Grow Yourself Up Journal Prompts (103-106)

Prompts for Episodes 103, 104, 105, 106

Hello dear people how are you today? It is a fairly clear and sunny day in London which always makes me feel grateful and cheery. We have been in an looonnnnggg period of sickness in our family (Northern Hemisphere winter….) so it feels like I need all the sun and cheer I can get. Something about sickness in my children means my own inner child turns up more and so parenting gets a bit more complex around this for me. How are you? I hope you are managing some bits of rest, joy, peace and connection at this very busy time of year.

Please see below for the journal prompts for Grow Yourself Up episodes 103 till 106.

Put a timer on your phone and write for 5-10 minutes. This is not an exercise in perfectionism and there is no need to write on all the prompts - write on what feels interesting or relevant for you. Meet a friend in person or online and do it together and then have time to read your answers to each other - the prompts can stimulate some open, genuine and connecting conversations.

Sending love.

Cath

Episode 103: Emotional Flow, Dissociation and the Complexity of Allowing and Processing Emotion

1. What is your relationship to your emotions like?

2. Hopefully this episode helped with self compassion and deepened your understanding of how the way emotions were held in your own family of origin is very impactful - what do you know about the emotional flow in your family? And possibly the generations before?

3. Can you see how dissociation has been a helpful survival strategy? Are you becoming more aware of this in your own life?

4. What are some ways you can practise allowing your emotions? What helps you process emotions? Can you write or talk? How can you get support around this to welcome in more flow?

Episode 104: Desperation, Cycle Breaking and Self Abandonment

1. What dysfunctional patterns from your own family are you most focused on shifting and/or breaking? Can you be guided by what feels most important and use these to get clear on your values?

2. What were you trained for in childhood?

3. Where do you consistently push to do more when you are actually already at capacity? What helps facilitate this capacity gap? Is that helpful for your body?

4. Do you notice a sense of desperation in your belief you need to ‘break all the cycles’?

5. How does this manifest in your parenting and day to day life?

6. Is this helpful for you? What qualities does it add? If it is unhelpful what may be more helpful? How can you soothe yourself around this?

7. The desperation is often driven by perfectionism - how can you welcome in imperfection and practise in small ways at this?

Episode 105: Breaking up with Self Abandonment

1. Where do you notice you are withstanding things (as opposed to actually enjoying the job or relationship etc)? Are you dealing with a difficult partner or boss and feel like this is ‘just your role’? Is this true? Where did you learn this?

2. Where are you continuously putting up with more than you need to?

3. Where in parenting do you abandon yourself? Where are you withstanding more than is necessary (and note that this may shift and change based on your capacity and current aims/intentions)? Where are you telling yourself it just has to be like this? Or where are you confusing perfection with good enough?

4. How can you bring more comfort to NOT abandoning yourself? Have you got a friend you can share about this with? Or take it to therapy?

Episode 106: Emotional Defence Strategies, Interoception and Emotional Flow

1. Did you recognise any of your own defences listening to the strategies listed?

2. Has denial been something you have utilised? What strategies were used in your family of origin? How do you notice yourself perpetuating these? Or not?

3. What do you notice about your own emotional flow? Are there times where there is more ease in terms of how you connect to your emotions? When is this? Are there any patterns in terms of when/how/who you are with? What do you notice about your kids emotional flow? Can you learn anything from them?

4. What is your relationship to your interoception like? Do you tend to overrespond or under-respond to your own bodily signals?