What if I told you that a self-love guided journal could be a huge part to your gut-healing journey?

Would you believe me or would you think it’s just woo-woo garbage?

I’m not here to make up your mind for you, not for answering this question or for how you go about your gut-healing journey in general.

Instead, I’m here to support you in making the decisions in the best ways possible for you.

My Own Truth

However, the reason that I want to share this information with you today is because I believe from the bottom of my heart that the journey to ultimate and everlasting gut healing can be a very beautiful journey, if you allow it to be that.

The physical self is part of the equation.

But if there is one thing I try to convey time-and-time again it’s that the physical self cannot and does not fully heal until the whole self heals.

Part of this is fully acknowledging and accepting that the first place to start isn’t always with the physical self – aka. the symptoms; bloat, constipation, acne, diarrhea, etc.

While I realize this is a hard truth, I also want you to know that this can be great news.

Self-Love Guided Journal {21-days of prompts for your healing journey}

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When I wrote A Gutsy Girl’s Bible: a 21-day approach to healing the gut, I knew that one of the most powerful tools I could provide were daily prompts at the end of each of the 21 days. The reasons?

Here are 4:

1. Stop your negative thoughts.
2. Help you engage with a self-love journey you might not have ever considered previously.
3. A way to give you simple, self-reflection prompts.
4. Inspiration for setting your own meaningful intentions.

The most important thing to me when giving you these journal prompts and starting places for your own ideas around the messages I share is that you could take it all in order to provide yourself optimal self care.

Because here’s the deal, without these critical and loving actions, you will NEVER heal.

I realize that some might read the previous statement and think, “Yes I can heal without self love and positive daily practices.”

But believe me, you can’t. Not for good, and not forever. Remember, anything can be achieved temporarily – even digestive symptom management. But that is not long-term healing, and living your best life requires something far more than symptom management.

Positive Mindset

If you recall from How Mindset Changes Gut Healing, I stated,

Your mindset will either set you up for success or failure.

I never believed in any of it, until I found myself at the end of my healing rope, desperate to try anything.

For me, anything was the mental health part of healing. And honestly, I think this is so true for many other people as well.

Truth be told – the “easy” thing to do is the diet, supplements and/or medications. But getting right with yourself and in tune with your true self is a process, oftentimes a long one.

Because I know the power and value in it, though, it’s what we start with in Gut Healing for Beginners.

Remember, you want to heal your gut and heal your life – forever. But these good things won’t happen without putting in the work.

Daily Habits

Okay, so now I want to share 6 of these journaling prompts from the book to get you started today with new daily habits.

1. What is the “sourest lemon” in your own life? (Day 2, page 112)
2. What do you currently believe about your gut-healing journey? (Day 4, page 123)
3. Consider all the templated protocols you’ve tried on yoru journey that did not work for you. Dig deeper to understand why they didn’t work fr you. (Day 7, page 139)
4. Think about something, anything, in your life that you have been resisting due to one fear or another. How has this been holding you back? If you have let it hold you back for far too long, write out your ideas for how you can change today. What will you do? How will you make it happen? (Day 10, page 152)
5. Think about how you can slow down today and embrace this journey. (Day 15, page 178)
6. Where are you holding stress, anger, or sadness? Have you stuffed your emotions down instead of bringing them to the surface and addressing them? (Day 18, page 194)

And wait, there are even more….

Here are three simple writing prompts to get you even more results.

They are:

1. What is holding me back from healing my gut?
2. How overdue is my gut healing?
3. More thoughts I have on this topic…..

You’ll find this in Gut Healing for Beginners in the pre-module material (there are 26+ PDF downloads like this included as part of this course!).

Answer the first two questions.

Then, once you get to the 3rd question (which is open ended), get out a blank page of paper.

Consider these different ways of approaching this one prompt (more thoughts I have on this topic….):

1. Ways I can boost self-esteem in order to get on the correct gut healing path…..
2. What are some good habits I can start to form?
3. Do I engage with too much negative self-talk? What does that look like in my own life?
4. Why have I not started the journey for healing? Which pieces are “too hard?”

Sometimes, when we find these open-ended questions, we are able to go in so many different directions that the path becomes much more clear.

Gratitude Journal

There is one more type of journal that I have written about which could also act as a self-love guided journal. And that would be the Gratitude Journal.

One of the greatest ways we can practice self love is by showing more gratitude for the things in our lives. Why? you wonder. Well, here are 5 things a Gratitude Journal can do for your life:

1. Lower stress. Because showing gratitude puts things into perspective.
2. Help find the beauty in each day.
3. Focus on what really matters.
4. Act as a “happy place.” Whenever you need a boost, you can always go back to those pages filled with lines of gratitude and you’re bound to smile.
5. Perspective. You do realize that you have so much to be thankful for, right? Millions of people worldwide would do anything to be in your shoes. I try to remember this daily. Keeping a Gratitude Journal helps put it all in perspective. (p.s. that doesn’t mean your “hard” isn’t real.)

Journal {food and lifestyle}

And here’s the thing, while I absolutely believe that you need to explore internally before you can investigate externally, please don’t misunderstand that as only internal, hardly external.

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” (Aristotle) – and that means all three of my gut healing pillars: diagnosis, diet, and lifestyle.

Within each there is a journaling element that will, without-a-doubt advance your healing like none other.

If I had to break them out, they might look like this:

1. Diagnosis: prompts in Gut Healing for Beginners + A Gutsy Girl’s Bible: a 21-day approach to healing the gut
2. Diet: 90-day gut healing journal (also includes inspirational quotes and mantras, weekly spreads, and free shipping if you’re in the United States!)
3. Lifestyle: Self-love journal /gratitude journal

And yes, yes I have done them all and continue to practice them all to this day.

So, with all these various writing practices, where should you start with your journaling towards more self love?

Daily Journal

Taking everything above into consideration, if you are just looking for the very best version of combining gut healing with the art of more self love, I’d choose the option which contains 21-days of prompts for your healing journey.

The most bang for your buck, if you will, including a journal experience to teach you the right way for approaching questions and self discovery (physical and emotional).

That would be the 21-day approach to healing the gut.

However, at the end of the day, the goal is to do something, anything. Get out a daily journal and start.

This self-love guided journal blog post is packed with ideas for how.

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:

1. Do You Need a Gut Healing Journal
2. Journaling for Gut Healing
3. Gratitude Journal

Xox,
SKH