You can use these journal prompts weekly to experience a transformation in the level of your stress. If you would like support, book a coaching session or package with me. You don’t need to go this alone. https://www.ignitewellnessopentojoy.com/energizewellnessprogram
JOURNAL REFLECTION WEEK 1: Stress Management & Journey to Health & Wellness
Reflect on the time in your life when you were at your healthiest and most joyful.
Who were the people surrounding you during this time?
Where were you?
What was your routine?
What habits contributed to your joy and health?
What were you projecting into the world?
How would you describe yourself during this time?
How do you think others would describe you at the time?
JOURNAL REFLECTION WEEK 2: Stress Management & Journey to Health & Wellness
Would you like to live a life of wellness and balance? What would that look like for you?
Imagine the most radiant version of yourself. What would you be eating?
How would you be interacting with other people?
What habits and routines would be a part of your life?
How would you approach your work?
How would you love others?
Living well and experiencing well-being is within reach. The first step is to envision what that would look like for YOU.
JOURNAL REFLECTION WEEK 3: Stress Management & Journey to Health & Wellness
Is well-being a priority for you?
In the past 30 days, how many were you sad, depressed, worried, tense, or anxious?
Did you know that you can become addicted to stress?
It's true. Your body gets used to the rush of stress hormones.
Does this sound like you: you always are in a race with the clock to go faster, accomplish more, and be perfect. Adrenaline, cortisol, and histamine are powering you through the day, with surges from caffeine and sugar. You could feel wired and tired at the same time at this point.
But watch out, because prolonged or chronic stress generally results in adrenal fatigue.
Did you know that your stress hormones can get used up?
The body can compensate by using sex hormones for, and the immune system takes a hit. But then the internal organs are depleted of crucial hormones and neurotransmitters. You can feel exhausted, lacking vitality, and sex drive, anxious, irritable, and depressed.
Therefore, stress relief isn't optional; it's mandatory if we want to vibrate with health and happiness.
We need the parasympathetic nervous system to take over as our heartbeat slows, our muscles relax, the ability to digest improves as digestive enzymes are released, and the blood flows back out to the extremities in relaxing and repair mode.
Is it any wonder you need some restorative, stress-relief activities to achieve a radiant glow of well-being?
Now that you know how important it is to switch on your parasympathetic nervous system every day, BRAINSTORM how to click the relax button every day for at least a few minutes.
JOURNAL REFLECTION WEEK 4: Stress Management & Journey to Health & Wellness
Do you have a healthy activity that is your go-to for stress relief?
Do you need to incorporate more of it into your life? Are you ready to try out new stress-relieving activities, such as tai chi, qi gong, meditation, yoga, swimming, dancing, time spent in nature, gardening, or another option?
Consider your schedule and pencil in at least thirty minutes a day for your stress relief activity to fortify your body, mind, and spirit.
JOURNAL REFLECTION WEEK 5: Stress Management & Journey to Health & Wellness
Do you rest when you are tired? Or do you power through, ignoring your body, mind, or spirit's call for just a few minutes of rest?
Are you afraid to stop because you worry you won't resume where you left off?
Does a quest for perfection, or pleasing, push you into chronic stress?
What can you do to incorporate more moments of joy and self-care into your daily, weekly, and yearly schedule?
JOURNAL REFLECTION WEEK 6: Stress Management & Journey to Health & Wellness
Does your body clamp up around certain people? Why?
Are there some people in your life that serve as toxic food for your body? Reflect on how often you listen to signals from your body.
Where is the tightness in your body, or pain?
How do you react to these messages from your body? Do you ignore them? Push past them? Hide in them? Feel victimized? Use them to solicit empathy and attention.
Take one day to monitor signals from your body and answer their call.
If your body seeks movement, move, it longs to lay down and rest, take five minutes to lay flat. If you want laughter, solitude, or time in nature, fulfill your longing.
If your body reacts negatively to someone, pay attention and follow its instincts. Reflect at the end of the day on how well you feel in not only the body but mind and soul as well.
Write down your experience and insights.
JOURNAL REFLECTION WEEK 7: Stress Management & Journey to Health & Wellness
How do the people in your life affect you? Who in your life enhances your wellness? Or in reverse, how do you positively impact the wellness of people in your life?
Who makes you laugh, gets you on your yoga mat, and encourages you to start working toward your dreams, instead of talking about them?
If you have a new wellness goal, who can you entrust to be supportive?
Do you think making a change in your life is a matter of your willpower?
Experts agree that while willpower IS essential, other factors are equally important to the power to introduce change into your life. One of these factors is your social connections and social influence.
Is there one or more people in your life who will be a negative influence, discouraging you from moving forward toward your goal?
Social sabotage is challenging to overcome. Prepare in advance to reduce time with people who will consciously or unconsciously hinder you from achieving the progress you seek.
Today make a list of people you know can support your journey to feeling vibrant, confident, empowered, joyful, and radiantly healthy.
JOURNAL REFLECTION WEEK 8: Stress Management & Journey to Health & Wellness
Now that you have a vision of what a vibrantly healthy and happy YOU looks like, and a list of people you know will support your goal to make it a reality, it's time to ask WHAT you want to change FIRST.
Here are some wellness goals you might be interested in:
find more meaning in your work or change jobs,
reduce your stress,
start a daily yoga practice,
start a regular meditation practice,
declutter your home,
let go of toxic relationships,
begin a daily gratitude journal,
eat clean,
give up sugar,
join a new fitness class,
learn a new skill,
invest time in following a new creative passion,
devoting more quality time to spend with those you love,
entertain more,
get 8 hours a night of sleep a night,
spend 10 minutes a day outside,
start to floss daily,
eat five different vegetables a day,
give up alcohol or nicotine,
laugh every day,
find an exercise I love doing,
start a vegetable garden,
or something else!
JOURNAL REFLECTION WEEK 9: Stress Management & Journey to Health & Wellness
Once you know what you want to incorporate more of into your life to enhance your well-being in your areas of health, relationships, finances, career or business, a sense of purpose, and connection, it is time to get out paper and pen. Write down:
Why do you want to make this change?
What will be the impact if you don't make this change?
How will you feel when the change is a success?
What new information, skills, or training do you need to make the wellness goal a reality?
Give yourself a day to one week to prepare the resources you need. If your goal is to eat clean and green, research cooking recipes, shop for a new fridge full of colorful, clean food, and create a meal plan. Think out what your new healthy alternative will be to your current go-to stress relief snacks.
Discuss within your social network your new goal and find out if one or more people want to make the journey to wellness in this area with you. Perhaps a co-worker has always wanted to try yoga,
and you could go together on your lunch hour.
Finding a mentor in your social connections to guide you and provide inspiration can be a powerful force to keep you on track to making your goal a reality. Another option is to hire a wellness or work coach to support you in your quest for change.
JOURNAL REFLECTION WEEK 10: Stress Management & Journey to Health & Wellness
Picture yourself strong, flexible, serene, with glowing skin and an optimistic attitude. You are quick to laugh, feel inspired at work, and have a life filled with meaning and loving relationships.
Your goal with every interaction you have with another person is to gift them something, be it a smile, a compliment, a small gift, supportive words, or courtesy.
What would you need to change in your life to bring you closer to becoming your most radiant self?
What could you change in your environment and the way you structure your routine to impel and support change?
Habit stacking is a technique that many have used to great success. One reason why people fail to accomplish their goals is that they fail to break their goals down into milestones, as these down into mini-tasks and habits they can incorporate immediately into their lives.
You could take your wellness goals, (for example) such as committing to a daily yoga practice, drinking more water, meditating, introducing more meaning in your work, eating more vegetables, and eating colorful, and break them down into 10-minute actions, and always do one after the other.
For instance, you could wake up one hour earlier and follow this habit-stacking ritual:
5 minutes to drink half a liter of water and wake up
20 minutes of yoga
10 minutes of meditation
15 minutes of working on a book on learning coding, or working on a business plan
10 minutes of cutting up vegetables for lunch, or making a green smoothie.
Always do the habits in the same order, one after another, for the next 90 days.
By then they will become ingrained into your routine, and carry you to your wellness goals. You most likely will feel a desire to work more on your new skill or project later in the day if you've already made progress over and over again in the morning.
And if a friend asks you to join her for a yoga class in your local studio, you are bound to say yes. By making small goals a daily victory, you will create a stronger sense of self-efficacy. You will feel empowered and capable of growth and change.
JOURNAL REFLECTION WEEK 11: Stress Management & Journey to Health & Wellness
So now that you have:
1. Envisioned your ideal life and self
2. Developed a social support network
3. Gained awareness of social connections that will discourage you from achieving change.
4. Write down YOUR specific wellness goals.
5. You've taken time to prepare to take action, such as gaining the resources, knowledge, training, skills, or tools you need to proceed.
5. Analyzed how your environment, structures, and routine support or hinder making your goals a reality.
6. Broke your goals down into milestones, and these down into mini 10-20 minute habits.
7. Stacked 3-6 habits together in a specific way to repeat every day, at the same time, no matter what. It's time to pause and reflect and CELEBRATE.
Take this week off to gift yourself a beautiful experience as a reward for your wellness progress.
JOURNAL REFLECTION WEEK 12: Stress Management & Journey to Health & Wellness
Do you think you chose the right wellness goals for YOU?
How is your habit stack working?
How did you change your environment and routine to make your dreams come true?
Do you feel enough social support, or do you need to seek out more like-minded people?
Do you need a new strategy for negating the discouraging effect of certain people in your life?
Do you need to invest more time in gaining knowledge to support the change?
Evaluate what is working for you, what isn't, and what you need to shift or adjust to make better progress toward your goal of glowing health, happiness, and meaning.
JOURNAL REFLECTION WEEK 13: Stress Management & Journey to Health & Wellness
In a study done by Harvard professor Teresa Amabile and Steven J. Kramer, they studied 26 project teams from seven firms of a total of 238 individuals producing 12,000 diary entries, "to discover the states of inner work life and the workday events that correlated with the highest levels of creative output."
The result isn't surprising. Amabile discovered in the study that people experience the best work days when they experience some forward progress in meaningful work, no matter how small, as well as nourishing social influences towards the workers, and project 'catalysts.'
In contrast, setbacks in the project, or 'inhibitors,' or toxic social influence toward the workers, resulted in bad days.
We tend to set audacious goals for ourselves that require massive amounts of willpower, social support, lifestyle change, environmental change, structural change, or financial investment.
Then we are downcast when we fall short of making a change or breaking a habit. Although radically overhauling our lives is appealing, planning incremental change is more feasible.
Weaving small wins into the fabric of each day slowly but inevitably moves you to YOU and the life you want.
Don't give up if your 8-day streak of habit stacking falls to the wayside.
Ask yourself why you couldn't manage to do your hour of wellness stacking. Are you fighting off a cold? Did you not get enough sleep?
Cut yourself a break. Just get up and get to it the next morning without beating yourself up over the lost day. If you eat brownie ate brownie, then figure you'll never be able to give up sugar, pause. Ask yourself what caused you to crave the sugar. W
Is it to soothe emotions? Was it because the plate was on the kitchen table and you passed it 22 times before you could no longer resist?
Or had not eaten enough protein that day, or slept too little, which caused you to crave the sugar?
You can stop harassing yourself about the lack of willpower once you see the reasons why you're triggered to act a certain way.
Don't bail if you fail. Recommit!
JOURNAL REFLECTION WEEK 14: Stress Management & Journey to Health & Wellness
In the mad rush to become the person we dream to be, to accomplish the goals we hold in our hearts, and in the quest to perfect our skills, we could lose sight of the present moment.
We can chase and change and effort to be the best version of ourselves, to live our best life. But we have lost if our gaze is permanently on the horizon.
Contentment is not popular.
It does not fire progress, not shine bright like happiness. It is the serenity of living in the now, of accepting where we are, and who we are, and practicing non-judgment of all that circle and connect to our life story.
It is the sweet, low vibration of energy, carrying us step by step, never pushing, always gentle, carrying us forward one step at a time.
Yoga is one avenue by which we allow contentment in, access the present moment, and accept our bodies just as they are as we stretch strengthen, and breathe.
Then day by day, incremental progress compounds, when we let go of the focus on the end goal, delighting in opening up to all that the fusion of breath and movement has to offer, we arrive. Pleased, we find ourselves in a pose we never thought we could master.
Or something within us shifts, and we feel more love for every face we greet, as the fear diminishes its hold on us.
So step onto your yoga mat, and fall into the present moment. You may never unlock the power to propel into a handstand, but you will access the bliss of contentment, and the knowledge that both sanctuary and joy are available to you anywhere, at any time.
Wishing you radiant health, joy, and abundance, Heather
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