Guided journaling is a facilitated approach to journaling.
Sessions can be live in-person or virtually online, typically as part of a group and with a fee to join.
They can be ‘Journal with Me’ videos on YouTube or recorded audio sessions such as the LL Journaling Guided Sessions podcast. These are usually free to access and you can work through them alone.
During a session, a facilitator will guide you through a number of journaling prompts. Often, the prompts are timed and centred around a theme or topic.
Facilitators either provide music for you to journal to or invite you to journal in silence. Some sessions will be a combination of guided journaling both with music and in silence.
(NB: Guided journaling can also be presented in the form of physical and digital workbooks or even blog posts, but the focus of this post is guided journaling sessions with a facilitator present, in person or recorded)
Benefits of guided journaling
There are many benefits to journaling alone; guided journaling provides even more.
Some days you want to write but don’t know what to say or where to start. Other times, you may feel uninspired by or resistant to journaling. Guided journaling sessions can be extremely helpful during these moments.
Journaling is mostly considered a solitary practice, however, guided group sessions can provide a sense of community, while still preserving privacy and confidentiality.
Additionally, through the sharing of any willing participants, guided group sessions can also provide inspiration and alternative perspectives on your own interpretation of the prompts as well as more broadly on life.
Though not at all necessary, guided journaling provides structure to your practice and gives your session more focus than a freewriting/stream of consciousness. It also carves a set amount of time for you to dedicate to your journaling practice.
Guided journaling can bring more variety to your journaling practice. It is a good way to experiment with your journaling practice and discover how different ways of journaling affect what you express on the page.
LL Journaling Guided Sessions
The LL Journaling Guided Sessions podcast is a collection of bite-sized guided journaling sessions you can do any time and pretty much any place, to encourage a regular journaling practice.
Each session begins with a short meditation and then guides you through a collection of prompts.
Sessions are designed to support your journaling practice and encourage you to take time out of your day for yourself to reflect, contemplate and show up more intentionally in your daily life.
The LL Journaling Guided Sessions podcast is free to access and available via Spotify, Apple Podcasts and all popular streaming platforms. This also means you can return to the sessions at any time.
Guided journaling is particularly helpful if you are new to journaling and want to give it a try.
It is just as beneficial for anyone who is actively journaling as well as anyone who has journaled in the past, and wants to restart a practice but is struggling to begin.
As always with journaling, experiment and see what works for you.
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