Free Trauma Journal Prompts for Download

Get Insights into Trauma Prompts from the Experts at Icarus NV

Many describe carrying around the weight of past trauma as wearing a backpack loaded with rocks. You carry the excess weight of negative emotions everywhere that life takes you, making every step you take a struggle.

You cannot start your emotional healing journey until you find a way to process and release the negative emotions – the weight that holds you down. Our trauma journal prompts can help you start the self-discovery and personal growth process to lighten that load.

Icarus Behavioral Health Nevada is a top destination for healing in Las Vegas. We’ve guided many clients who have experienced trauma in dealing with the distressing thoughts that happen after a traumatic experience. Therapy cannot undo those past experiences; however, it can help with moving forward and building a better daily life for your future self.

If you want to know how journaling helps during the transformative journey of trauma healing, keep reading. Then, grab your favorite pen—we’ll give you some self-reflection exercises so you can start your journaling practice.

What Triggers Trauma or PTSD in a Person?

Trauma comes to most from living through or witnessing a disturbing or horrific event or series of events. These events may have happened to your younger self, such as suffering ongoing abuse by a family member. Or, they can be one-time events so awful that you need additional support to dull the memory.

No singular event causes these intense feelings or triggers of fear and helplessness. Nor does every person who undergoes trauma develop PTSD.

That’s what makes the healing process after trauma so tricky and why professional help is often the key to creating a space where someone can feel safe again.

Journaling Helped Tammy Regain Self-Esteem and Resilience

‘Tammy’ grew up in a home where extreme poverty was her daily reality. She often came home from school unsure if the electricity would be on or if she’d have food to eat. Her mother had left the household, and her father worked two low-earning part-time jobs that barely paid the rent.

Tammy’s peers bullied her daily throughout her childhood. They made fun of her shabby clothes and shoes, which had holes in them. Probably unaware that Tammy often had no food to eat on weekends, they made fun of how skinny she was. They picked apart the fact that Tammy’s mother had abandoned her young daughter.

Over the years, these words left deep scars on Tammy. As an adult, she had a sense of not being good enough. She wanted acceptance so much that she rarely set boundaries in her relationships and perpetuated abuse. Tammy turned to drug abuse to escape the past of her abused younger self and her current reality.

A Restoration of Hope is Found in Recovery

Tammy arrived at Icarus in Las Vegas after her battle with drug addiction had caused her to lose all hope. The first step of healing started with helping Tammy get clean. We also introduced her to journal prompts to help her write down her inner emotions. In her journal, Tammy’s younger self had a space to write about her inner world.

The therapist guided Tammy through cognitive behavioral therapy supplemented by journaling throughout her time at Icarus. It helped Tammy see that she deserved self-care and helped her release those toxic emotions she’d carried since childhood.

Today, Tammy still sometimes has feelings of self-blame or shame. But now, she knows how to write to boost her resilience on a bad day. She’s still clean and sober and has also started setting boundaries with others. Tammy remains committed to walking that path to a brighter future.

Somatic Therapy: Healing From Trauma

Somatic healing is a holistic approach that addresses the psychological and physical aftermath of trauma by connecting the mind to the body.

For example, too much self-criticism or self-blame for a trauma can lead to someone living with extreme amounts of stress. Stress can cause a decline in physical well-being, such as high blood pressure. Somatic therapy can help calm the mind and harmful emotions to alleviate that stress and eventually restore the body into a state of balance.

Besides starting to write in a journal, some other somatic alternative therapy techniques include breathing exercises, mindfullness, and yoga.

Manuel Healed His Body By Healing His Trauma Emotions

Past client ‘Manuel’ is a perfect example of how the harmful emotions that contribute to stress – like those after trauma – can lead to physical ailments.

Manuel, a successful Las Vegas area EMT, had suffered significant trauma after a motorist ran a red light and crashed into his ambulance. Manuel and his EMT partner only suffered minor injuries; however, the heart patient they’d been transporting to the trauma center did not make it to the hospital in time.

Manuel blamed himself for the patient’s death, believing he should have avoided the collision. The emotions swirled around in his head and ranged from regret to immense self-loathing. He could not let go of that incident; even though he continued to work, the loss of that patient had left him scarred for life.

Within a year of the incident, Manuel was struggling with intense jaw pain. He made an appointment with his dentist, only to learn that the problem was extreme muscle tension, not directly a dental problem. The dentist referred him to his primary care physician for stress management techniques.

Getting Outpatient Support for Recovery at Icarus Nevada

Manuel’s primary care doctor told him about self-care, but Manuel really did not know what to do. After telling the doctor about the nightmares that kept replaying about the ambulance accident, the doctor suggested that Manuel attend outpatient care at Icarus.

Manuel expressed a sense of relief the moment he started his healing journey at Icarus. He was surprised that the program offered so much support for his healing journey and still allowed him to work his shifts every day. Journaling helped him reflect on the accident; he’d often write about how the incident impacted his life and learned to reframe those thoughts into an action pain for his future.

We are pleased that Manuel is doing great today. Once he released the stress of the trauma through psychotherapy and journaling, his jaw discomfort stopped. He still uses journaling to reflect on his life and will often share with others how much it changed his life to write down things that cause stress for each of us.

Journaling: A Powerful Tool for the Trauma Healing Journey

A 2022 Journal of Contemporary Psychology study on journal writing to improve healing and resilience in PTSD and depression concludes:

“The act of writing showed great potential in the promotion of personal strengths, resilience and post-traumatic growth.” (Ruini and Mortara)

The study explains that journal writing can help people support trauma healing by offering support in making the following positive changes:

Journal Writing Offers Increased Gratitude After Trauma

As you begin journaling, you can focus on writing three things for which you can be grateful. This helps you focus on good things that have happened to you and displace bitterness and resentment that may hold you back.

Journaling Prompts Can Help Your Forgive

Anger and blame can make you feel stuck. Offering words of forgiveness to someone who hurt you can during your journaling session help you let go of the anger you carry. You might not be ready to discuss these feelings with that person yet, but you can explore them privately.

Write in a Journal to Gain Wisdom

Many psychologists agree that expressive writing can help process emotions in a structured way and from within a private, safe space. Journaling an account of the traumatic events can help organize your thoughts about the event and create a feeling that they control the trauma narrative. Thinking about a time that challenged you helps you gain wisdom through your own self-expression.

Building Hope Through Self-Awareness

As you reflect on the trauma, you can grow self-compassion. One exercise is to write three things you love about yourself, an approach that can improve your well-being. It can also help you put any perceived shortcomings in perspective as you explore the reasons why you deserve healing after a difficult experience.

Free Download: Journal Prompts for Trauma

Our journal prompts for trauma can help you organize your feelings and residual fear. As you begin to write daily, you will begin to see positive outcomes that go along with healing from trauma:

• Self-compassion
• Resilience as you learn to cope
• Clarity about the events
• A sense of controlling the narrative
• The ability to reflect on the trauma from a safe distance

There is not a right or wrong method for any part of the journaling process. Instead, it’s intended to guide self-reflection on the traumatic event.

As you write to describe your feelings, you will begin to gain clarity and explore new ways of moving forward. So write from the heart and express your true emotions while journaling.

Connect With Icarus Nevada to Start the Healing Process

Icarus Behavioral Health in Nevada is here to help when you are ready to receive professional support to heal from trauma. We use evidence-based therapy to help you cope with the pain and anxiety that occurs after a traumatic event or from a traumatic childhood.

Make the confidential call to us today to learn how we can help you. It’s time to unload the weight of trauma from your life and blaze a new path toward healing!