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.
Families and sometimes societies aim their youth in certain directions, deciding that this child is worth educating and that one isn’t, that this child is naturally smart and that this child is naturally dull, that this one should work with his brain and that that one should work with his hands, and so on. Many very bright children end up in the dull category or in the not worth educating category, with lifelong negative consequences.
1. The challenge of being pigeonholed early. For example, in some societies children are aimed early on in one of two directions, the college-bound track or the manual labor track, often based on class and caste considerations and not on native ability.
+ Were you pigeonholed early in a non-intellectual direction?
+ If so, what were the consequences of that pigeonholing?
+ Have you been able to find satisfactory outlets for your native intelligence?
+ Might you still be able to find satisfactory outlets for your native intelligence?
2. The challenge of being aimed in a “safe” direction. For example, a child may be pushed in the direction of what seems like a safe, attainable goal, like, for instance, elementary school teaching, and discouraged from imagining that she might be a college professor, which may seem too lofty and unattainable.
+ Were you advised to play it safe and not “dream above your station”?
+ If so, what were the consequences of that advice?
+ Is it still possible to attain the position you crave?
+ If so, what might be the steps to take to move in that direction?
3. The challenge of being aimed toward the family business. For example, a child’s parents may run a restaurant or a dry-cleaning business and fully expect all the children in the family to join the family business, irrespective of their individual desires or abilities.
+ Were you told that you were obliged to join the family business?
+ Did you agree to that? If so, what were the consequences?
+ Did you disagree and rebel? If so, what were the consequences?
+ If you are currently “trapped” in the family business, can you envision an exit strategy?
4. The challenge of social pigeonholing. For example, you may grow up in a society where girls are not educated and are expected to become wives and mothers; or, if they are allowed to work, to rise no “higher” than teacher or nurse.
+ Were you born into an anti-intellectual religion that saw schooling and thinking as dangerous?
+ Were you born into a social group where intellectual work was ridiculed?
+ Were you born into a society that devalued thinking in general or that devalued it for certain segments of society?
+ If any of the above were true for you, what have been the consequences?
5. The challenge of a lack of confidence or the habit of hiding one’s light under a bushel. For example, a child may look dull because she doesn’t feel confident expressing herself or doesn’t feel safe expressing herself, and as a result is presumed to be not particularly bright.
+ Where you considered not particularly bright because you hid your brightness?
+ What were the consequences of you hiding your intelligence under a bushel?
+ Do you still hide your native intelligence under a bushel?
+ If so, what steps might you take to remedy that?
More to come! Enjoy.
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Promote Healing, Ignite Creativity, and Discover Writing Tips from Two Journaling Experts
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