Do you sometimes have trouble getting started in your journal? Here you will find some ideas and interesting things to contemplate. Most of these ideas are from Your Mythic Journey by Sam Keen and Anne Valley-Fox. I will add more all the time, so keep checking back. Note of caution: It is highly recommended that you have a support system in place before you begin working on your issues. This can be any combination of the following: a trained therapist(this is important), therapy group(lead by professionals), support group (with only peers), supportive family and friends, and other survivors. Also, do not push yourself too hard or too fast. This could back-fire. Take your time and listen to your gut. Unfulfilled Wishes Resentment, Anger, and Hostility Secrets Degraded Self-images Home | Special Topics Index Unfulfilled Wishes Your fantasies can tell a lot about your unfulfilled wishes.Planned fantasy trips are one way of exploring your imagination. Try the ideas below: While hiking in the mountains, you notice a cave. You crawl up to the opening and look into the darkness. In the distance, you hear running water and a voice calling, "Let me out. Let me out." And... Tommorrow, you receive a letter informing you that an old extremely rich relative has left you her entire estate. What is the first thing you do, after recovering from shock? You accidentally take a drug that erases all inhibitions and morality for one week, along with your accountability. You are perfectly free. What do you do for seven days? You are invisible for a few days. What do you do? Return to index Resentment, Anger, and Hostility Resentment, anger, and hostility are gauges of the injuries you have suffered. What persons, events, and institutions arouse your greatest resentment or anger? Who frustrated, neglected, manipulated, inhibited, or repressed you? In what ways have your wounds(physical or emotional) made you stronger? Gratitude is the expected response to a gift. But gifts may also trigger feelings of embarrassment, obligation, or confusion. Waht gifts have bound you to the giver, made you dependent, weaker? Did you realize it at the time, or only later? When have you been singled out for (positive) special attention? What people have enriched your life by caring, teaching, challenging, and/or delighting in you? Return to index Secrets What are the secrets that you never (or rarely) share with anyone? What secrets would you be relieved to share? With whom? What will become of them, once told? Which are easier to share - the secrets of your idealized self or those of your degraded self? Why do you think that is? Return to index Degraded Self-images Degraded self-images revolve around feelings of fear, weakness, anger, and confusion. In fantasy, allow yourself to be as weak, inadequate, passive, and ineffectual as you have ever feared yourself to be. Remember the times when you have felt small and helpless. Imagine that you are uncontrollably angry. Describe the persons you would punish or the things you would destroy. If you lost your reason, your inhibiting forces, what form would your madness take? Idealized images of the self usually cluster around fantasies of love, power, perfection, beauty, fame, knowledge, or creativity. Create a fantasy in which you become the fulfillment of your ideal self. You are strong, loving, beautiful, brilliant, etc. What do you do with your power? What gives you the most pleasure? Chart the way you bounce back and forth between idealized images and degraded images and feelings about yourself, Superman and infant, Mother of the Year and incompetent, etc. Return to index