When working with my life coaching clients here in Orange County out of my Life Coach office in Newport Beach by Irvine/Costa Mesa, learning both to discover and identify as well as then consciously manage one’s thoughts and reset one’s mindset is a core component of the foundation building work in coaching. How wonderful of Dr. Elena Welsh to bring us guided journal to add to the tools and resources for better living!
Dr. Welsh brings her years as a licensed clinical psychotherapist to this wonderful thought guiding journal. I made a point to photograph and share a handful of images with you from the journal to give you a taste of the varied layout used to enrich this journal without sharing so many as to impinge on her Intellectual Property.
Some parts start with an inspiring thought, prompting for positivity and inviting us to write out on a lined page of the journal.
Other pages are more like a beautiful tag cloud of positive attributes. We can both circle them and I would add writing some out onto post it notes in fun colors and shapes to put in the journal or bring the journal out into my physical life by posting a few on the bathroom mirror as unconscious mind shaping and conscious mind reminders for goodness, happiness, and positivity.
Some pages invite us to write out affirmations. Personally, I’ll need way more pages on that topic! I think with the layout, I could easily tuck in loose sheets of lined notebook paper to do that.
Some pages are specific prompts for a particular reflection or action which instills a positive outlook perspective on the user and reader of the journal.
The colors are likely to appeal a bit more to women their being pretty pastels.
I like the inclusion of the minimalist illustrations sprinkled throughout this guided journal: a beautiful picture facing an inspiring quotation, a shiny picture of a sun. The images are almost childlike in their appearance, inviting us to attempt a few scribbles and doodles as well which are another way to be happy and positive as well as creative in our lives.
The layout and format subtly invite us to flip through the pages and actually fill it out at whim by what moves for the day, not necessarily in a linear manner starting from the left and going right page by page only. Open it up to where it opens and let the pages you discover inspire and delight your day to greater thoughts and feelings of happiness and positivity.
Welsh certain demonstrates making CBT Cognitive Behavioral Therapy practical in that a core tenet of CBT to paraphrase Dr. Maxie Maulsby, RBT, “If you want to feel better, think better.” By helping to shape our daily thoughts in the direction of seeing the positive, the beautiful, the miraculous, and the inspiring, we, indeed, will feel Good more and greater Positivity.
Highly recommend.
I received an advance pre-publish date copy of from the Publishers for an honest review.