Journal Prompt: Who Am I?

Beginning with a meditation to notice and ground ourselves, we'll move into a journal prompt with the question: Who am I? No wrong answers, no right answers, simply an exploration of the roles we've inhabited thus far in our lives and the character qualities we ascribe to ourselves.

We'll begin to ask if those roles and qualities serve us or did once but no longer. And which roles or qualities might we want to inhabit more often in our lives to feel more true to ourselves?

Bring a journal, a pen, and an open mind.

Transcript

Hola!

Today I would like to do a journaling exercise so if you could get a notebook and your favorite pen and a cozy place and we're just gonna come up with a question and meditate for a second here to find the right space to allow whatever to bubble up that wants to bubble up so we don't have to come at this from a tough cognitive place and come up with the right answers we're just seeing what arises so once you have your journal your pen and your cozy spot just for a second here let's kind of set up our posture notice your body have yourself be upright shoulders back with a nice straight spine but also flexible check in with the various parts of your body to see how you're feeling right now without judgment just noticing a couple nice deep breaths to just center your system feel that oxygen coming in release let it go letting it feel good to take a nice deep breath and feel yourself being a breathing body feeling yourself being breathed right now maybe even noticing that you weren't breathing very deeply as we just go about our day usually we're more shallow breathing allowing how delicious it feels to have this nice deep breath and this exhale how relaxing that can be just noticing what your mind has been full of what kind of things you've been thinking about just even in the last few minutes the last hour what you've been busy in yourself with allowing it to be there and then kind of allowing all that all those thought processes to kind of take a seat back for just a minute here returning to something in the room that feels more present present moment awareness of your current temperature feel of your body anything you're looking at tasting hearing and certainly your very next breath as like the most immediate thing in the room and from here open your eyes if they were closed grab your journal and so simple and so many other people have done this but it's such a worthwhile thing to do again and again just at the top of your journal right who am I who am I who am I who the heck am I and just start with who you think you are what roles you currently occupy in this time of your life so you might start with some of your bio features something you would write down on a on an application or kind of a police blotter your gender your height the color of your eyes what you do for a career your status in your family or your neighborhood who you are to other people where you belong where you think you belong where you pay money to belong could be your religion your spirituality your chosen group so write down some of these roles of who you are and then move into some of these qualities of who you are you decide maybe tap into what other people have said about you if you can't come up with what you would say about you who are you are you kind,

Loyal,

Practical,

Hard-working,

Are you adventurous,

Passionate,

Humble oh so humble are you the most humble person you know are you affectionate are you cranky are you short-tempered so what do you notice are you mature are you immature are you witty are you resourceful are you gentle just take a couple breaths and see if any other words that describe you come to mind you might have a whole page by now or you might have only come up with a couple things it's okay it's just the beginning of an exploration of this question who am I and who you are at this age might be different than who you were 10 years ago it'll certainly be different than who you are 10 years from now so maybe just a snapshot of who you think you are today just beginning to explore ourselves with curiosity kindness and a sense of humor maybe things aren't exactly as we think they are maybe there's more there than meets the eye I wonder if you'd be willing to ask the people that you interact with the people you trust the people who know you what they see about you what do they love about you what do they notice maybe they see you as resilient and you just think you're you're just living day to day dealing with what comes up but other people might be in awe at your resilience that would be one to write down just starting to gather these qualities of what you have cultivated what you have practiced some you may want to no longer practice because they don't serve you any longer we certainly can practice being hard-headed and not hearing another person's point of view or maybe we realize we're an emotional person and maybe that's okay maybe we want to feel all of our emotions and maybe we just have to learn how to express those in the right context and not take ourselves out but just allow ourselves to feel and let that movement move on through 90 seconds of feeling a raw emotion without the storyline can allow that emotion to move on through so just a couple more breaths seeing if any other words come up who am I I once did this exercise with other people and after we went through I'm a mother I'm overweight I'm whatever our professions were whatever we thought of our bodies we then moved into if we're kind or caring a mother loyal all these other adjectives and then one woman said I am a friend and the last woman I remember said I am movement who that one got me I am movement I think I like those two the best I am a friend and I am movement you're just gonna wake up each day and move with what that day brings hmm so now I just want us to take another couple breaths and hold all of this with kind of a open hand a loose quality yes you are all those things and you're also not some of them you want to cultivate some you want to slowly release because they no longer serve some are gonna change anyway whether you want them to or not you might not be in that same role that you're in today a year from now and that could be of your own choosing or it happens to you either way your self-perception will change so we're just kind of being easy here with who we think we are what we've held tightly to and just let it all be in the palm of our hand but with an open hand warm heart strong back open front sense of humor sense of curiosity who am I today and then if you'd like to journal a little bit more you could ask yourself who do I want to be today and now you might be bringing in more of these character qualities maybe I want to be more quiet today maybe I want to be more engaged with others today maybe I want to look people in the eye the cashier at the grocery store anybody maybe I just want to look people in the eye today maybe that's a step out of the comfort zone being a little more bold maybe I want to dance today so maybe you put the journal down and go put on your favorite piece of music and dance around your living room for two and a half minutes that's who you want to be a dancer so again just have fun with it see who you might want to be today and tomorrow when you wake up who do you want to be tomorrow so continue writing if that feels good to you or if not just kind of set this aside now take a couple deep breaths I appreciate this time that you were willing to be here for yourself ask these big existential questions like who am I and then have a little bit of a lightheartedness and a sense of humor about how we answer these questions but thank goodness we keep showing up and asking the question we're alive we're here we're breathing we care or we wouldn't be doing this and maybe that's good enough for right now being plugged into your own life asking the questions keep showing up with your open heart and your strong back so thank you for taking this time I'm gonna ring the gong and just listen to the end take another deep breath and let all this go and I look forward to future times where we can do some other journal entries and just take some time to get to know ourselves with again kindness and curiosity thank you so much have a great day

Reviews

I had been in kind of a journaling slump until this came across my recommended guided meditations. I really enjoyed this and I liked how grounding and self exploratory it was. Your voice is so soothing and I appreciated the little bit of humor you injected in. Looking forward to more journalism prompts in the future!

Great way to center oneself and expand awareness.