Finding the Stories that Burn Inside You
Building a Bridge Between Your Inner World and Your Writing
Welcome to The Writing Sanctuary, where I share inspiration and insights from my Year of Mindful Writing course, training in therapeutic journaling and positive psychology, and many years spent as a fiction writer, creative writing teacher, and indie publisher. Rooted in my ongoing journey with mindfulness, Taoism, Buddhism, Gnosticism and metaphysics, and many other things, these monthly posts are here to help develop your writing craft and your wellbeing.
Each month there’s a mix of ideas, reflections, and writing prompts to help you connect more deeply to your stories — and to yourself, others and the world around you. If you’re a paid member, you’ll receive the full post and can share your thoughts in the comments. If you’re not yet a member, you’ll get the preview section to inspire your practice. Either way, I’m so grateful to you for being here and I’d love to hear what comes up for you.
Before we get started, a reminder that it’s just over a month until the start of my brand new Mindful Memoir Course, and if you are thinking of joining us it is now half full! I am so thrilled that people are excited about this new course. And in July my other brand new course is starting: The Mindful Flash Fiction Course. Both of these new courses have been written from my deep passion for reclaiming our writing so that first and foremost it is a deep personal practice that helps us grow and brings joy while connecting us more deeply to our human experience and family.
Journaling Your Way to Deeper Creativity
Today, I want to talk about something that has transformed my own creative practice and helped countless writers I've worked with: therapeutic journaling.
Now, I know what you might be thinking. "I'm already writing—why add another writing practice?" But bear with me, because journaling isn't just more writing; it's a different kind of writing that can profoundly enrich our creativity.
Think of therapeutic journaling as the bridge between your inner world and your creative expression. It's a private space where you can explore your thoughts, feelings, and memories without the pressure of crafting them into something "good." When we remove that pressure, we often access deeper truths and more authentic material. Themes emerge and these are signifiers we should take notice of they are appearing repeatedly as they are the things that really matter to us. I have noticed this happening in what I am writing at the Mindful Writing Marathons too.
I've found that my fiction becomes more resonant when it is inspired by emotions, memories and ideas I've explored in my journal first. Not because I'm writing autobiographically (I'm not!), but because I've connected with the emotional truths that make stories feel alive.
We all have themes that recur in our writing — certain relationships, conflicts, or questions that we circle back to again and again and again. These aren't coincidences or simply habits; they're signposts pointing to the deepest parts of our human experience we need to explore.
As I've mentioned before when talking about mindful writing, themes that recur are doing so for a reason. They're bubbling away in our subconscious minds, and there's something we really need to understand about these themes through the characters that come to us.
Journaling helps us identify these recurring themes and explore them more intentionally. Instead of unconsciously repeating patterns, we can start to understand their significance and develop them with greater awareness and nuance.
From Inner Critic to Inner Ally
One of the biggest obstacles many of us face as writers is that monkey mind critic. That voice that tells us our work isn't good enough, that we have nothing original to say, that someone else is already doing it better, that we should just give up.
What I've discovered through my own journaling practice, and through what I have learned from
and what she has shared about Internal Family Systems, is that this critic is trying to keep us safe. When we create a dialogue with this part of ourselves in our journals, we can uncover what it's really trying to protect us from, which is usually some form of vulnerability or fear.Once we understand the critic's concerns, we can acknowledge them while still moving forward with our writing. The critic doesn't disappear, but it can become more of an ally than an adversary.
Through journaling, this transformation happens when we shift from battling our critic to listening to it with curiosity. When we engage with its concerns, the harsh judge gradually evolves into a discerning editor who helps refine our work rather than block it. Instead of vague judgments like "this is terrible," it begins offering specific insights: "this dialogue feels stiff" or "the pacing drags here." The critic's protective energy redirects into constructive feedback, and we begin to welcome its perspective rather than dread it. Our writing becomes both more authentic and more refined as we integrate the wisdom of our inner editor while maintaining the courage to create despite doubts.
Reclaiming the joy of creation
Remember when you first started writing? That sense of discovery and play, the sheer joy of putting words together without worrying about whether they were "publishable" or "good enough"?
For many of us, that joy gets buried under the weight of expectations, deadlines, and the desire for external validation.
Therapeutic journaling helps us reconnect with that joy. When we write just for ourselves, with no expectations and no audience, we can rediscover the freedom and pleasure that drew us to writing in the first place.
Some of our most creative insights happen in liminal spaces — those in-between moments when our conscious mind loosens its grip and allows what’s floating about in our unconscious to bubble up. This is why we often get our best ideas in the shower, while walking, or just as we're falling asleep or waking up.
Journaling immediately upon waking can capture some of that dream-like creativity before our analytical mind fully takes over. Similarly, journaling before bed can plant seeds that our unconscious mind will work on while we sleep.
I've started many a story from fragments that first appeared in my morning pages —images or phrases that didn't make logical sense but carried a powerful emotional charge.
If you're intrigued by the idea of therapeutic journaling but not sure where to start, I've created these five prompts to ease you in. Remember, there's no right or wrong way to journal. The only rule is that it's for your eyes only, which gives you complete freedom.
Journal Prompts
1. Meeting Your Inner Writer Imagine your creative self as a separate entity. What do they look like? What do they want to say? What do they need from you? Write a conversation between you and this inner writer.
2. Emotional Archaeology Choose an emotion that appears frequently in your writing (love, grief, rage, longing, etc.). When did you first experience this emotion intensely? Write about that experience using all five senses.