#14 my daily prompts

“This pouring thoughts out on paper has relieved me. I feel better and full of confidence and resolution.”― Diet Eman, Things We Couldn’t Say

Hello my lovelies,

Following on from a previous week, I thought I would share some daily prompts I always use. Whilst they are readily available on the internet, there’s so many templates it can feel overwhelming. Let’s begin….

What went well?

This is classic positive psychology. Using this prompt allows for you to find hope, resilience and overall better wellbeing each day in knowing something pleasurable did happen. This technique enhances reflection, engages parts of the brain for neuroplasticity (changing the way the brain works and therefore the mind) and shows that the are small treasures amongst the trash, lotus flowers within the mud.

You can write a list, make a poem, draw the good or even talk to someone or yourself about what happened, what went well for you. Remind yourself on how it felt. This kind of reflection exercise is best done at night or early evening.

Brain dump

There are so many ways a brain dump can help. It acts as an offload of everything from that day or week. It can be personalised to your needs and can be as long, short, detailed or brief as you like. I do general thoughts on the day and let it all out, the pleasures and the pains. I then write three things I’m grateful for, I always find a joy, and its more positive psychology to boost mood, I place in the obstacles I faced and how I sat with them, explored them, and eased them. Then finally thoughts on tomorrow. There is a technique known as worry time where you set a specific time each day to write you worries, I do this as part of my brain dump as well as plan the next day, what I hope will happen and basically more rambles, this is also best done at night though a form of morning pages can also be good, it’s very flexible. If you need in the moment help to process things then this can also work really well. Let it out!

Thoughts, feelings, sensations, behaviour, plan

I can’t think of a catchy title for this. In essence it a form of CBT technique I learned in therapy. I break down all my experiences to make sense of what is going on presently. It allows you to recognise and label and acknowledge what’s you’re going through. Then you can make a plan to ease, soothe, distract and act in a way of wise mind (DBT) where you’re seeing your feelings and understanding the rationale but find that balance to change things. It can be used anywhere and any time. The gist is, write your thoughts, like a brain dump, with the situation, notice bodily sensations, feelings and moods and how you want to behave, if that is not in your best interests, look at how you can change that behaviour.