The Week In Review (Journal Prompt)
We finished the week with this short exercise in the Journal Circle. The Week in Review helps playfully reflect on and process different elements of life.
While this is a great way to document your week; The Week in Review also helps bring sensitivity and creativity into dialogue with life’s events. By framing your experiences through this news lens, you can create some distance from any intensity in your feelings, allowing you to reflect with a greater sense of objective curiosity and humour.
It aims to illuminate things that can be put to bed at the end of the previous week and prepared for at the start of the next one.
Journaling is a powerful tool for highly sensitive people. It provides space for deep processing, and an opportunity to notice what we’ve noticed. The nature of this exercise means we don’t get ahead of ourselves or stuck in the past, so it’s useful anchor for the present moment’s needs.
The Week In Review
Use these questions to guide your week in review.
Top Story
What would be the main headline from the past seven days if your life was a newspaper? How did this event shape your week?
Editorial Section
Reflecting on your thoughts and feelings over the past week, what opinion piece would you write? What key insights or lessons would you share?
Lifestyle Feature
Imagine there was a feature article on your daily habits and routines from this past week. What would the headline be, and how would the article describe your current lifestyle?
Breaking News
What unexpected event or surprise caught you off guard last week? How would the news report it, and what impact did it have on you?
Forecast for Next Week
Looking ahead, what would be the weather forecast for your upcoming week? What mood or energy do you expect to bring or encounter in the coming days?
I laughed my way through this prompt. Judging by our live gathering, I was evidently not alone.
For example, my lifestyle feature was “Man Stops Moving Because He is Caught In Creative Flow; Passers-by Stop To See if He’s Alive.” And BREAKING NEWS: The World is Shocked as Andy Finally Reaches Inbox Zero.
The Forecast section was also fun to read through the language of weather reporting: “Storms Expected,” “Heatwave Coming,” and “High Pressure Arriving From The South.”
Have some fun with it!
The Journal Circle
The Haven Journal Circle started life after a workshop with Mandy Thompson about starting and maintaining a journal practice. We regularly meet briefly at the end of the week to share how we’re getting on with any practices, habits, and routines we would like to explore through journaling. Because it’s not unusual for time to pass without writing, we spend 5 minutes following a short and straightforward journal prompt, so there is always something to take with us from the week.
Check out the events calendar for a list of upcoming Journal Circle Gatherings
You can also visit the Community Gallery to view and discuss more prompts like this one.
