Journaling Practices for Resilience

In this episode of the Soulfully You Podcast, Coach Chris Rodriguez shares six powerful journaling practices to help you stay grounded and resilient amidst life's challenges. 

• 00:00 Welcome to the Soulfully You Podcast
• 00:44 Dealing with Life's Curveballs
• 02:14 Journaling Practices Introduction
• 03:29 I Am Affirmations
• 05:20 Feelings Journaling
• 08:32 Fear Journaling
• 12:57 Gratitude and Joy Journaling
• 15:19 Brain Dumping and Free Writing
• 16:51 Energy Cup Self-Assessment
• 22:12 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

For all episodes and info about my coaching program, visit me at www.coachchrisrodriguez.com.

Connect on Instagram at @coach_chrisrodriguez and on TikTok at @coach_chrisrodriguez.

Transcript

Coach Chris: 0:05

Hey friend. Welcome to the Soulfully You Podcast with Coach Chris Rodriguez. I'm a movement and mindset coach, and I believe in a deeper way of living, a more soulful way of being. Join me each week for conversations about how to put a little more soul. Into our work, our relationships in our everyday lives. In your life, you probably plan for the outcomes you want. You've probably developed some routine, some healthy ways to keep you grounded. But how do you deal with the things that don't go the way you planned, the curve balls that throw you off your game and that hinder your routines? I think societally and globally, we've been through a lot. The COVID-19 pandemic was something that disrupted everybody and everything, constant news of genocides and harm being caused to folks around the world. And then there's the ones that happen in your personal life. Loss of a loved one, loss of a relationship, illness change. As I'm recording this episode, my son is now two years old, and people talk to you about all the things you know, the terrible twos, But nobody told me about the sickness and that basically from like Thanksgiving till summer, you're just constantly going back and forth in between the hospital and the doctor and just cycling around illness from baby to mama to papa, and back and forth. But then when we go to the doctor, they're like, yep, this is actually really normal. Or when I talk to folks who have older kids, they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, that's just the thing. That's just the season you're in. Needless to say that, Family health, family sickness has been really disruptive, uh, to my personal life. And that's on top of all of the things happening in the world. You might not have a child at home that's sick. You might not have anybody dealing with illness. Maybe you are just going through it in your own way or just kind of off your game, off your routine. Today's episode. It is gonna be short and sweet. I just wanna share with you some journaling practices that I've developed over the years. I teach 'em to my clients, I use 'em for myself, and these are things that I am coming back to in my own life, i's six of 'em. I'm gonna break 'em down, I talk you through the process, and I just want to give you some tools so that you can use and access whenever you feel like you need to come back to center. These are six different journal prompts. I'll list them all out for you, but what I want to invite you to do is one, use a notebook or piece of paper and a pen if you have that handy. If you don't try to use something that's not internet based. So I know, sometimes when you don't have a notebook, you might want to use the notes app in your phone and that's great. Maybe you have a tablet with a pen and you can go to a writing app that you don't have to log on the internet. To disconnect yourself from moments of doom scrolling and being distracted by what's going on outside of these prompts is really important. The next thing is, say you are listening to this on a run or a walk or. Driving. You can go through these prompts in your head All right. Here's my list of six journal prompts and then I'll break 'em all down. So the first one is I Am Affirmations. The second one is Feelings journaling. The third one is Fear journaling. The fourth one is gratitude or joy journaling. The fifth one is brain dumping. Slash free writing. And the last one, the sixth one, is a energy cup self-assessment. Alright, let's break 'em all down. I am affirmations. This is a powerful one and necessary because I've heard it said that. We are not human doings. We are human beings and it seems like the things that we try to find validation are the jobs that we hold, the skills that we have, who we're with the status, right? These are the things now society says, gives you your value and validation, but to be a human being is to be embodied. So I am, I don't just do this job, I am this right. So the I'M affirmations is any kind of positive. Affirmation that you want to embody. They can be superficial things or they can be deeper and more soulful things, right? I'm love, or I'm stylish, I'm cool. It's not selfish and nothing is too novel. If this is something that you want to actually embody and show up full and expressive in the world, right? So I make a list of one through five and I just write, I am blank. I am blank. And as I write my list, I try to find one that I can like really own and. Maybe even saying my head as a mantra as I'm going through the day, as my kind of core piece of what I want to embody. The second journal practice feelings journaling. All right. You hear me talk a lot about this, about, um, embodiment, about the need for knowing and expressing our emotions. And everything in society is, is designed to either make you avoid or just. Not feel your emotions, right? Social media can be numbing, substances can be numbing. Work can be numbing. Unhealthy relationships can be numbing in some ways, right? So there's three questions I ask for this one. What am I feeling? This is naming the emotions. Where do I feel in my body, our emotions. We always feel 'em somewhere. There was a study done, I forgot who did it, but basically they questioned all these participants and they had 'em list like, you know, these like eight. And 12 core emotions. When you feel sadness or when you feel shame, or when you feel joy, or when you feel fear, where do you feel it in your body and how does it feel? Is it hot or is it cold? And they put together this diagram from all these participants where literally you show like these, these mappings of the coldness that somebody feels in their lower part of their body, or the heat that somebody feels in their head when they're angry. Or the nothingness that somebody feels in times of shame. So a great book that talks a lot about this stuff is The Body Keeps a Score. I talk about it a lot, Bessel Vander Caulk, and. You know when you are nervous, you usually feel that in your belly, right? The butterflies in your belly, or heartbreak, it usually feels when there's loss or grief, it usually feels like heart ache, right? People die from grief, sudden heart attacks after losing someone they love, right? Tension, anger, clenched fist, clenched, jaw tension, headache in the head, right? So naming the emotion, I feel like, what am I feeling? All right. Alright. I feel that, where do I feel in my body? Okay. And then once we acknowledge that, we can ask ourself, how can we move it through our body? So how can we work with this emotion? There's no such thing as a bad emotion. What we do with those emotions is what helps us not just survive, but also thrive, right? So when I have that nervousness in my belly, can I offer myself a little belly massage? Um, when I have heartache, can I just touch, touch my heart? When there's tension in my fist, can I open my hands, shake out my hands, tension in my jaw? Can I move my jaw right? Can I massage my temples when I'm feeling that tension headache or that pressure, right? Um, I'm feeling avoidant in my body. Can I start shaking and bouncing and just move a little bit, get my my nervous system reset. Feelings. Journaling is a powerful way for you to come back to your body, but also in a way that you can be embodied with other people. Right? Next up, fear journaling. Okay. Fear journaling. Powerful practice. I've heard somebody say that fear usually involves us. Believing that something in the past is gonna happen to us again, or dreading or fearing for something that hasn't happened yet that could potentially happen in the future, but that both of these take us out of the present moment now. There's a lot of bad ideas about fear. Oh, fear's not real. And you know, oh yeah, fear, you know, you just gotta, you just gotta get over it. And all these, like, uh, I don't know, these wellness guru whatever people, um, like, yeah man, you just gotta get over fear and you just gotta do it. No, fear is real. We don't want to bypass fear. We want to acknowledge it. So fear journaling is a good way to acknowledge it. A lot of times what happens is when we feel fear, we let it circulate in our head. We let it circulate in our mind, we mull over it. Um, and then we don't really express it to anybody else, but we express it in a dagger to like back people off because we feel threatened. Right? So there's three questions that I have for fear journaling. I list them all out one through five. So the first question is, what am I dreading today? I. All right. That today part is super important, um, because you're dealing with the reality of right now. So I'm dreading this difficult conversation. I'm dreading this proposal. I'm dreading this presentation. I'm dreading my commute, right when we write that down. It holds us accountable, and it helps us to go from this mulling in our head and let it circle in our head by ourselves to us being able to like literally objectively see it in front of us. Oh, I can see this thing that I'm dreading right from there, the next question is, what is the worst possible case scenario? So based off of these things, I'm dreading what's the worst possible case scenario? A lot of times the the very worst possible case scenario. Involves like, man, I'm gonna get fired, someone's gonna die, someone's gonna hurt me. Uh, somebody is going to leave me. Like these are, these end up being like the worst case scenarios. But the thing about a worst case scenario is though it's possible, it's not probable that your worst case scenario is gonna happen. So. Again, we write those down on paper. It's like, oh, okay. Now I can see this objectively, like, yeah, well, you know, my wife's probably not gonna leave me, right? My boss isn't gonna fire me. I might not get this proposal, but you know, it's not the end of the world. Right? From there, the last question is, what is the truth? So based off these fears, based off of these worst case scenarios, what do I know to be true in this present moment? Yeah. And a lot of times what I know to be true is it's not the end of the world. Um, what tends to be true is, yeah, I've been here before. I've done this before. I've learned new things before. I've done hard things before. Here's a bonus question for this one. Sometimes one of the ways that we can work through fear is through making a plan. So I add a fourth question, what is one thing that I can do? Today to mitigate this fear. And a lot of times that mitigation involves preparation of some kind. So if it's a hard conversation, all right, let me work this out in my head. If it's a presentation, all right, let me practice, let me rehearse it. If it's a proposal, okay, let me like look through this. Let me, let me rehearse so that I can have confidence. Athletes understand this specifically. Athletes who shoot free throws and basketball or uh, baseball players who have to get at bat, right? They practice so hard and then they get into the stadium, they get into the arena, and the crowd is heckling 'em, and it's like all the things that they practice. They know how to hit balls. They know how to hit every kind of ball. They know how to shoot nonstop. But it's a different kind of pressure when the crowd is there and you're in the arena. So muscle memory is the way that good athletes become great athletes, and muscle memory and the things that we fear, the things that we dread is what's gonna help us not crack under pressure. Right. All right. A few more. So gratitude or joy journaling. I interchange these two. And why is this important? Okay, so the way that humans have evolved is it is easier to recognize threats, to recognize negative things because it is our survival mechanism, like your brain is wired to acknowledge. The patterns that are like, okay, well, well, you know how animals, they, they notice like, well, what's that thing moving out there? Like we, we emotionally have that thing inside of us as humans, right? It's like, ah, man, well, you know, that waiting for the second shoe to fall like that, that thing is a way that we cope and survive. Right? It is not advantageous. For like primal survival to acknowledge, oh, this thing makes me happy. This thing makes me feel good. Oh, I'm grateful for this. No, it's advantageous to, again, to the primal part of us to say like, alright, how can I survive? So we have to fight to acknowledge the things we're grateful for and the things that bring us joy. We have to make it a practice because though, you know from a primal. Um, just like survival perspective, that's not advantageous to us through like a fulfillment and like life and longevity and wholeness perspective. Practicing gratitude, practicing joy is a powerful way for us to grow. So I make my list one through five and I interchange either what am I grateful for or no, no, not what am I grateful for. I am, I take, I make it a I am statement. So I am grateful for, or I have joy because of, or I have joy when I'm with, I have joy when I think about. I have joy when I go to blank, right? And I make this list. So if there's somebody that is attached to your joy, if there's a place that's attached to your joy, if there's someone you're grateful for, if there's a thing you're grateful for, make a plan to spend time with that person. Spend time doing that activity. Spend time in that place, right? Use your calendar, make a plan. All right, our next prompt. Brain dumping or free writing. All right. This one is super important for me because I am somewhat of a perfectionist. I mu through things in my head and it can make me freeze when I am in relationships. I want to say the right thing the first time when I'm in conflict, like my wife will tell you like, I can sit silent for like 30 minutes an hour and not say nothing because I'm just working through, like, I don't wanna say the wrong thing, right? I don't wanna cause more conflict, even though it causes conflict, but. The beautiful thing about brain dumping and free writing is it takes the self editor out, right? So I, I like to set a timer, two minutes, five minutes, or 10 minutes, and I don't let my pen stop for that time. So even when I don't have anything else to say, sometimes I'll just write, blah, blah, blah, or la la, la, yada, yada, yada. And then let the words flow again, since I'm a creative, um. Sometimes it comes out in the form of like a poem, um, or a meditation or a affirmation. Sometimes it's just processing content that I'm gonna share with somebody, like a podcast or, you know, uh, a course or something. Brain dumping is also good if you have to do a creative process. Or you have to produce something and you're stuck, right? Get all your ideas out on paper. If you have to put together a to-do list, you can brain dump that to-do list, right, and then organize it later. All right, and the last prompt. Energy cup assessment. So you can't see my notebook, but this is something I actually make a little drawing and I split it up into some lists. So I make two columns. One column is the things that drain me, so I put energy drain. The other column are the things that fill my cup, and I make it a one through 10 list on each side. Now. I have a episode on boundaries. I teach a course on boundaries, and this is kind of my framework that I use for setting healthy boundaries, right? There are things in your life that drain you and there are things in your life that fill your cup. Now, some of those can be relationships, responsibilities, roles, places, and activities. Okay. Some of those are necessary, right? And that can be on the things that drain you list, that can be on the things that fill your cup list, right? So writing an email to your manager, it might drain you, but if you don't write that email, you might get fired, right? It drains you, but it's necessary, right? Taking care of my sick son, it drains me. But I love my son. I need him to get healthy, so we are gonna take care of him. Right. It's okay. We, we still put it on the list. We want to acknowledge it. If it's a person, I want you to write their name down. Right? You need to know both on the drain side and both on the fill side. Right? We want to give things names. We, we want to give people names. We, we gotta name the stuff as a practice of honesty, right? And hopefully nobody's reading your journal, right? But, so I make this list, I give myself a timer and I try to bullet point these things, right? One word, all right. The beach fills my cup, right? Um, watching movies with my wife fills my cup, right? Like Marvel fills my cup, whatever. We try to make it short and sweet. Get that list. All right. And then the next thing I do is I draw the cylinder. And I learned this from my therapist. So years ago I was in, um, I was in therapy and my therapist drew this cylinder on the, on his board. And he was like, Hey, like, let's check in where your energy is, what's your energy cup? And he drew a little tally mark, um, or a little dash for full and halfway and empty. And he had, he just checked in, where are you at today? Where's your energy at today? And, and then he just filled in the cup where, wherever I sat. And I've used that practice ever since. But I realized that it didn't quite capture the fullness of, um, of the experience that I have and that so many people have. So I do that same cylinder, have the full half full empty. But then I make a dash above the cylinder and it says, overflowing. And I have a dash below the cylinder that says burnout or, uh, leaking. Right? And these are important because an overflowing cup is a useless cup, right? You want to have a cup that you can hold and, and it doesn't spill, right? So if your cup is overflowing, that means you have more than enough, right? If you have too much money, too much finance, there's too much resource, and you just hoard it for yourself, it's, it's selfish, it's useless. There's people that can benefit from your generosity. And the same thing. Is with our emotions and, and our energy and our resources internally. There's somebody in your life that needs your joy when you are feeling resourced. And most of us don't feel overflowing all the time, but there's times when we got a little bit more in our cup than others in our life, and we feel equipped that we can pour out into them. Right? Likewise, uh. Leaking or a burnt out cup, right? A cup with a hole in it is useless, right? If your cup is just leaking, cracked, burned out, that's when you gotta go to therapy. That's when you gotta go on a vacation. Take some PTO, um, take a personal day and. I acknowledge and understand that everybody doesn't have the luxury to do that all the time, and, and a lot of times that's how we get where we are, but making a plan that, all right, well, I can't go on a vacation next week, but you know, I think I need to take a day to just not deal with these work responsibilities because our bodies have a way of saying like, all right. If you ain't gonna shut it down, I will. Right? Um, in the form of sickness, fatigue, all those things. So we wanna make a plan, um, to, to mitigate that burnout. All right? So we have our list of the things that fill our cup, things that drain us. And rather than focus on the things that drain us, we want to focus on the things that fill our cup. So after we made our list, we ask ourself, what can I add? To my calendar from my list of things that fill my cup this week. And the goal is not to just get my cup like overflowing. The goal is to just fill my cup a little more than it was, right? So, um, this relationship with this person fills my cup. So I'm gonna, on my calendar, I'm gonna schedule some time to either call them, spend time with them, um, connect with them in some way. Or going to this place fills my cup. All right. I'm gonna look at the, I'm gonna look at my calendar. I'm gonna look at the weather. What day can I go to the beach? That is going to be a beautiful day, right? And we make a plan to room out the things that drain us by adding the things that fill our cup. Now with all these prompts, if you have the time, you can do 'em all, all six of 'em. If not, just pick out the pieces that work for you. Uh, a good time to do it is first thing in the morning. If that ain't something that you have, do it on a break. Take a moment throughout your day, but take some time. To do some self exploration, do some investigation, and figure out the things that are going to help you to be the best version of you that are gonna help you be present and that are going to keep your cup full. I hope this was helpful. Thank you for listening to the Soulfully You Podcast with Coach Chris Rodriguez. If you like the show, help others find me by subscribing and leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. And don't forget to connect with me on Instagram at Coach underscore Chris Rodriguez. For more episodes along with all of my coaching programs, visit me@www.coach chris rodriguez.com. Special thanks to my team behind the scenes music by Dan Smith. And remember, whatever you do, wherever you find yourself today, make sure you put some soul in it.