I have been thinking about ways to structure our weekly process expressive writing sessions and wanted to let you know about the way that I structure my weekly process writing session. I write every week to offload and process the week just gone, so that I can meet the new week with clarity.
I’ve written a prompt and template for you (below), to use as a guide.
Want to try a weekly process?
If you want to try a weekly process writing session, this is the structure that I use:
OFFLOAD:
Set timer for 7 minutes: free-write for those 7 minutes and let yourself dump out onto the page whatever comes up, without judging or querying it.
PROCESS
Look back at what you have written. Does anything catch your curiosity as something you want to explore? If yes, go with that. If not, use one of the prompts below.
Set your timer for 7 minutes and write using the prompt or whatever you are curios about. Keep writing even past the point where you feel like you want to stop. If you get stuck use one of the prompts.
LIST OF PROMPTS:
Look back over your free-write.
- Circle any “I am” or “I am not” statements. Explore these. Are they still true, what is the current evidence.
- Notice any critical thoughts, or judgments. Write about those. What impact does this thought have on you and is it helpful now.
- Circle any ‘doing’ or ‘thinking’ phrases. Eg, “I have been doing a lot of …..”, “I have been thinking about…..” Write about these and ask yourself questions as you write.
- Notice if you are avoiding something that you would like to do. Question this and explore if you would like to overcome it.
- Notice ‘what if’ thinking or worse case scenario thinking. Use the worry tree to help you to explore this.
- Notice if there are any unhelpful thinking patterns. Click the image below to download this list which also contains some questions you can use to challenge them.
Expressive writing booklet
I have also put together this booklet that you can download, with all of the instructions and prompts together in one place (including the ‘Thinking Habits’ sheets.
