Writing Prompts to Jump-Start Your Inner DM
Sometimes, getting started journaling seems really daunting. Where does one even begin? You begin exactly where you are, my dear. Here are some prompts to use as jumper cables for your writing. Let’s go!
“Today, here is what I feel in my heart…” Keep writing until you’ve emptied out all of the things you are currently feeling.
“Today, here are ten things I like about myself…” If this is incredibly difficult to do, you still MUST do it. You must COMPLETE the list. When you complete it, please send it to me. I know how hard it is to write down what you actually value about yourself, and I’m proud/happy/excited to read what you wrote!
“Today, I am grateful for this very small thing that happened yesterday…” Let it be something slight but nice. Did you see some great flowers? Did someone from your past email to say hi? Appreciate a little thing. If you can’t think of something, your homework is to find one little thing to relish later today. Yes, I just assigned you homework. Deal with it.
“Dearest Journal, I have a question I have been mulling over in my brain and I thought you might have an answer…” Write down just the question today, and then tomorrow be prepared to be amazed when you can answer it more easily. Your “journal” (i.e., innermost self) might have answers you don’t.
“Here is what I want people to say about me when I’m not around…” How do you want to be known and perceived? This is a useful tool for uncovering the kind of person you are working toward being. What accomplishments would they laud? What characteristics would they love about you?
“If nothing else mattered—not money, not other people’s expectations, not kids, not jobs, nothing—my dream day would look like…” Be super specific! What do you DO in your dream day? Do you eat a chocolate croissant looking out over the Seine? Do you run a business where you’ve hired all of your friends and you sit at the head of a reclaimed-wood boardroom table? Visualize every aspect of that day because THAT is the day we are working toward. I wonder, are there little elements of it you can achieve now? Go get a croissant; tell them to add it to my tab.
“Today, I set an intention to act with…” Write out how you will carry yourself today. Do you want to work on focusing on one task at a time? Do you feel like you’ve been a little mean to your roommate lately (Why can’t she load the dishwasher correctly?! Is she trying to drive me crazy?!) and so you want to act with more affection (OMG STOP, Tara! Who cares about the dirty dishes! She’s your best friend; she deserves kindness, not you being so nitpicky!)? Check in with yourself throughout the day and see how it worked out.
“There is something I’ve ALWAYS wanted to deal with, but I haven’t for some reason. Here goes…” It’s amazing, but most of the time we actually know what we most need to tackle. We just need to commit to it.
If you find yourself writing, “I don’t have a boyfriend,” “I don’t have the job I want,” “I don’t have a flat stomach,” write instead about what you DO have. “I have awesome friends,” “I have a candle that makes me happy,” “I have money in the bank and food on my table.” It will make you feel better and reframe your perspective to notice what you do have. Every. Single. Time.
*1 I am fairly confident only three episodes ever aired. Do you have any idea how I might retrieve these?
*2 You’re going to notice that I call a whole hell of a lot of people my “best friend,” and for an enthusiastic, sentimental mush-ball like me, I absolutely believe I have multiple best friends. It’s more of a category to distinguish a deep, loving bond than it is about an individual. Once a “best friend,” always a “best friend,” even if I haven’t spoken to you in many years.
*3 In the most soothing, wise, and loving voice, the brilliant Tara Brach teaches self-compassion through guided meditations. In “The R-A-I-N of Self-Compassion” you Recognize, Allow, Investigate, and Nurture any challenging feelings. This is an incredible (easy to remember) tool for self-care and I highly recommend that you subscribe to her podcast. Her voice makes you feel like you just put on your favorite comfy sweater. Nothing bad can happen to you while you listen to Tara Brach.
When Life Hands You a Lemon, Stick a Pen in It and Turn It into a Bong
Nah, Don't Self-Medicate
JOURNALING WAS MY FIRST STEP toward self-care, but it would not have been effective without the help of another important decision. A decision I really, really did not want to make.
Now would be a great time to tell you that by the age of twenty-five, I was miserably, hopelessly, frustratingly dependent on weed. I had been using it since high school as a way to blunt, dull, and totally ignore both my childhood and the constant nervousness I felt swirling in my stomach and brain. Weed had put up a smoke screen that hid my problems from my awareness and made it possible for me to keep moving forward. That strategy had helped me survive, in a way. But weed had so effectively helped me to dissociate from my memories that eventually I dissociated from myself. It was hard to tell how I truly felt about anything.
One morning, a few months into my journaling practice, I sat at the micro-table in the kitchen-slash-study-slash-dining-room of my closet-like apartment, writing about my anxiety about not having the “right” job. I was a production assistant at the time, barely hanging on to the bottom rung of the entertainment ladder. I wasn’t bothered by the idea that I needed to work my way up; I knew I had to pay my dues. Instead, what made me so anxious was that I didn’t know what I was working my way up to. What ladder was I supposed to climb? What should be my dream job? What would be fulfilling? My friends all seemed further along than me, working in jobs that had foreseeable futures or studying in grad schools for careers that would set them down a predictable path. “If I don’t have it figured out by now, I never will,” I hopelessly scrawled. I had been in therapy for years, on and off for most of my life, but I couldn’t seem to make much progress in terms of my destructive behavior. When faced with anxiety, I had no power to stop myself from diving nose-first into a spiral of weed and doom.
Instinctively, I got out of my chair to grab my weed and smoke all my worries away. But I froze mid-movement, seized by a thought: If I smoked away this feeling, if I didn’t allow it to exist, if I didn’t wrestle with my anxiety, then I would never truly know myself. What was more terrifying: having to deal with my feelings or never getting to meet my true self?