2/8/22
Hi friends. 😊
Most see me at the gym and see me as the class clown. Full of life and excitement. Hyper. Joker. Always laughing. Talking about food. Being bossy. Or cleaning. Haha. But there is a serious side to me. In 2011, I graduated with my master’s degree from SIUE. In October 2013, I wrote my first set of journal prompts for a friend. She was like my test subject. But I learned that in working with her, the ideas that I had, brought value to her life and helped her with some challenges she had. Soon after, I started meeting with grad students, giving them similar journal prompts, helping them with personal and work challenges. Off and on throughout the course of five years, I did the same thing for many people. From 2018 through early 2020, I wrote personal growth lessons and mindset challenges for the gym. I’ve been told that these lessons and challenges are helpful and I’ve been asked several times over when I would start writing again. I’ve been toying with this idea for several years now. And I decided this is the year to bring them back, but in a different way.
One of the things I love to do is connect with people and I have a strong desire to connect with people through words. So, instead of sending my journal prompts to a few of the beautiful people I currently work with, I thought I’d try sending journal prompts to our whole CFE community through our monthly mailings hoping that this will add value to your life.
These journal prompts are in no way to replace a current counselor that you’re seeing, if you’re seeing one. Please continue to see your counselor. These journal prompts are meant to be short and focused. However, some may be longer, build off of the one before, or take a little more time and thought. This is just one easy way to accelerate personal growth and encourage critical thinking. Journal prompts help you focus on what to write and help you develop and sharpen your relationship with yourself. Because how you treat others is really a reflection of the relationship you have with yourself.
If you try it, and it doesn’t work for you, that’s okay. You can request to be removed from the journal mailing list, and we will remove your address. No worries. No pressure. No hard feelings. 😊
There’s lots of advice out there. Everywhere you turn, someone is posting something or saying something that prompts you to want to change or make you think you should change. If the things I say don’t resonate with you, throw it out the window. In fact, if anyone says something or posts something, that doesn’t resonate with you, throw it out the window. One of the beautiful parts of life, is that we get to choose. We have the great opportunity to choose what we need and what works for us.
I thought about what questions you might have while considering whether or not you want to be involved in this. So here are some answers. No, you don’t have to do it. No, you don’t have to be involved. No, you won’t have to do burpees, run, or do extra sit-ups if you miss one. Ha!
If you’d prefer an online medium for reading and completing these journals, you will be able to find them on our CFE website. I’ll post a link in a letter later. However, I feel we are taunted by screens nearly every second of the day and that’s why I chose to include these letters in the monthly mailings. I guess storing these journal prompts will be useful if you’d like to refer back to one or share them with a friend.
If it helps you to send me your journal responses, feel free to do so. My private email is skelly.caroline@gmail.com. I will keep what you send confidential.
All that being said, I’m excited to announce that by March 1st, I will send out your first journal prompt.
As always, thank you for being a part of our community. Thank you for sharing your life with us.
Caroline