31 Journal Prompts For Mental Health & Well Being.

This week may have been Mental Health Awareness Week 

but why not have a

Mental Halth Awareness Month?

Mental health is one of the most common unrecognized health issues we face and many suffer in silence. I thought it would be great timing to present 31 journal prompts dedicated to mental health and well being for the month of May. Especially  as it perfectly exampled the journalling technique I was discussing this week with my Just Pick Up A Notepad Group. 

What Was This Method?

 The Journalling method of monitoring an area or areas of your life by outlining 31 topics to cover over a month. A method I originally learnt from Kathleen Adams book Journal to the Self. Within the book, this method is called 'Topics Du Jour' a journal technique originally designed to meet the needs of business executives who were "too busy to stay on top of everything."

The concept is simple all you have to do is:

1.  Number down a page from 1 to 31. 
2. Write next to each number one are of your personal or professional life you would like to monitor.It doesn't matter what order you place your topics or whether you have a theme or not.
3. Each day look at the topic that corresponds with the date. for example if today is the 4th of the month, find number 4 on your list. If today was the 26th find the number 26 and so forth.
4. Use the headline of your topic as a prompt or springboard to journal on. What's happening this area of your personal or professional life? What action can you take in this area?

So here we have it '31 Journal Prompts For May Mental Health Awareness' I hope you find them useful throughout the Month of May, enjoy!

1.What are five things that help you feel better when things are difficult?
2.When things seem tough, I want to remember _________
3.Write about one thing that you look forward to every day.
4.What are three things you can do today to enhance your mental well being?
5.On scale of 1-10 my mental health is __because _______
6.What are the signs my mental health is declining?
7. List 5 reasons not to give up.
8. Right now I am being challenged by _________
9.When I feel _________I usually _________but I am going to start _________.10. Do your emotions get in the way of you fulfilling life? If so How?
11.List the times when you felt truly  loved.
12.What/Who has animpact on your emotions?
13. What has been a strong emotion felt recently?
14. List three things that made you happy today?
15.Describe the last time you had fun that made you smile.
16.Write down activities you could do to feel more relaxed.
17.Write about something that you forgive yourself for
18.Build a list of 15 songs that can help change your mood.
19.Write about something you need  to let go of and surrender to God.

20.How can I make myself feel safe?

21.List 10 things you love about yourself.
22. Describe a time in your life when you failed. What did you learn from it?
23.What are three of the biggest lessons you’ve learned from having (anxiety, depression, etc.)
24. Choose one thing that triggers anxiety or depression, and then write about a few ways that you can combat this trigger
25.What patterns about yourself need attention.
26.Write about a difficult time in your life and how you overcame it
27.Make List of people you are grateful for.
28.Write a letter to your biggest supporter (you don’t have to give it to them)
29.Make List of things you sometimes struggle to be grateful for.
30. Describe why your grateful for an opportunity received.
31.List 10 things your grateful for today.

This blog forms part of a blog series that’s In conjunction with my #WhyWriteWednesday Facebook Live discussions and tutorials 8pm (GMT) on the reasons why journaling is beneficial.

Why Write Wednesday Blog Series

Why Write Blog Series

 Within my group I share journalling techniques that can be used to either begin your journaling journey or take your journalling up a gear. Group member's also have access to Free journalling templates and tools within the Groups Files section. 

Join The Group

If this sounds appealing you are more than welcome to join our community.

April Progress + May Goals

April has been a month of learning to express Gratitude daily. Being thankful for everything I have, will have have and praising God in advance for all my blessings.

Here’s a recap of my APRIL progress and what I learned:

April Progress:

— Pray + Praise! These two things will keep me on track for the rest of life! I marked this as my top priority on my April Cultivate what matters tending list. Praying, praising God daily has been the highlight of my days. Singing and dancing to a few tracks of praise and worship music every day has elevated my mood in a phenomenal way so I am building up a playlist to play every morning when I am getting washed and dressed. I've especially loved listening to Marvin Sapp Praise In Advance  as he rightfully said, Praise will confuse the enemy.

— Write an about page on my website- This is still a work in progress. Mainly because I am having to reflect on what is beneficial to share and what isn't. I am a private person, I believe in only putting out there what you are comfortable putting out there. I believe social media doesn't need to know absolutely everything about me, there are some things we all need to keep sacred and private. Yet at the same time there are elements of my life story I desire to share with others because I believe it will be of benefit and will help others. Those are the pieces of my story I wish to share. Yet its still a little bit scary to share my story, as part of me feels it is like allowing someone to read my diary or look into my soul and see things I have kept hidden. That being said, blog posts like these help build my confidence to share parts of my story in a meaningful way. So I will continue to write my about page and publish once I have finished it.

— Get my head around convert kit- I want to start sending out a weekly newsletter to let my group and anyone that subscribes know of any updates e.g New Blog Posts, New Podcasts, Facebook Live Dates etc 
I joined Covert Kit realized I could use another provider. So I'm still not quiet ready to start building an email subscription list but I will get there.

— Treat myself to day off on my own child free- Haven't gained any child free time but I gained some child sleep time and I chose to make the most of those times by choosing to carve some 'Me Time' to just sit and write, time to journal to myself, focus on what I will do to feel the way I want to feel. 
When the wether was nice I had the pleasure of going to the park, laying in the sunshine and writing while baby slept.

Danielle La Porte Desire Map Planner

— Couple Time- It was my intention to have a Date Night or Day Date with my Partner. Whatever that may be as long as it was without children. That was the plan, however that did not pan out this month. The reality was we watched Avenger's Infinity from the comfort our bed on Kodi while baby slept beside us. In order to make progress with this goal, I will have to pre-book my mum for baby sitting duties. She's more than happy to help I just need to ask, so I will be asking from now on.

My Son's now 6.5 months and my daughters now 11years old and in the entire 6 months there's only been two occasions I've actually had away from him for a few hours so I could go on a date with my partner and socialise with friends. I am grateful to have such understanding friends who get what phase of life I am in now and get that balancing motherhood alongside everything else is a juggling act.

— Use purchased groupon vouchers- I purchase groupon vouchers ahead of time to use towards my goal of having weekend fun, mother daughter time and couple time. This month I had a Shakes and Burger date to use over half term.  I didn't realize the voucher had expired the day before I intended to use it. What can I say you snooze you loose. This was just one of many Mercury Retrograde boo's boo's I experienced this month.

Weekly goals:

—Set Working Days/Hours to focus on my dreams- Not managed to conquer the set hours thing just yet, still working on trying to wake up early 5am to work before baby rises as opposed to working late into the early hours and felling tiered in the morning. I shared how old habits are hard to change within my daily Podcast.

— Strength training Squat Challenge 3x/week- for the second month in a row I have not even attempted to do anything in relation to picking back up my get fit routine. I have concluded that whee I am right now, working out, getting super fit and having an arse even JLo would envy is just not that important to me right now. My exercise routine consists of walking daily, considering I only gave birth few months ago I feel my body has bounced back well. Yeah I could be more toned, yeah I could have more definition in some areas but I am happy in my body and I am not going to 

— Weekend Re-creation / Weekend Fun Goal- My daughter Hermione turned 11yrs old this month so we had a great day celebrating her birthday. I took her and a few of her school friends for bowling and food. It was a fun filled Birthday, we all had a fab time. The following day we went shopping for the whole day together with her cousin. We literally shopped till we dropped. 

— Set Aside undisturbed Mother/Daughter time.- This month me and my daughter have had the pleasure of enjoying some quality mother daughter time. Her little brother has always been present, so it has necessarily been undisturbed, but we've managed to gain quality time the times he fell asleep.

We are so fortunate to benefit from having a lovely park on our door step  that we can go to on a regular basis, especially on warm sunny days. We had some unusually high temperature so I made the most of the sunshine experienced and we had a lovely picnic in the park together.

Daily goals:

— Walk The Dog- Made progress with this goal. Happy to have had some lovely sunny days in the park with the pooch. On days where a stroll round the block or in the park wasn't possible he's had the back yard.

— Kiss My Partner - I'd be lying if I said I have managed to do this every single day this month.
I haven't and thats precisely why its a goal and will continue to be a daily goal until expressing affection even if it is the smallest of gesture of a kiss on the cheek is expressed daily. When you've been with someone for years like I have, over 15yrs, it is easy to get comfortable and complacent. The things you did at the beginning have a tendency to drop off if your note careful. So expressing tender loving care that creates intimacy and keeps the fire alight is important. Relationships take work and require our focus or else they fizzle out. So thats why I have this goal and why I have placed it as a daily goal because everyday my relationship needs to be nurtured.

— Check Planner /Tending List- To keep me on track with developing new healthy routines I placed checking my tending list as a daily goal. I found when I checked the list daily it kept me on track with all my other goals. When I didn't check I fell off a little. I really should include that I need to check my emails daily too as my mailbox is full.

— Read Daily- Currently reading Moonology: Working with the Magic of Lunar Cycles by Yasmin Bland.

Park Time With My Babies & Fur Baby

On to May  Goals!

May Monthly Goals:

— Pray + Praise! These two things keep me on track and prove to be two goals I will hold dear to for the rest of life! I marked this as my top priority for April with one of my favorite Carpe Diem stickers and I am doing the same this month.

— Continue to make work hours productive
— Treat myself to day off on my own child free

— Couple Time

Weekly goals:

— Weekly blog series that links with Facebook LIVE discussions.

— Weekend Re-creation / Weekend Fun Goal

—Set Working Days/Hours to focus on my dreams

— Set Aside undisturbed Mother/Daughter time

Daily goals:
— Walk The Dog
— Kiss My Partner 
— Check Planner /Tending List/Emails

— Read Daily 

Are You Ready to dig into MAY? 

Writing Challenge 

Do you have any goals for May?

What would you like to see happen this month?

Write down what monthly, weekly and daily goals you would set yourself for May.

#JustWrite #JustPickUpANotepad