Journal Topics

Feel free to post any journal topics you can find or make up your own, they can be fun, serious, short, long, anything really. I usually start my journal off with an entry just on how I'm feeling what's going on in my life etc, now I'm adding a second part with/after each entry which will be for a specific journal topic.

Here's a simple one I'm going to start off with "What do you associate with Spring? Autumn? Winter? Summer?"

I learned about a kind of therapy called narrative where you first describe your problem narrative and then you start to explore your preferred or alternative narrative. It seems like a cool idea.

That problem narrative/preferred narrative sounds interesting -- do you have any links to more info on that?

I think you want me to think up another idea for a journal entry - it would also be cool to follow the idea for the entry....so I'd tell what I associated the different seasons with.

If you could only have 5 books, what would they be and why?

Just look up Narrative Therapy. It was started by Michael White. There is some jargon stuff associated with but if you look past that, it is actually pretty cool. The idea is that people have a whole range of events and stuff in their lives, but they draw a line (make a narrative) that only connects certain things and then anything that happens is forced into that pattern. To make an alternative narrative is to connect the dots differently and be open to experiencing things differently. Plus it uses a lot of hopeful, imaginative, creative qualities to help people build a life they really would enjoy and start seeing it as possible.

I like the seasons idea. Related to that I like to do creative writing by asking what kind of weather do I feel like.

My 5 books would start with Dante's whole Divine Comedy. I'd include a Japanese poet, like Basho, who wrote a beautiful travel journal. I'd have to have some sort of book about turtles or the ocean with pictures. Perhaps Thoreau's writing, mainly Walden but other pieces too. And either poetry by Rumi or Neruda, something deep and meaningful.

Will you write some alternative narrative, so I can get a better feel for it?

I love Pablo Neruda too. Have you ever heard the soundtrack to The Postman (Il Postino)? The whole soundtrack is his poetry recited by different famous people, accompanied by music. It's very beautiful.

Let's say we start with what they call a "problem saturated narrative" that includes stuff like "no one understands me," "I'm afraid of rejection," "I'm not lovable," and "I'm never going to find anyone." So that narrative strings together all the events that prove that this is true regardless of context or accuracy.

To make an alternative and preferred narrative, you start by "deconstructing" the problem narrative with lots of questions. Like, "was there ever a time when someone did understand and accept you? who was that person? how did it feel to have that person respond to you that way? what would it be like if that person had be a major figure in your life? how would you be different? what in particular would you do differently? etc. And challenge each thing until a whole set of exceptions and possibilities emerge. Then shape that and strengthen it and that becomes the alternative narrative. Does that help?

This is the one I did today, "Write one characteristic or habit about yourself that you like and describe it."

I like fiction so sometimes I write a little story and then become the story, do whatever the heroine did, etc. :-) That works well for wanting to do some chores or exercise, meet people, etc. I just write that my character joined a reading group and what it was like or they went for a walk in a specific park, that sort of thing. I like putting odd little things into my day. For instance, I count rabbits in summer when I am driving the mile through my development to get to my house after I've been out in the evening. The most I've ever seen is 5 but this summer, there weren't any!

For narrative, you can pretend you are a therapist writing up your case history How to Write a Psychology Case Study and then you can continue with what you would advise such a person you had read about? A little like we do here helping each other after we've told our lstories/problems and then everyone comments.

I like to juxtapose things. So, today it occurred to me that instead of setting goals and then rewarding myself for achieving them (hard for me because I tend to reward whenever I feel like it:-) I decided I should set rewards that get things done for me.

I usually buy a lot of books each month but I'd like to spend that money for something else the rest of this year so I had to figure out how to curb that book buying. So, I decided I can buy one book a week, every Tuesday, LOL. Now I look forward to Tuesdays! It's exciting to wait and figure out what to spend my Tuesday book buying on, I haven't bought a book this week yet because I haven't found one that I think I would like that much?

Today I decided I would love to sleep in clean sheets every 1st and 3rd Friday of the month (so have to change my bed, obviously, to do that). But taking a problem and flipping it, making it a feature and strong point of your life instead of a problem you want to get rid of, that's fun for me to see if I can do.

Just came up with this one:

Come up with a list of 3 goals that you would like to reach, describe how you will meet them, things that may keep you from achieving them, and the reasons why you want to accomplish this.

If you had only one month to live, what would you do?

Gratitude, there have been studies that have proven coming up with three things to be grateful for over a 30 day period can dramatically improve your level of happiness in life. Try doing the three (different every day = 90 things) things to be grateful for the first thrirty days then reduce it to one new thing every day.

thru the mental health center i got a lot on journaling and some of it fun, just started withone i found on facebook and bought and downloaded it and started sept 1 and 1st day was A for awareness well thatis far as i got for i mess up pc and the awarness still comes and it did trigger my ptsd. but will get back to it for it was for 27 days and support on facebook but somewhat beind.

Write down a quote that means a lot to you and explain what it means to you.

What keeps you up at night worrying? Are your worries realistic? Is there anything you can do about them?

Taken from the Question of The Month forum:

If you could talk to your past self for 5 minutes, what would you say?

Here's a fun one:

Describe your dream house

What is a book, movie, song, or television program that has influenced you, and how?

What are your hobbies and why do you enjoy them?

Perna,

What a fun idea! Thanks for that.

I had not tried the Narrative method, and I like the case study idea you had.

But I actively journal and always looking for different things I can do with it.
Musica91

Does any one have any journal topics they'd like to add?

I haven't been keeping up with journal topics, just been journaling but here's another one I thought of:

What was your dream job as a child? What is it now?

Journal topic idea:

Think of someone alive or deceased you admire and what is about their way of approaching life that is appealing to you.