In this series of posts, I’m putting two ideas together—the idea that smart, creative, sensitive individuals are confronted by special challenges and the idea that journaling is a valuable self-help tool—and turning them into a set of journaling prompts designed to lead you on a personal journey of discovery.
I hope that you enjoy these prompts. Here are five more challenges, and four journal prompts to go with each challenge. Engaging with any one of them may well serve you. I hope you find these valuable! And I hope you’ll take a look at Why Smart People Hurt and at my latest journal, Affirmations for Self-Love.
Today’s theme has to do with brain power changes and reductions and cognitive decline.
It isn’t inevitable that your brain power decreases with age. Some people remain sharp as a tack as they age. But virtually everyone discovers that the way their brain operates changes over time, creating challenges to their usual ways of thinking. It is unlikely that you will be thinking “as well” at eighty as you were thinking at twenty. And changes of that sort may make you deeply sad.
- The challenge of cognitive decline. Whether or not everyone experiences some cognitive decline with aging, certainly many people will and do. This may be in store for each of us.
+ Have you been experiencing cognitive decline? If so, how has it been manifesting?
+ How will the work you do be affected by any cognitive decline you might experience?
+ Are there any work-arounds to help you deal with cognitive decline and its effects on your life and/or your work?
+ What have been the psychological effects of any cognitive decline you may be experiencing?
2. The challenge of a loss of pride that can come with cognitive decline. One of the common psychological effects of cognitive decline can be wounded pride and a sense that we’ve become “less than” the person we’d always been.
+ Have you always taken pride in your cognitive abilities?
+ How has that pride manifested itself? In challenging yourself intellectually? In trying to solve knotty problems? In tackling large-scale creative work? In some other way?
+ Are you experiencing cognitive decline and a sense of wounded pride?
+ If you are, what might you like to try to do or think in order to ease the pain of that loss of pride?
3. The challenge of a loss of identity that can come with cognitive decline. If one of your primary identities has always been “smart person,” what will it feel like to slowly become a “less smart person”?
+ Have you long self-identified as a smart person? Has that been one of your primary identities, maybe even your prime self-identification?
+ Imagine losing that self-identification through cognitive injury or cognitive decline. How might you handle that loss?
+ How might you “rearrange” your identities in the face of such a loss? Might it be wise to adopt a “new identity” to replace that “smart person” identity? If so, what might you choose?
+ Picture yourself “wearing” the new identity that you choose. What do you see?
4. The challenge of a lack of motivation that can come with cognitive decline. How motivated will you feel to tackle your customary intellectual pursuits if it now feels too hard—or even impossible—to pursue them?
+ How might a lack of motivation to pursue your customary intellectual pursuits affect your motivation more generally?
+ What might you say to yourself to keep yourself motivated in the face of cognitive decline?
+ What tactics might you employ to keep yourself motivated in the face of cognitive decline?
+ Picture yourself still living actively and passionately in the face of cognitive decline. What do you see?
5. The challenge of a lack of felt sense of purpose with cognitive decline. Is life bound to feel less purposeful in the face of cognitive decline?
+ If one or more of your life purposes connected to your ability to think well, how might cognitive decline “rearrange” your understanding of your life purposes?
+ What tactics might you try in order to keep a felt sense of purpose afloat in the face of cognitive decline?
+ What inner language might you use in order to keep a felt sense of purpose afloat in the face of cognitive decline?
+ What are your overall thoughts or headline thoughts on handling cognitive decline?
More to come! Enjoy!
**
Promote Healing, Ignite Creativity, and Discover Writing Tips from Two Journaling Experts
“This book is a beautiful quilt, each chapter written by one of the wisest voices in the journaling world, on every aspect of journal writing imaginable.” —Ruth Folit, founder and past director of the International Association for Journal Writing
#1 Best Seller in Writing Skills, Writing Guides, and Nonfiction Writing Reference
The Next-Generation Book on Journaling Techniques
Learn from the best. The Great Book of Journaling equips you with practical and effective journaling techniques, advances your writing skills, and enhances self-esteem. Written by esteemed psychotherapist Eric Maisel and journaling expert Lynda Monk, Director of the International Association for Journal Writing, this book guides you on a path of healing, creativity, and self-discovery.
Discover the therapeutic magic of journal writing. Experience the transformative power of journaling. By engaging in daily meditations and personal writing, you can tap into your innate creativity and nurture self-love.
Packed full of valuable journal writing knowhow. We’ve rounded up 40 of the top journal experts in the world to explain exactly what journal writing can do for you! The Great Book of Journaling is full of practical tips, evidence-based research, and rich anecdotes from their coaching, teaching, therapy work with journal writers, and personal journal writing.
Inside find:
- Innovative journaling techniques to boost your creativity and writing skills
- Therapeutic writing methods to foster healing and high self-esteem
- Daily meditation practices for cultivating self-love and wellness
- Expert advice from 40 leading journaling professionals for deepening your personal writing
If you have read Mindfulness Journal, The Self-Discovery Journal, or No Worries, you will love The Great Book of Journaling. Also, don’t miss Eric Maisel’s Redesign Your Mind and The Power of Daily Practice.
—
iStock image