There are many ways to journal and when it comes to self-care, reflection, getting to clarity or inner explorations, we tend to stick to the easy and familiar: stream of conscious writing or list journaling. However, there are many creative ways to journal: ‘peeling the layers’, ‘leading questions’, ‘this or that’ – too many to even mention here. Some other journaling tools are used rarely (if at all) and Mind Mapping is one of them.
Traditionally, mind mapping is a planning and creative exploration tool which is mainly used in business, marketing, creative projects or for learning. However…because mind mapping is using words and words are ultimate building blocks of any journaling, we can creatively convert mind mapping into a journaling technique.
The simplest way to use a principle of mind mapping for journaling is to take just one word (or a sentence), write it in the middle of the page and create some ‘sun rays’ radiating from it, with each ray being a first level associations. This one word/sentence can be something which is on your mind or something which came up as a result of some other form of journaling (such as ‘peeling the layers’). And of course a traditional mind map calls for a second and third layers and so on – you can branch out for as long as you like eventually hitting your ‘Aha!’.
There are many beauties of mind mapping – and they also shine when we use it for journaling – but I feel that the very structure of it (you just see the empty spaces begging to be filled in!) is so inviting that it acts as a visual journaling prompt: fun, easy and creative.
If you would like to learn multiple creative simple journaling techniques for your daily self-care, making sense of your life experience or exploring deeper layers of your inner world, join us for Journaling Challenge ‘Letters to the Soul’ – it will give you a wide variety of tools to journal with ease and joy for years to come.
Any questions, please get in touch using the form below:
Related reading:
