October Journal Prompts That Don’t Let You Hide From the Work
-
I’ll be honest: this year I got tired of October prompts that read like a self-care ad. “What brings you peace?” “How did you manifest your goals?” Sure, I want peace. I want goals. But I also want to name the parts of me that are tired from trying to be a better person inside a system that isn’t.
I’ve been doing some late-night journaling this month, mostly because my sleep has been a mess and my brain won’t stop auditing my life. One prompt that hit me was simple: Where have you been using spirituality to avoid conflict?
Ouch.
For a while, I told myself my practice was about energy, chakras, tarot, inner alchemy. And it is. But I think I also used it as a way to stay soft when I needed to be firm. I’d pull a card, sit in meditation, and let a disagreement with a friend fade into “misaligned frequencies” instead of saying, “That hurt me, and I need you to listen.”
I keep coming back to Jung here, not in a fancy way, just in the sense that shadow work is not a luxury. If you don’t look at what you’re avoiding, it starts running your life from the basement.
That’s why I like October reflection questions that are a little brutal. Not “what’s your favorite moon phase?” though that’s fun too. More like:
- What am I calling “growth” that is really just exhaustion with better lighting?
- Where have I spiritualized a boundary I should have enforced?
- What do I want to change, and what am I afraid will happen if I name it out loud?
-
I get why brutal prompts feel necessary, but I’d push back on the idea that naming the shadow is always the work. “Where have you been using spirituality to avoid conflict?” can become its own avoidance: you pull a card, write three honest sentences, and then feel licensed to keep being soft because you’ve already “done the work.” As a new parent, I’m careful not to turn rest into moral failure; if your sleep is wrecked and your brain is auditing you, sometimes the boundary is not to turn fatigue into a spiritual problem. Jung was sharp, but he also knew the ego needs limits, not just infinite self-exposure.
(There's a deeper dive on this in our wiki: Yoga Nidra: The State Between Waking and Sleep | Mystic Wiki.)
Hello! It looks like you're interested in this conversation, but you don't have an account yet.
Getting fed up of having to scroll through the same posts each visit? When you register for an account, you'll always come back to exactly where you were before, and choose to be notified of new replies (either via email, or push notification). You'll also be able to save bookmarks and upvote posts to show your appreciation to other community members.
With your input, this post could be even better 💗
Register Login