Hi everyone.
Welcome back to Lavendaire.
A couple weeks ago I made a video
sharing my journal collection, and I got a lot of questions like, "How do I journal?"
or "What do I journal about?"
Today I wanted to share different ideas on different ways
you can journal.
And also: I created this PDF list that you can download and print out,
with 30 questions for self discovery.
These are essentially 30 journaling prompts
you can use to guide yourself along in your journaling to help you find yourself
and discover yourself a little more.
And I think a lot of journaling is asking the right questions,
asking quality questions, so then you can respond and flow out what is really inside
you.
Before I begin, I have to say that there are no rules to journaling.
You can really do it
however you want.
It's so open to any creative possibility.
It's really just a relationship
between you, a pen, and paper.
So for me, journaling is a way for me to spill my thoughts,
kind of capture my thoughts and see what it is on paper, and also a way to organize my
thoughts.
I'll start with morning pages.
Morning pages is something that I've shared so many times
on my channel before, but what it is: it's three pages of stream of consciousness writing
in the morning.
I use a composition notebook.
I'll do three pages like 1, 2, 3.
And I don't always write three pages.
I don't always write every morning either,
but it's just a system that helps you brain dump in the morning.
Stream of consciousness just means that you just flow from your thoughts onto paper.
You don't analyze what you're writing.
You just flow.
It doesn't have to make sense.
It doesn't have to be complete sentences.
You just literally don't filter yourself and just go.
That's my favorite way to write: just flow.
And that's what I've gotten used to,
just flowing, flowing, flowing, not really making it look perfect or try to make sense.
Morning pages comes from a book called "The Artist's Way", and if you're interested,
definitely read that book.
But for me, I don't necessarily write every morning anymore
and I don't always do three pages.
Sometimes I do one or two, sometimes I even do more.
It really just depends on how I feel.
But I like to consistently write stream of consciousness,
whether it's morning, evening, or night, just all the time.
At least like a few times a week,
I have to just brain dump.
Outside of morning pages, I also like to journal in the evenings before I go to bed.
This is because I always have a lot on my mind and I like to get the thoughts out
before I go to sleep, otherwise I might not be able to fall asleep.
If I'm feeling
emotionally stirred up inside, whether it's in a good way or a bad way or whatever,
I like to just put that down on paper so that I can get it out of my system in a sense.
And also, if I'm confused or if I feel stuck or lost, that's when I like to journal as
well
because I feel like I work through my problems through journaling.
Usually I start with asking myself: how do I feel at the moment?
Or something will be
on my mind that will come out.
So a lot of this journaling is just assessing my mind,
assessing my life, evaluating what I'm going through, and even spending time dreaming,
envisioning what I want in the future.
I'll also journal things that I'm grateful for,
things that I appreciate in my life right now, what's going right in my life.
My goal when I journal is just to be as honest and authentic as possible.
I try not to filter anything, but at the same time I always do try to see a positive side
to things.
So if I ever start off journaling in a bad mood or if I'm sad about something or mad,
whatever,
I'll go through it.
I'll face it.
I'll be honest about it.
And then at the end, I'll be like,
"What's on the brighter side?
What's the positive?
What am I grateful for out of the situation?"
So I always try to shine that positivity on whatever I'm going through because I realize
that
yes, I want to be honest and authentic when I'm journaling, but–I don't know
if you've ever heard–thoughts become things.
So your thoughts become your words
and your words become your actions.
I realize the power that thoughts and words
have on shaping your reality, shaping your perception.
So I always keep that in mind.
I never let myself spiral into negativity because that is also possible as well.
Always understand that, you know, your thoughts are powerful.
Be honest with yourself,
write down what you feel.
But also: always try to keep love and light at the center of everything.
Another way to journal that's been really effective for me in the past is to write a
letter to someone.
And this is a letter that you do not expect them to read.
You're not going to send this letter.
This letter is for yourself.
So if you've ever had a grudge against someone,
if you've ever felt mad at someone, or if someone's ever hurt you really badly,
it's so, so effective to write a letter of forgiveness to that person.
So I know some of you
might be like, "Ugh, I don't want to forgive them.
Why do I have to be nice?"
But honestly, forgiveness is so key to being happy because when you've been hurt
or if you're angry with someone, whatever, that's some negative–what's that word–
negative baggage and burdens that you're holding in your heart.
So if you can be able
to let that go and forgive that person (even if they don't deserve to be forgiven),
forgive them anyway because it makes you feel better.
Try writing a letter to that person,
a letter of forgiveness.
That's something I've done maybe a couple times in the past,
and it's really emotional.
Trust me.
Try it and hopefully that can help you work through
that pain and be able to heal and learn to forgive.
Another way I like to journal is to just organize my thoughts on paper because in here,
my thoughts are so messy.
I can't really tell what's in there.
So putting it out on paper,
organizing, planning my career, planning my goals, planning songs to write,
planning my branding for my YouTube and my website, everything that I want to plan,
everything that I want to do, I have to physically write it down and organize it
visually in some way.
There are so many different ways you can visualize, maybe with graphs,
bullet points, diagrams.
For example: this is a notebook I forgot to show
in my journaling collection video.
But in here, I just have a lot of business ideas,
designs for an app that I wanted to build.
This is a mindmap of everything
I wanted to include in Lavendaire, kind of all the moving parts of an online business.
It's really helpful for me to put all these ideas and organize them on paper,
otherwise I just don't recognize them in my head.
Another fun way is to scrapbook as you journal, just journaling your life
and adding kind of mementos from whatever's going on, whether you go to a concert,
you keep a ticket stub and tape it into your journal.
Or someone wrote you a letter
that you really like and you keep that in your journal.
I think that's a really great way
to capture your memories, especially if you're traveling or you're going through
a very interesting time in your life, who knows.
This is the journal I kept when I was studying abroad in Italy.
But nowadays,
I don't really journal like this anymore.
I think it takes a little bit more effort.
The way that I capture and record my memories is I do it digitally through my phone.
I use an app called Day One where every day I'll write a post just summarizing key things
I did that day because I have such bad memory.
I will forget what I did yesterday,
if I don't write it down.
With those daily entries, I'll also upload a couple photos I took that day.
So it's a really nice way to visually look back on my life and see a photo a day.
That's how I record my memories now and with my journals,
that's kind of just how I access my mind, whatever's going on up there.
So if you ever feel lost or stuck or you don't know what to journal about,
maybe you're uninspired, I've created a list of thirty questions you can ask yourself,
thirty questions to help you dig deeper and get to know yourself on a deeper level.
And these are essentially journaling prompts that, when you don't know what to write about,
you can look at a question and be like, "Okay, let me answer this question,"
because like I said, it's all about the quality of your questions, the quality of what
you ask yourself, and then you'll get quality answers.
I made two versions of this, depending on what you prefer.
There's a PDF you can download
and print out, and then there's a graphic that's on my blog that you can save and pin
on Pinterest.
So everything is down below.
By the way, I'm trying to level up my Pinterest,
so it'd mean a lot to me if you could just follow my Pinterest or check out this graphic.
If you like it, then just pin it so you can share the love.
So yeah, I hope this PDF and these journaling prompts can help you in your journey
to get clear about yourself, what you want, where you're going, and all that good stuff.
Let me know what you think, let me know if you have other questions or other resources
or ideas that you are interested in.
I'd love to help you in whatever way that I can.
Alright, thank you so much for watching.
Love you all, and I'll see you next time.
Bye!