Guest Post: Springtime Journaling Prompt Grab Bag by Mari L. McCarthy

Springtime Journaling Prompt Grab Bag
by Mari L. McCarthy


Last year on this blog I was given the honor of guest posting A May Basket of Journaling Prompts and I'm really pleased Sue has invited CreateWriteNow back for a 2012 version.

Whether you're in the northern hemisphere and celebrating springtime or enjoying fall if you're south of the Equator, now is a transitional time. That means it's a good opportunity to open up to new possibilities, and a great way to do that is to explore impulses through your journaling.

Here are a few of my latest prompts to help get you going. Remember that the prompt is only a starting point: if you end up on the other side of the universe from where you started, that's more than acceptable.

• Go to an outside journaling spot, contemplate the scenery around you for a while, and then write about where you are today--spiritually, psychologically, mentally, physically. What are you aware of, inside and out? Savor being who you are right now.

• Choose one very small symbol of the season – perhaps a blossom in spring, or a colored leaf in fall – and one large one, like spilling outdoors in spring or cuddling by the fire in fall – and write about each. Then write about how they relate to one another; do a compare and contrast essay.

• Change hands. Write today's journal entry with your non-dominant hand. Before you stop, write about writing this way!

• Take your journal (and no inner critics) to a full length mirror. Spend a few moments just observing and breathing. Then write down what you are aware of.

• Sit down, close your eyes, and ask the question, "What one word best describes who I am today?" When you hear your word, go have a conversation with your journal about it.

• Open your journal to a fresh page and write the date. Invite your inner kid over to play in your journal with you. Close your eyes and picture your inner kid. He or she may be your actual child self, or the imaginary friend you used to have. Then PLAY!

• Have some fun with your journal for a change. Change venues. Take your journal shopping, to work, to a museum or restaurant, take it on a hiking trip or a visit to your doctor. You can write just about anywhere!


I hope you enjoy these prompts, and I certainly welcome you to add your own in the comments. Or tell us about your experience while following one of the prompts suggested here.

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Mari L. McCarthy, journaling therapy specialist and author, owns Create Write Now, a website dedicated to all things journaling. The site includes hundreds of journaling prompts (here's a brand new free collection of 143 Juicy Journaling Prompts!), personal journaling stories, interviews, a blog, and many other resources. Mari publishes many ebooks and e-
workbooks to help journalers accomplish amazing things. She also conducts online Challenges, and you won't want to miss her upcoming Start Journaling and Change Your Life in 7 Days Challenge, June 4-10.

Author Guest Post/Giveaway - Dark Chocolate for the Journaler's Soul by Mari McCarthy (WOW)

Use Journaling to Get Motivated

Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/denverjeffrey/4094607471/



Winning a football game takes more than brute strength, brilliant strategy, and iron resolve; it also requires fans.

The cheers and adoration of fans provide an essential ingredient of success: motivation.

You know, the old get up and go. The force that's irrefutable. Without it we wouldn't get anything accomplished.

No matter what your plans and dreams, it can be brutally difficult to whip up the motivation to actually start something. We tend to wallow in inertia, procrastinating, unwilling to make any kind of change.

There's a definite breakdown between the thought of something and the doing of it. Once you do manage to get started, momentum keeps you going. It's the moment of actually beginning that is so hard. We so often come to the brink of action, and then find some excuse to put it off.

Much of the time, there may be deep-seated reasons why you're avoiding the project or behavior. But a small percent of your dreams persist, returning to tug at your heart. How can you finally get on board with aspirations that haunt you?

The answer is simple: come at your target tangentially.

• Instead of wanting to start an exercise routine and never doing it, create a journal in which you talk about your interest in exercising and all aspects of your perceptions around being physically fit.

• Instead of fantasizing about being a writer, use a journal to mosey around in your writer's soul.

• Instead of complaining about your job and sending out a million applications that are for the most part ignored, try journaling about who you are, what you are grateful for, and how you can best serve yourself and others.

Journaling about and around any topic that's sensitive for you opens up that area in your life and paves the way for change and growth.

Cheerleaders work hard to get us in the mood, so that the requisite level of fan enthusiasm can be achieved, so that the players can win the game. Similarly, journal writing focuses your mind and energies so that actual doing becomes far more possible. It's almost as though you trick yourself into getting started.

Maybe you want to write a YA novel, for instance, but never seem to find the time to get started. Then one day you find a cool notebook. You already have a clutch of your favorite kind of pen. At the top of the first page you write, "I don't know why I want to write a novel for young people." Then you keep writing.

A few weeks later, after you've written just about every day, relentlessly exploring the topic, you feel the urge to go back over some of your writings. Your progress/change readily becomes apparent. You thought you were spinning wheels, but you see that's untrue. You grow, evolve, and constantly change.

Change is not difficult; it is natural. It happens moment by moment.

Are you serious about that new habit, that new course of study or way of handling your responses in certain situations? Instead of browbeating yourself for procrastinating, try journaling.

And then, please tell me how you're progressing. I'm collecting success stories!
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Mari L. McCarthy, journaling therapy specialist and author, owns Create Write Now, a website dedicated to all things journaling. The site includes hundreds of journaling prompts, personal journaling stories, interviews, a blog, and many other resources. Mari has published nine books to date. For more on ways that journaling brings self-knowledge, see Who Are You? How to Use Journaling Therapy to Know and Grow Your Life.

Please leave a comment or questions on this post in appreciation of the author

Guest Blog/Giveaway - Peace of Mind and Body: 27 Days of Journaling by Mari McCarthy

A May Basket of Journaling Prompts

While your journaling probably enjoys a life of its own, the sentences flowing like a rushing river from your thoughts to the page. But now and then, you might feel an ambivalence, an indecision. Your pen might hesitate, poised to write but uncommitted.

In those cases, a journaling prompt will melt the paralysis. I have several collections of prompts of various kinds: on Facebook, my website, and in my ebooks – especially this one.

You can freely access any of those lists, but for now, here's a special sequence built just for Sue and readers here at Books Books …

1. Pick a song. Use some of its lyrics to start a new journal entry.

2. Make someone happy. Pick a person (it could even be yourself!) and write him/her a letter extolling their virtues and expressing your gratitude for what they bring to your world.

3. Look over the titles of your computer files – especially the word documents. When something catches your eye, use it to jumpstart your journal today.

4. Take a look at yourself in the mirror. What interests you? Take that curiosity to the page and write about those luscious lips, that special smile, those Bette Davis eyes.

5. Thank your Mother for her wit, wisdom, and whatevers.

6. He said, "I would do anything for love but I won't do that." What would (or wouldn't) you do for love? Write away!

7. Take a page from the news. Use an intriguing headline as the opening sentence in your Journal.

8. Get a picture of the scariest monster you can find. Let it inspire a story to tell to your Journal.

9. What's your favorite toy? Visit a toy department and see which item chooses you. Bring it home with you and introduce it to your journal.

Hope this little basket of posies entices you. Do you have a favorite prompt or two? Please share in the comments!

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Author Bio:By Mari L. McCarthy - The Journaling Therapy Specialist, founder of Journaling for the Health of It™. Please visit Mari's blog. In 27 Days of Journaling to Health and Happiness, Mari walks you through an easy process for accessing your natural inner strengths. Mari's latest publication is titled, Who Are You? How to Use Journaling Therapy to Know and Grow Your Life. See for details.