Gentle journal prompts for the days when the blank page feels like too much. Pick one, write for five minutes, and stop when you want to. Nobody is grading this.

How to use these

  • One prompt is enough. Write until it feels done, or set a five-minute timer.
  • Don’t edit. Messy, contradictory and unfinished all count.
  • Keep it private. Honesty comes more easily when no one will read it, including future you if you’d rather they didn’t.

Quick check-ins (one minute)

  1. One word for how your body feels right now.
  2. What do you want more of today?
  3. What’s one “yes” and one “no” for today?
  4. Where is there tension? Put a hand there for one breath.
  5. Finish the line: today I deserve…
  6. How full is your cup, 1 to 10? What would raise it by one?
  7. What are you ready to put down?
  8. What does your gut already know?

Self-kindness and your body

  1. Where in your body do you feel most at home right now? Breathe there for a moment.
  2. What is one thing your body did for you today that you can quietly thank it for?
  3. Name one “should” you inherited about your body. Whose voice is it in?
  4. What part of your body have you been at war with? Offer it one kind sentence.
  5. Describe a time you felt fully at ease in your own skin. What made it feel safe?
  6. What does real rest look like for you? When did you last let yourself have it?

Boundaries and taking up space

  1. Recall a moment you said yes when you meant no. What were you trying to protect?
  2. Where do you tend to make yourself smaller? What would taking up space feel like?
  3. Name a boundary you’d like to hold this week. Picture yourself keeping it with love.
  4. What have you been told is “selfish” that might actually be self-honoring?
  5. Where in your life are you giving without receiving? What would balance feel like?

Permission and desire

  1. Where are you waiting for permission? What if you gave it to yourself, right here?
  2. What is one small want you can honor today, simply because it is yours?
  3. Finish this gently: “It is safe for me to want…”
  4. What might change today if you believed your desire was good?
  5. Who would you be if shame no longer got a say?
  6. Write yourself a permission slip. What does it allow you to feel or do?

Playful ones, for lighter days

  1. If your mood were a snack, what would it be?
  2. Give your inner critic a ridiculous nickname.
  3. Describe today as a weather report for your heart.
  4. You get a day with zero shoulds. What’s the first thing you do?
  5. Invent a tiny holiday just for you. What does it celebrate?
  6. Write a one-line love note to your future self.

A new prompt every day, behind a passcode

These come from Permission, a free private journal for iPhone. It gives you one gentle prompt a day and three ways to answer: type it, say it out loud, or draw it. Everything sits behind a passcode and Face ID and stays on your phone. There’s no account, no cloud, no ads and no tracking. It grew out of Jessica Leigh Biles’ “Permission to Begin” work on reconnecting with yourself.

Get Permission free on the App Store →

Reconnecting with a partner too? Sensate Focus is a gentle, step-by-step practice for couples, and Slow Burn guides you through it.