Journal Prompts for Difficult Emotions

Sit with a difficult feeling instead of pushing it down. These prompts help you write your way through anxiety, frustration, and grief.

9 prompts

  1. What emotion have you been feeling most this week? Where does it come from?
  2. Write about something that frustrated you today. What's underneath that frustration?
  3. Describe a feeling you've been suppressing. What would it say if it could speak?
  4. What does your inner critic say most often? How would you respond to a friend who said that?
  5. Write about a situation that made you anxious. What's the worst that could actually happen?
  6. What boundary do you need to set or reinforce in your life?
  7. Describe how your body feels right now. Where are you holding tension?
  8. What do you need to forgive yourself for?
  9. Write about a happy memory in vivid detail. Let yourself feel it fully.

If a prompt brings up more than you expected, stop. Journaling helps many people think through a hard feeling, but it is not therapy and it does not replace it.

Write These in Pensio

These prompts are built into the app, suggested based on how you have been writing lately. Pensio picks up the emotions in your entries and shows you the patterns over time. Your writing stays yours, and you can export all of it as Markdown.

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Goal-Setting Journal Prompts

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Stoic Journal Prompts

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Creative Writing Prompts

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