Journal Prompts
First journal session - set the tone for your mini-retreat
Make simple lists of the following things - don’t think about it too much, just write down what comes to mind:
your fears
your gratitudes
your hopes
Based on these 3 lists, make 4 lists as follows:
what you want to reduce
what you want to eliminate
what you want to increase
what you want to add
You can also journal about your current thoughts, questions, and your intent for your mini-retreat.
Daily Writing - follow this pattern each day, for however many days you do your retreat (you can even continue this after your retreat has finished):
“Morning Pages” - this is based on Julia Cameron’s excellent book “The Artists’ Way”. Essentially, you write 3 pages stream-of-consciousness every morning, without judging what you write. It’s not meant to ever be read, it’s meant to clear the clutter out of your mind, so that you can get to the “good stuff” underneath all that clutter. Here’s a quick video where she explains the practice.
Choose a “guiding word” for your day. This might be something from your lists, or it might be something totally different. Write your word down. Decorate it, if you feel so inclined.
Post-meditation - any time you meditate during your retreat, take a few minutes afterwards to write. Just jot down whatever thoughts or feelings you have after meditating.
Evening - take a moment to write your end-of-day reflections. This is also a good place to intentionally direct your mind to something positive before going to sleep, or you could ask yourself a question and let your mind mull it over in your dreams.
End-of-Retreat journal session
On your final day, consider what your thoughts have been during the retreat. Have you had any insights? Ah-ha moments? Or even just a small idea or two of a change you could make in your life? Write about these. Create an action plan for moving these thoughts out into reality. Start small, give yourself simple steps. Start with something you can do tomorrow. Write this down.