In my last post, I expressed my hope of putting two ideas together—the idea that smart, creative, sensitive individuals are confronted by special challenges and the idea that journaling is a valuable self-help tool—into a set of journaling prompts designed to lead you on a personal journey of discovery.
I hope that you enjoyed those prompts. Here are five more challenges, and four journal prompts to go with each challenge. Engaging with any one of them may well serve you. I hope you find these valuable!
- There is a natural connection between intelligence and sadness. If you have a mind that refuses to accept easy answers to hard questions and that sees through much of conventional wisdom and the blandishments of a consumer society, isn’t some sadness bound to follow?
+ Is sadness a chronic issue for you? If so, what do you see as its sources?
+ How does that sadness manifest? As fatigue? Lack of motivation? Weepiness? In some idiosyncratic way?
+ How might you use your native intelligence and your creative nature to help you dispel or disperse that sadness?
+ Try your hand at the following prompt: “I think that I could maybe lift my sadness by … ”
2. There is likewise a natural connection between intelligence and addiction. When you have a mind that wants to “grab,” that grabbing may involve ideas … or it may involve cravings. It is one thing to obsess about a problem in physics and another thing to obsess about alcohol …
+ What do you see as the connection, if any, between intelligence and addiction?
+ What do you see as the connection, if any, between a creative nature and addictive tendencies?
+ What do you see as the connection, if any, between a sensitive nature and addictive tendencies?
+ Is addiction a challenge for you? If it is, how might you handle it or handle it better?
3. A smart, sensitive, creative person tends to love and cherish her solitude. But significant side consequences to that natural desire are isolation, loneliness, and alienation.
+ Does your natural desire for solitude bring with it too much isolation and loneliness?
+ Are you feeling alienated from your fellow human beings? Would you like to feel more connected, or are you fine as you are?
+ When you find yourself alone, do you feel lonely? Never, a bit of the time, or a lot of the time?
+ What do you love most about your solitude?
4. Smart people can find themselves disappointed and troubled by the realities of process. This might sound like, “If I’m so smart, why can’t I figure this out?” Why can’t you figure it out? Because the solution hasn’t come to you yet …
+ Do you leave creative or intellectual projects incomplete because you find the realities of process, like ideas morphing and motivation flagging, too taxing?
+ Are you comfortable with the idea that a lot of your ideas and creative efforts will prove only ordinary? Or do you need everything you do to be brilliant or perfect?
+ The creative process and the thinking process both come with mistakes and messes. Do you find mistakes easy or hard to deal with? Do they even derail you?
+ What part of your relationship with process would you like to improve?
5. Everyone has a bit of narcissism and grandiosity baked into them. And if you believe that your answers or your creations are better than the next person’s, might that not lead you to believe that you are better than the next person? Isn’t grandiosity a smart person’s edge?
+ Do you struggle a bit with grandiosity? How has that played itself out in your life?
+ Do you feel both very large and grand and also quite small and insignificant? How has that tense dynamic played itself out in your life?
+ Is arrogance an edge for you?
+ What do you see as the difference between preening and standing up for your individuality and your right to have your own thoughts and opinions?
More to come! Please enjoy. And be in touch at [email protected]
**
Promote Healing, Ignite Creativity, and Discover Writing Tips from Two Journaling Experts
“This book is a beautiful quilt, each chapter written by one of the wisest voices in the journaling world, on every aspect of journal writing imaginable.” —Ruth Folit, founder and past director of the International Association for Journal Writing
#1 Best Seller in Writing Skills, Writing Guides, and Nonfiction Writing Reference
The Next-Generation Book on Journaling Techniques
Learn from the best. The Great Book of Journaling equips you with practical and effective journaling techniques, advances your writing skills, and enhances self-esteem. Written by esteemed psychotherapist Eric Maisel and journaling expert Lynda Monk, Director of the International Association for Journal Writing, this book guides you on a path of healing, creativity, and self-discovery.
Discover the therapeutic magic of journal writing. Experience the transformative power of journaling. By engaging in daily meditations and personal writing, you can tap into your innate creativity and nurture self-love.
Packed full of valuable journal writing knowhow. We’ve rounded up 40 of the top journal experts in the world to explain exactly what journal writing can do for you! The Great Book of Journaling is full of practical tips, evidence-based research, and rich anecdotes from their coaching, teaching, therapy work with journal writers, and personal journal writing.
Inside find:
- Innovative journaling techniques to boost your creativity and writing skills
- Therapeutic writing methods to foster healing and high self-esteem
- Daily meditation practices for cultivating self-love and wellness
- Expert advice from 40 leading journaling professionals for deepening your personal writing
If you have read Mindfulness Journal, The Self-Discovery Journal, or No Worries, you will love The Great Book of Journaling. Also, don’t miss Eric Maisel’s Redesign Your Mind and The Power of Daily Practice.
—
This Post is republished on Medium.
—
Photo credit: iStock