5 Journaling Prompts To Help You Manage Your Emotions

Emotion RegulationBoundariesSelf Care
Written By Stephanie (Hayes) Barclay

One of the ways to manage any emotion is to find a healthy way to express it, and make sense of it. Research has shown that journaling helps you reduce stress, solve problems more effectively and even improves your physical health.

Journaling helps you manage your emotions by:

  • Helping you prioritize problems, fears, and concerns

  • Tracking difficulties day-to-day so that you can recognize triggers and learn ways to better manage them

  • Providing an opportunity for helpful and effective self-talk

  • Identifying unhelpful or ineffective thoughts and behaviours

  • Increasing your emotional awareness and emotional regulation skills

    How to start journaling:

    • Set aside time

      • It could be 5min in the morning, in your lunch break, or before you get ready for bed.

    • Write or draw whatever feels right

      • Don’t worry about ‘doing it right’, let your ideas flow freely and messily.

    • If possible, write in a place that is relaxing and soothing

    • Try following some prompts.

Journaling Prompts

1.    If you are feeling strong emotions

Prompts to manage emotions:

  • What emotions am I feeling?

  • What are these emotions telling me?

  • What happened before I felt a shift in my emotions?

  • What thoughts are influencing my emotions?  

  • What actions influenced my emotions?

  • Is this situation a distress to be tolerated or a problem to solve? And how?

  • What might these emotions be telling me about my boundaries?

2. If you are emotionally unsure, unclear, numb 

It could be because you are avoiding distress by suppressing your feelings.

Prompts to process feelings:

  • Which emotion(s) am I trying to avoid right now?

  • Why am I trying to hide from this emotion?

  • What does this emotion need from me?

  • What is preventing me from addressing this feeling?

3. If your inner critic is being too loud

If you are hard on yourself, even when others are supportive, it could be because of cognitive distortions or trauma experiences. Try journaling to improve your self-compassion.

Prompts for self-compassion:

  • What purpose is being hard on myself serving?

  • What would it take for me to be kinder to myself in this moment?

  • What would it sound like if I spoke to myself the way I would to a small child?

4. If you you’re going through a breakup, a big fight, or other significant loss.

Journaling can help process your feelings and heal.

Prompts for emotional healing:

  • What have I learned (about myself, others, relationships, life) from this relationship or loss?

  • What has this relationship taught me about what I do and do not want in a relationship?

  • What has this experience taught me about my values, desires and needs?

5. If you are having difficulty setting boundaries or are feeling emotionally insecure in a relationship.

Journaling can bring clarity to what needs and values your need to communicate in your relationships.

Prompts for setting boundaries in relationships:

-       What boundaries do I need to set in this relationship to feel safe and secure?

-       What are my needs in this relationship?

-       What do I need from the other person to have my needs met?

-       What do I need to communicate to the other person?

Journaling to Improve Your Emotion Regulation Skills

Journaling can also be a helpful tool for gaining perspective and increasing psychological flexibility.

Firstly, You can write about your experiences of different emotions, which can serve as an anchor to remind you that all emotions can, and will pass.

Secondly, describing your emotions, sensory experiences, and physical sensations in non-judgmental ways, can help make sense of the experiences, and increases your emotional awareness.

 Beth Jacobs provides two great exercises that do just that in her workbook “Writing for Emotional Balance: A Guided Journal to Help You Manage Overwhelming Emotions”.

Emotional Anchor

I remember a good feeling _______ [when]. I simply felt ______________ [describe the feeling in a few words]. I was __________________ [where], and I remember noticing _________________ [something sensory]. It was a time in my life when I was doing ________________ [an activity or a general description]. I’ll never forget ________________ [people, weather, environment, etc.] around me. I’ll never be right there again but I know I CAN feel that way again.

Emotion Descriptor

If this feeling was a colour, it would be _________________

If this feeling was weather, it would be ________________

If this feeling was a landscape, it would be _____________

If this feeling was music, it would sound like ________________

If this feeling was an object, it would be __________________

These exercises help to sharpen your awareness, so you can notice even the most subtle signs of a feeling. The earlier you can name an emotion, the sooner you can respond in a helpful way.

Sources:

Coelho, S., 2022. 12 Journal Prompts for Emotional Health and Awareness. [Online]
Available at: https://psychcentral.com/blog/journal-prompts-to-heal-emotions

Dibdin, E., 2022. The Mental Health Benefits of Journaling. [Online]
Available at: https://psychcentral.com/lib/the-health-benefits-of-journaling
[Accessed 19 April 2022].

Jacobs, B., 2005. Writing for Emotional Balance. 1 ed. s.l.:New Harbinger Publications.

Tartakovsky, M., 2012. 4 Journaling Exercises to Help You Manage Your Emotions. [Online]
Available at: https://psychcentral.com/blog/4-journaling-exercises-to-help-you-manage-your-emotions#1
[Accessed 19 April 2022].

Watson, L. R., Fraser, M. & Ballas, P., n.d. Journaling for Mental Health. [Online]
Available at: https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentID=4552&ContentTypeID=1
[Accessed 19 April 2022].

 

Stephanie (Hayes) Barclay
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