Welcome to the journey of you

Week 1: Emotional intelligence aptitude

Before we can fully explore ourselves in profound and meaningful ways, we must learn the language and identifiers of our emotions. Learning to put a name to what we feel, embrace it, and allow ourselves to feel it will enable us to reconnect with ourselves and make the adjustments we need to make. We can’t understand how the world is affecting our emotions, nor can we know how our emotions are showing up if we can’t even identify what we’re feeling or how we’re feeling it.

This week, let’s focus on examining our connection to our emotions. Use these prompts for your journaling experience:

1. Perform a self-check-in and identify your current emotions. Give them a name. How are they showing up? What effect are they having on your body? On your demeanor?
2. How connected do you feel to your emotions on a daily basis?
3. What emotions do you feel run the deepest? How frequently do you feel these emotions?
4. How well do you display and communicate your emotions?
5. How do you accept and respond to the emotions of others?
6. What opportunities have you had in the past where emotional intelligence could have or did make an impact?
7. What power do you see in embracing and collaborating with your emotions vs. subduing and controlling them?

Back to top

Week 2: What traps are you falling into?

Traps are the things that consistently hold us back. They can halt or derail our journey. The trick is to be able to identify them so that we can get out of them again or avoid them altogether. They sow negativity, doubt, and disconnection, which are in direct opposition to our goals. 

These traps often look like:

• Denial — an unwillingness to analyze the truth of who we are and how we are showing up in the world.
• Judgment — the critical voice that judges ourselves or others harshly.
• Blame — the sidestepping of responsibility to avoid internalized shame or guilt.
• Comparison — the comparison of ourselves to others, or even our current selves to another version, past or perceived future.
• Fear — the avoidance of challenges or refusal to face our problems due to potential hardships.

This week, let’s focus on examining each of these traps. Use these prompts for your journaling experience:

1. How would you honestly describe your likelihood of falling into the trap of denial? Have there been instances where you can see with hindsight that you were in this trap? What can you do to avoid it in the future?
2. How often do you find yourself slipping into the voice of judgment? Do you find it to be more self-facing or more directed at others? Why do you think this is?
3. What would you find if you were to analyze your experiences with blame? Have you used it to avoid responsibility and keep yourself safe? What impact do you think this had on you and those on whom you levied blame?
4. Comparison is extremely common. How often do you hear an internal voice comparing yourself to others or different versions of yourself? What does this voice do for your mental health? How do you think quieting this voice would affect you?
5. What fears do you face in your mental health journey? How do you think these fears have held you back?
6. After considering these traps from your point of view, think of how others may experience them as well. How might this shift your perspective on the actions of others? Have you had difficulty with others that may have been linked to their falling into one of these traps?
7. How will the ability to identify these traps assist you moving forward?

Back to top

Week 3: How connected do you feel to yourself and others?

Connection with ourselves looks like authenticity and self-love. This, in turn, fosters deeper connections with others. When we show up for ourselves, we can fully show up for others. By working past the traps holding us back and shedding the burdens of shame and self-loathing, we can share ourselves fully with those around us. We can feel emboldened to open up, trust, and seek solace in the confidence and love of those we feel close to. And in doing so, we can open the door for reciprocation, letting them know that we are a safe place. In this practice, we create an environment of love, respect, and appreciation for one another, deepening our connections and embracing our humanity. But it all starts with the self.

This week, let’s examine our connections with ourselves and others. Use these prompts for your journaling experience:

1. How connected do you feel with yourself? Are you able to fully embrace who you are?
2. What work do you feel you need to do to deepen your authenticity?
3. Who is the person in your life you feel most intimate with? How much of the real you do they know?
4. What emotions do you feel when analyzing your authenticity?
5. What fears do you hold about opening yourself up more to others?
6. Reflecting on your fears about opening up to others – what supports those fears? Are they coming from yourself or the actions of those around you?
7. What do you imagine deeper connections with others to look like for you?

Back to top

Week 5: How intimate are my relationships?

We all have varying levels of community connection. What’s surprising is that things are not always what they seem. Externally, it may seem like someone is surrounded by love and support when, in actuality, they lack meaningful connection. Even someone considered a social butterfly can find themselves without deep relationships. Conversely, someone seen as a recluse may have several enriching relationships that amount to more connections than a social butterfly.

This comes down to the difference between togetherness and intimacy. We can have many people in our lives that surround us with a feeling of popularity, but at the same time, we can feel alone and empty. This is because, despite our many connections, none of these relationships may feel deep and meaningful. So instead, we should focus on maintaining a few close, personal relationships in which we can open up and foster intimacy and personal connection.

This week, let’s examine our relationships further and why they may look like they do. Use these prompts for your journaling experience:

1. What level of loneliness do you feel in your life? What levels of intimacy do you want? How do these compare?
2. How does your sense of loneliness vs. intimacy align with the number of connections you have in your life?
3. How would you describe your circles of community? Do they rely more on togetherness or intimacy?  
4. Is there something that keeps you from establishing intimacy in your closest relationships? Shame? Guilt? Take a moment to examine what hindrances you carry into your relationships.
5. Are there relationships that you feel lack intimacy due to the other person’s ability to open up? What do you think is holding them back?
6. How can you begin to foster more intimacy in your relationships? With whom would you choose to do so?
7. How do you feel you could best balance togetherness vs. intimacy among your circles of community?

Back to top

Week 6: What does my family of origin look like?

In a journey to understand who we are now and who we want to be in the future, it can be beneficial to look to the past and examine where we’ve come from. Looking back to our family of origin, we can explore our roots and identify the beginnings of many of the narratives we carry today. We can rediscover what put us on our current path. We can determine what has occurred that has developed within us the traits that hold us back or propel us forward. Finally, we can reconnect with our younger selves and use what we learn to inform our journey ahead.

Our family of origin is the family in which we were raised. This can look different for everyone. For some, it is their biological parents and siblings. For others, it’s their adoptive family. Some grow up with their grandparents or a friend’s family. Whoever it may be, these people have influenced our worldviews, shaped our perspectives, and impacted how we show up in the world. They have handed down much of the love, compassion, and strength we carry, along with a share of the trauma, shame, and guilt we endure. Our family of origin has shaped much of who we have become through the highs and lows. Looking back will help us remember who we were before the world told us who we should be. 

This week, let’s focus on examining our family of origin. Use these prompts for your journaling experience:

1. What does your family of origin look like? What figures were most present in your life?
2. Who do you feel was most influential on how you turned out?
3. What are some of the highs from your family of origin that have supported you over the years? 
4. What are some of the lows that arose from your family of origin, and how have these affected you?
5. What were you like as a child? What hopes and dreams did you have? What qualities did you have? How would people have described you as a child?
6. How does your child self compare with who you are now? What influenced the changes, and what support that stayed with you?
7. Are there qualities you had as a child that you would like to reclaim?

Back to top

Week 7: What messages have I received?

Throughout our lives, we receive messages that shape who we are. These may be messages from our family of origin, the media, friends, coworkers, or society. They may be directed toward us individually or based on societal norms, standards, and expectations. Unfortunately, we often internalize these messages without realizing it and develop relationships with them that forge personality traits, shame, attitudes towards others, and self-confidence. By recognizing these messages, we can learn to empower and embrace narratives that support us and help us regulate and release those that embed toxic self-doubt and loathing within us. 

This week, let’s focus on examining the messages we’ve received. Use these prompts for your journaling experience:

1. What are the dominant messages you received from your family of origin? Are there particular people who provided either supportive or judgmental messages?
2. What messages have you internalized from peers (friends, coworkers, supervisors, etc.)? Are these messages usually positive or negative?
3. What messages do you think you’ve subconsciously absorbed from society (representations in media, expectations, and norms in your culture)?
4. How have the messages you’ve received impacted you? How much power do these messages have over you?
5. After having explored these messages and how they’ve impacted you, take a moment to examine your feelings. What emotions are you experiencing? Give yourself the space to feel whatever comes up.
6. What steps can you take to combat the negative messages you’ve received? Do you find yourself validating and supporting these negative emotions, or do you push back? 
7. What support do you need in fighting against the negative messages you’ve received? What (or who) would best aid you in your journey to overcome these messages?

Back to top

Week 8: What’s activating me?

In our journey to becoming better versions of ourselves, we often experience setbacks and hurdles that we must overcome. We may feel like we’re sometimes slipping backward, falling into old patterns, or rehashing old wounds and reacting from a place of pain. Often, we’re set off or activated by someone around us. We’ve all been in situations where our reaction to an event felt outsized. At Onsite, we often say, “If it’s hysterical, it’s historical.” When our response is outsized, it usually means something is going on below the surface, typically tied to an experience or pattern. 

Whatever the case, when we are activated, we can show up in ways we don’t want to. For example, we may start to lash out with anger or recede inward and draw ourselves away from those we care about. By learning to identify when and how the actions of others’ adversity impact us, we can learn to cultivate empathy and patience for ourselves and move away from reaction into responsiveness. 

This week, let’s focus on examining how we’re activated. Use these prompts for your journaling experience:

1. Have you experienced moments when you’ve slipped into a behavior you did not like or actively sought to avoid? How often does this happen?
2. In moments that you’ve reacted from a place of activation, how have you felt afterward?
3. Consider a particular example of a time when you were activated. What did this situation look like? Who or what was involved? 
4. Revisit your example from earlier. What parts of you were reacting and why? Were there threads to a past experience? 
5. What power does being able to identify your activation give to you?
6. What steps can you take in the future to avoid further activation? 
7. What support systems can you rely on to aid you in avoiding activation? Are there people in your community or relationships that can offset your activation or help keep you centered?

Back to top

Week 9: What are my goals?

In our journeys toward self-improvement and betterment, it’s vital to have a vision. It’s equally important to have goals. Often, we conflate these two concepts and consider them the same. But by distinguishing between visions and goals, we can establish a framework for a clear path forward and measure clear progress along the way.

• Vision: An image of the future that you hold. Something you want for your future.
• Goal: A defined step to achieving what you have envisioned.

By crafting a vision, we can imagine the life we want. We can visualize the future that we are working for. Consider this the big picture. The endgame, or at least an idea of it.

A goal, on the other hand, is a measurable step in our journey toward actualizing our vision. These are the progressions we make along the way that lay the groundwork for building the future we have visualized.

It’s easy to see, then, why these are both important. The vision allows us to craft the future we are working toward, while the goals are the steps that we plan to take along the way. These work in tandem to define our journey and keep us moving forward.

This week, let’s focus on examining our visions and goals. Use these prompts for your journaling experience:

1. Have your visions for the future always been your own? Or have they been handed to you by others (expectations from family members, bosses, society at large)?
2. What is your vision for the future? What do you want for your personal and professional life?
3. How does your vision for the future align with what you have now? What about the future you imagined for yourself as a child?
4. What goals can you set to achieve your vision for your personal life? List them out.
5. What goals can you set for yourself to achieve your vision for your professional life? List them out.
6. What overlap or conflict exists between your vision and goals for your personal and professional life? What adjustments, if any, do you need to make? Remember, our visions and goals can always change.
7. What support systems do you have to help you achieve your goals?

Back to top

Week 10: What’s standing in the way of my goals?

Even with our defined vision and goals, we can encounter obstacles that make us feel stuck. And, while feeling stuck can be frustrating, it can sometimes feel safer than venturing out and confronting what stands in our way. Ignoring these roadblocks will not remove them, however. They will remain for as long as we allow them, hindering our progress and stunting our personal growth. The thing is, these obstacles are not always external forces at work. The external is usually easier to identify and sometimes easier to combat. On the other hand, internal barriers, or limiting beliefs, are the obstacles we regularly face without consideration. They are rooted in shame, fear, or guilt, so they are complicated to acknowledge and tackle head-on. 

By identifying these obstacles embedded within, we can learn to tear down what is holding us back and keeping us stuck. 

This week, let’s focus on examining our obstacles. Use these prompts for your journaling experience:

1. Have there been moments in the past when you’ve felt stuck or trapped by an internal obstacle?
2. What internal obstacles have you found standing in the way of achieving your current vision and goals? 
3. How do your external obstacles typically differ from your internal obstacles? Which do you find easier to overcome? Are your difficulties with external obstacles actually influenced by internalized obstacles (e.g., dealing with a difficult coworker being rooted in an internalized fear of retaliation or guilt over reporting them to HR)?
4. How do the obstacles in your personal life compare to the obstacles in your professional life? Is there an overlap?
5. What additional benefits can you find in breaking down a barrier (e.g., establishing a more open and honest relationship with someone after overcoming the shame you’ve been carrying)?
6. What steps can you take to overcome a single obstacle you currently face?
7. What support system can you rely on to help overcome your obstacles?

Back to top

Week 11: What does my authentic self look like?

A life of authenticity is a life fulfilled. Being true to who we are and living daily as we want to be can foster a sense of agency and empowerment. We can show up for others and foster healthy, meaningful connections. Living authentically allows us to live fully without hiding from those closest to us or forgoing meaningful parts of our lives. But, in order to embrace the power of this level of fulfillment, we must be able to identify our true selves. This means putting in the effort and doing the work. It means having uncomfortable conversations with ourselves and maybe a few with others. It means learning to adapt, forgive, and love where we may not have been able to before. It means holding space for others AND for ourselves. 

This week, let’s focus on examining our authentic selves. Use these prompts for your journaling experience:

1. What aspects of yourself are you most proud of? How do those traits show up day to day?
2. What fear, shame, or guilt do you carry daily? Who or what has placed that there?
3. How does your fear, shame, or guilt affect your interactions with others? Be sure to consider secondary effects on your behavior as well.
4. What would life be like if you were free of your fear, shame, or guilt? What conversations do you need to have with yourself to make this a reality?
5. What changes would you like to see in yourself? How could your actions better align with how you want to show up in the world? How hard have you been on yourself for not being the you, you want to be? How can you create space to heal from that?
6. What interests do you want to pursue, and how do they align with your vision for the future?
7. How do your circles of community support or neglect your authenticity? What changes can you make to support your true self better? Do those changes start from within?

Back to top

Week 12: What changes can I make today?

It’s been said repeatedly, but it always bears repeating: change doesn’t happen overnight. We may want it to, and sometimes, despite knowing better, we expect it to. We all want a quick turnaround to be the best versions of ourselves from this moment forward. But to create sustainable change, we need time. Small shifts now will create greater, lasting changes in the future. By giving ourselves the grace to adjust to the changes we’re making, to forgive the missteps and backslides we may experience, and to adjust as we learn new things, we are setting ourselves up for success. We are allowing ourselves to grow, learn, and flourish. The trick is finding out where to begin…

This week, let’s focus on the changes we’re looking for. Use these prompts for your journaling experience:

1. What changes are you looking to make? What are your long-term hopes? 
2. Focus on one change you’re hoping to make. What small changes can you make today that will set you up on a path toward success?
3. How have you gone about implementing change in the past? How successful were you? What emotions does this reflection elicit?
4. What trepidation or excitement do you have about change? Give yourself space to feel your feelings.
5. What support systems do you have in place to help you in your journey?
6. What accountability measures can you put in place for yourself to adhere to your changes? How might you implement them?
7. In what ways can you support yourself throughout your journey? How might you handle setbacks? How would you celebrate your wins?

Back to top