Journaling with CBT: A Simple Morning Habit

Here’s a morning habit I have that incorporates gratitude, planning, prayer, journaling, and a little bit of CBT.

‘What is your method for journaling with CBT?’ A planner friend asked me this in a Facebook group.

My shorthand version of CBT, based on my work with a therapist, is to start with journaling. I journal some of my fears, worst-case scenarios, or anything else that’s causing unhealthy emotions in my smaller B6 slim notebook.

Then, I write the corresponding true affirmations.

Then, I transfer those true affirmations into the daily portion of my planner journal.

For example, today I was journaling about feeling hopeless regarding a situation in my life. I journaled about the trigger (what I was feeling hopeless about) and my feelings in my B6 slim companion notebook. You can do this in any notebook.

In my daily layout, I wrote: ‘Hope is never gone. Hope shines the brightest when it shouldn’t exist at all.’

In fact, that’s what hope is for: the situations that need it.

It changed how I lived my day.

Try it now!

Get out a sheet of paper or your Owl Paper Journal, and write, ‘I feel [name feeling] right now. I feel this because [name event, memory, trigger, etc.].’ Then, think of or find a true affirmation that you can apply to the situation. My friend called this reframing without lying to yourself.

For example, when I experience Mom guilt, I journal about it, then I pull from one of the many quotes I’ve found online or that my therapist shared with me, and I put them both in my notebook and in my Owl Paper Planner Journal. One I use frequently is, ‘I don’t have to be the same mom today as I was yesterday. I am growing each day in loving my kids.’

Or, ‘I have to forgive myself for the mistakes I made yesterday so I can be the best version of myself today.