to do?  

Now let's imagine in our mind that someone who we find a little bit annoying or frustrating walks into the room and sits next to you. Notice what it feels like to sit with this person and how they make you feel.  Let's send this person some good wishes and kind thoughts.  Let's send them happiness, health, safety, and kindness.  How does it feel to send these wishes to this person?  Was it easy to do or hard to do?  Was it different when it was someone we didn’t feel as positively about?

Now let's imagine in our mind that we are sitting in front of a mirror.  Imagine opening your eyes and looking at yourself in the mirror.  Notice what it feels like to sit with yourself and how you feel about yourself.  Let's send ourselves some good wishes and kind thoughts.  Let’s send happiness, health, safety, and kindness.  How does it feel to send these wishes to ourselves?  Was it easy or hard to do?  Was it different than when it was to someone else?  

Notice how you feel after sending all these wishes out and take a few deep breaths and then gently open your eyes.  

May you be happy.

May you be healthy.

May you be peaceful.

May you be safe.

Journal Prompt: Making Changes and Taking Risks

Risk can be doing something scary in a controlled level of danger, such as riding roller coasters or watching scary movies that are sure to induce nightmares.  But I want you to focus more on the concept of risk as it pertains to change. Specifically a change we have to do, for whatever reason. Making a change in our life, whether it’s a job, moving to a new home, starting or ending a relationship, reaching out to someone in a new way, or speaking up for ourselves in ways that are new to us, is all a risk.  Even being in therapy can be a risk, you have no idea what types of Jedi mind tricks I might try to pull (spoiler alert, absolutely none, I’m pretty up front about my therapeutic ways). 

So I want you to focus on one thing in your life right now that you’ve been considering changing and pretend for a minute you already made the change, you’ve already taken the risk.  You already gave your boss that two weeks notice, or you told your roommate that you’re moving out.  Maybe you’re taking a pay cut for a job that allows you more freedom or you’ve decided to break up a friendship that became more draining than content.  Whatever it is, pretend you’ve already done the hard part and had the conversation. What does your life look like now?  What is different in your life?  What is better or worse, or are things about the same just changed in a new direction? Take notice of how your mind feels in this “new” space, can you notice a change in the tension in your body?  You may actually feel more tense as you adjust to this new experience, or maybe you find yourself feeling less tense as you’ve lost something that was holding you back. 

Now look back on the past year and any changes you made. Can you see some examples when outcomes were varied or maybe didn’t end up the way you would have wanted them to when you made choices?  Did your choices fully reflect who you are or were they made in a reactionary way rather than a deliberate way? Looking back, was the change you made worth it and will you make the same choice if faced with the same situation again? Can you see the stops you took to make the change and how it played out for you? Now, take a few moments to really experience what it would be like to make the next change you are thinking of for this year.  Keep that feeling in your brain, in an accessible place, whenever you start to doubt yourself or talk yourself out of making the change.