What is your journaling archetype?

There are seven to choose from. I’m sure you’ll be able to spot yourself in there.

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I’ve been journaling for years, mostly for self-discovery, but also as a tool for healing from general anxiety and childhood trauma. I am trained to use journaling as a therapeutic tool. I want to help you create a consistent and healing journal practice, so you can feel most like YOU!

This week, I asked my lovely journaling community, ‘What type of journaler are you?’ and then I offered them 7 different archetypes. I’m sure you’ll be able to spot yourself in there.

If you play along today. I’ll share with you my personalised journal tips and advice for your archetype. Right, here we go:

1 – Nora Newbie

You’ve never journaled and you’re here to learn as much as possible. Okay, maybe you tried it a few times. Like back in the day, you kept a diary that contained the latest dramas and all your teen angst, but you never got beyond the first few pages. You were young and having fun. Now, everybody is talking about it, you realise there are so many benefits of journaling, and you’re excited to learn more and give it your best shot!

Helpful Journaling Tips: Read Why journaling is my healing medicine and find out how journaling helps take care of your mental and emotional wellbeing.

2 – SOS Suzie 

You only get your journal out in an absolute emergency. It would have to be a ginormous crisis that brings up all your big emotions. You don’t really pay attention to your feelings until they get so big they get your attention! Perhaps you’ve gone through a bad break up, your beloved pet has died, or your Mum is giving you the silent treatment again. You vaguely remember a video you saw on YouTube that told you to ‘Take Back Your Power and Journal it out!’ Otherwise, you just keep calm and carry on with life… until it all gets too much.

Helpful Journaling Prompt: Why do I hold on to my feelings and let them build up until they get to crisis point? Often we respond to our feelings in the same way the adults around us responded to them when we were growing up. So if you isolate yourself or push them down and ignore them, you know where that comes from. It’s up to you now to break that pattern by doing the complete opposite.

3 – Timid Teresa

You’ve been journaling for years on and off. You’re not confident it’s working or that you’re doing it right. You want your handwriting to look neat, and besides you’re obsessed with stationery. You can’t help buying all those lovely fresh, new notebooks that you see on offer in Paperchase.

Helpful Journaling Tips: Check out my beautiful journals. The Daisy Collection contains 5 essential journal prompts that will keep you focussed and on track. It doesn’t really matter how it looks. You don’t need to do it perfectly. You’re writing for YOU! Nobody else is going to see it and you must write unedited and get messy with your thoughts and feelings if you want to move beyond them. I’d also like to invite you to my intuitive journaling class which you can watch as a paid subscriber.

4 – Poppy Le Pro

You journal every day and you love it! You love the sense of freedom in letting the words tumble out onto an empty page. Your journal holds all your uncomfortable feelings and frees up more space in your mind to focus on what matters to you. As you write, you get absolute clarity in what you need to do next and you’re so grateful that you’ve found this simple and brilliant tool to keep you focussed and positive about your life. Since you’ve been journaling, you’ve noticed how much your creativity has flourished. You love writing poems and stories. You hope to realise your dream of writing a book or becoming a blogger.

Helpful Journaling Tip: I love how you are using your journal to access your creative and intuitive gifts. If you wanted to take it one step further, I’d love to help you realise your dreams of becoming a professional writer. Check out Write to Heal, my 1:1 coaching packages and let’s make that happen today!

5 – Avoidant Amy

You know you need to do it, but you’d rather descale your kettle! Oh, I hear you. It’s so hard to find the time to sit down and enjoy a little quiet time for yourself. I know how much you love to help others, and how you take all your responsibilities very seriously. Your life is busy and full. When the day is done, you just want to chill. You usually spend what little free time you have watching Netflix or scrolling through social media on your phone. Even though your life is full, it doesn’t feel fulfilling. It’s meeting everybody else’s needs, but what about yours?

Helpful Journaling Prompt: Why am I putting everybody before myself? Why am I avoiding myself? What am I afraid of?

Listen to the audio see if that helps shift your energy.

You’d also really enjoy my 30-Day Journaling Experience, You Got the Love, which will give you the structure, confidence and daily motivation to journal. You have to take the first step and want that for yourself. It is safe for you to put yourself first.

6 – Messy Maureen

You’re all over the place and your inner rebel screams, ‘Don’t put me in a box!’ I will not be categorised by this stupid quiz. You’ve got piles of paper everywhere that are full of your scribbles, thoughts and ideas. Only thing is, all those amazing things you write never see the light of day, and they are wasted there. You are holding yourself back by not making something more concrete of your creativity. It’s time to stop playing small!

Helpful Journaling Tip: Put everything together in one place. Use one notebook that you carry around with you all the time (or you can use the notes pages of your phone). Schedule a monthly date in your diary where you stop and sit down to go through all your genius scribbles. See if there is a pattern or something for you to know. Maybe you’ll see that your soul is trying to tell you something, and you’re sabotaging yourself by not fully listening. All those fragmented scribbles will be super powerful when they come together.

7 – Demotivated Daisy 

You know what to do but it’s just a case of getting around to doing it. You’ve got good intentions but you’ve got to be in the mood and that’s not always easy. You’re battling against daily anxiety and a busy brain that doesn’t have an off switch. You get caught up in your head and you can’t quite bring yourself to the page. You worry, ‘What if you do it wrong?’ or ‘What if you write something that you don’t want to have to deal with right now?

Helpful Journaling Tip: Check out my 30-Day Journaling Experience, You Got the Love, which will give you the guidance, confidence and daily motivation for journaling. Every day there is a visual and audio prompt which help you dissolve your anxiety and also connect you to your intuition – this is where your self-trust lives and your higher self which is like an all-knowing wise owl.

Ask yourself this question: ‘Are you going to spend all your day worrying about why you haven’t done it and then beating yourself up for it?’ or ‘Are you going to use your time wisely and transmute that negative, overthinking energy into words on the page?’

You get to choose how you feel. You have the power to change it. Focus on how proud and good you’ll feel after you’ve done it.

What were the scores on the doors?

Drum roll …….*ta-da* it was a 50/50 split between: Demotivated Daisy and Avoidant Amy.

Now we’re not judging or shaming anybody here. I wanted to get insight into how it was for my lovely journaling community, so that I could help them create a consistent and healing journal practice. It’s no coincidence that I was both Demotivated Daisy and Avoidant Amy before I became Poppy Le Pro.

Removing Your Journal Blocks

It took me years to get there and a lot of consistent love, effort and time to maintain. What helped most was understanding what was happening in my inner world, and learning how to regulate my nervous system. When you’re in survival mode (fight, flight, freeze or fawn), you will avoid yourself, feel demotivated and reluctant to bring yourself to your journal. You can use my Emotional First Aid Kit to learn more about that. 

What did you learn?

I really wanted you to become more aware of what is stopping you from being with your journal…aka…being with yourself!….

The brutal truth is that you aren’t making time for, or prioritising yourself. No matter what reasons you’re giving, there isn’t one that is good enough. You deserve more. You’re worth getting to know. It’s time to slow down and take better care of yourself. Even if it’s just to have a cup of tea and write two lines a day. Baby steps. That’s how we change unhealthy coping patterns that keep us from being with ourselves.

You’re worth MORE!

When we make time for ourselves and treat ourselves like we are worth taking care of, our life changes. Other people start treating us better too. Your relationship with yourself is the most important one. When you love yourself, it ripples out into all areas of your life – your relationships, your finances, as well as your emotional and mental wellbeing.

Want to take your journaling to the next level?

If like me you love journaling as a powerful tool for self-development and personal growth, check out my Journal Starter Kit.