This has been on my for you page for far too long, so I finally decided to write about it. All of us experience trauma as a child. What has really helped me in healing from my childhood trauma is journalling! These past couple of months I’ve been collecting all of the journal prompts (mainly from TikTok) that claim to heal so you don’t have to! After trying each of them out and screening out the ones that didn’t offer me any healing, here are 22 journal prompts for healing your inner child.
22 Journal prompts to start your healing journey in 2022
First and foremost, let’s separate these into three chronological stepping stones that come with truly healing: recognizing that there is trauma somewhere, remembering your traumas second, then overcoming the past traumas.
Recognizing
Let’s start brainstorming! Imagine you’re scrolling through your past like you scroll through your Instagram, except try and envision what it was like behind the camera or phone that took the mental picture. Does trauma lie in some of these pictures? If so, let’s recognize this when journalling about the following…
- When you think about your childhood, what makes you really sad or angry still to this day?
- What do you blame your parents for?
- What do you give your parents credit for?
- What are you no longer available for?
- What do you want to apologize for?
- “I can’t be myself because ____”
- “I’ll be satisfied/happy/fulfilled when ____”
- “Other people might be living their dream but not me because ____”
- Do you have any suppressed emotions from difficult events that occurred in your childhood that you’re still holding onto? If so, how can you release them?
Remembering
So we’ve recognized that some things we might have not realized before were in fact pretty traumatic for us. Now what? Well, it’s time to feel the feelings those mental images bring to us. Let’s remember them, not run away from them while we right the next six journal prompts…
- What was one time you remember feeling hurt, wronged, or betrayed as a child?
- What parts of yourself did you have to reject to have your parents’ approval (or the approval of others)?
- Write out a list of names of your your friends you had from your early childhood until now.
- Where were your favourite places to go as a child?
- What, who, or where made you feel supported and safe?
- Write down how you’re feeling in this very moment, then follow the ‘why.’ In other words, begin by writing down a current feeling like “I am sad” then answering “why?” right after it. Continue asking yourself “why?” until you’re satisfied with the answer or have gained more insight on why you’re feeling the way that you are deep down.
overcoming
Congratulations on learning more about your past traumas. Now it seems like the perfect time to get into the healing process, right? Well, let me first mention two things: one, I’m not claiming that journalling will fix everything for everyone overnight, but the seven journal prompts listed below have helped me in starting my long-awaited healing process, so I hope they help you too; and two, keep in mind while journalling about the following that we shouldn’t strive for burning the book of our past but instead learning to better live with it (that’s what helped me the most in this journey)!
- What are some of your toxic traits and how do they present themselves?
- What triggers those traits?
- How do you project these traits onto others?
- How do you choose to see yourself from now on?
- What is one thing you can do today to heal your inner child (separate from journalling)?
- How can your treat your inner child with love, compassion, and kindness?
- Write a letter to your inner child… It can be long and detailed or short and broad. The point of writing a letter to your inner child is to be the person that maybe you needed to listen to you and encourage you during your past hardships. Moreover, it’s important that writing this letter encompasses all of the recognizing, remembering, and overcoming you’ve done up until the point of writing it.
The goal
Maybe you’ve seen these journal prompts or maybe you haven’t. Nonetheless, our goal here is to heal from our past traumas together by doing some individual work on ourselves. Take this time to prioritize your past so you may grow and move on from it once and for all… we’ve got this!