The Big Trigger of COVID-19: Journaling Techniques for Coping

woman journaling

Lacuna Loft and Young Survival Coalition are working together again!

Together with YSC, we are starting weekly online journaling sessions to provide techniques to address the big trigger of COVID-19.  You are welcome to drop in once or come as often as you like.  The sessions will take place each Friday beginning April 16th through at least the end of May, for half an hour at 9 am PT / 11 am CT / 12:00 pm ET via video chat.

These techniques will be short, concrete and time-contained.  Jean Rowe from YSC is a certified journal therapist and, with the seasoned facilitator of many writing programs, Mallory Casperson (our CEO), we feel that you will all be in good hands.  What a rich discussion awaits!

Register in advance for this program.  You can attend one or attend all, whatever you need.  After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Write Now with Jean Rowe: Matters of the Heart

snow heart held by red gloved hands

Lacuna Loft is proud to present Write Now with Jean Rowe! Each month, come on over to Young Adult Voices and read everything Jean Rowe, Certified Journal Therapist, has to say! Love what you’re reading? Check out the many programs Jean is facilitating (including 30 Minute Tune-Up, Lost and Found, Lacuna Loft’s Weekly Journal Prompt, and It’s a Wonderful Life) and sign up to join one today!

February brings valentines, and this month, I encourage us to think of ways we can and do love ourselves. Love is action. Love is a verb. Love is a choice. Maybe this feels awkward. Try anyway. You’re worth it.

Here is some wisdom of those who love/loved themselves:

James Brown – Super Bad
I jump back. I wanna kiss myself.

Lady Gaga – Born This Way
I’m right on the track, baby.

Tom Petty – Won’t Back Down
And I’ll keep this world from draggin’ me down.

Whitney Houston – Greatest Love of All
Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.

Lou Rawls – One Life to Live
Why don’t you give it your best shot.

Madonna – Vogue
All you need is your own imagination.

What would happen if you use your own imagination, gave it your best shot, loved yourself, kept the world from draggin’ you down, got right on the track, and, yes, jumped back and kissed yourself?

Try this: pick one of those ideas or several. Act as if they are already in place. Write a day in your life with them already in place. Write for five minutes. Have a sense of wonder and open-heartedness at what is revealed.

Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you!

We set the bar for how we want others to treat us.
-Lisa Marie

Your Definition of Love Determines How You Experience It

Join A 3-Part Holiday Journaling Workshop

holiday banner

Lacuna Loft is excited to bring back this special holiday program!

It’s a Wonderful Life: Taking Care during the Holidays.  A 3-part online journaling workshop for young adult cancer patients and survivors.

“It’s beginning to look a lot like” an even busier time of year! The holiday season brings nostalgia (like a favorite song), connection to family and friends and an undercurrent of expectation. There can be an added layer of managing expectations to be positive and happy – even in the middle of treatment or when everyone appears to look “fine” when, inside, they are not.

Finding peace between the wrapping paper and the stuffing is within reach! Join us for a 3 part holiday journal writing workshop to design a plan for low stress, create or reconnect with meaningful traditions, and decorate your soul with a little TLC.

Where: Online video chat. We’ll send you more information about joining after you register. Please have a microphone headset and a webcam.

Who: Young adult cancer patients and survivors.

When: The writing group meets on Sundays at 2 pm PT / 4 pm CT / 5 pm ET for 2 hours each week, for 3 parts, meeting on December 1st, 8th, and 15th.  A commitment to attend every date is important to group continuity and in creating a safe space. Please be on time

The workshop is led by Jean Rowe LCSW, OSW-C.  She is a Certified Journal Therapist who has been in the field of oncology for 15 years and has crafted many journal writing programs for cancer survivors.

A Letter To Someone Who Believed In You

Lacuna Loft’s Journaling program sends a journal prompt directly to your inbox.  Participants are encouraged to write for a specific amount of time (usually between 7-12 minutes) and are always invited to submit their writing for publication here.  This piece was written by Ashlinn in response to the prompt: Write a letter to someone who believed in you, even when you didn’t believe in yourself. Read the letter out loud to yourself when you’re done. How can you be kinder to your future self in a similar fashion?

My dearest nana,

You have welcomed me into your home and into your life during some of my most fragile moments. You have never, ever once shut the door on me, or put me down in ways where I could no longer get the strength to come back up. You have always believed in me and invested so much love and care into our relationship. I am so blessed to have a female role model like you after surviving the tragedy of losing my mother, and staring death in the face for the second time. You are a rival of the angels, for not even the most blessed have a heart as pure as yours. You have a servant’s soul and your will to do good exceeds that of anyone I have ever encountered. You are a guide to me and many and I consider myself lucky to call you my nana. I love you so much for your constant care and attention. For picking me up when I am down and reminding me consistently of all there is to be grateful for. You are a legend in the legacy you lead and how you show kindness and compassion to others. You are truly a shining example of what good is, and what good can be. You are my hero for so many reasons. And I wish to share this precious time we have together making happy memories. As much as you help me through the difficult, it is the fun in you I wish to live on inside me as your granddaughter.

I love you infinitely,

Ashlinn

How would you have responded to this same prompt?  Can you connect with how Ashlinn responded?  If you’d like to sign up for this program, please go here.

30 Truths

water rippling

Lacuna Loft’s Journaling program sends a journal prompt directly to your inbox.  Participants are encouraged to write for a specific amount of time (usually between 7-12 minutes) and are always invited to submit their writing for publication here.  This piece was written by Ashlinn in response to the prompt: Write a list of facts about yourself, listing the number of things based on your age. (ex. 30 years, 30 things). Now reflect on what you wrote. What trends do you see? 

30 truths about Ashlinn
1. I am as honest as my guilt makes me
2. I am easily influenced by media or opinions of people I admire
3. There are not many reasonable pleasures I forbid myself
4. I am very impulsive
5. I have a commitment phobia about some things
6. When I am angry I can be really really really mean
7. I am otherwise very approachable and friendly
8. I feel for the underdog, I want them to know unconditional love
9. I can be the most patient
10. I can be the least patient
11. I have very high standards of who I allow in my life
12. I am very nostalgic about damn near everything
13. I cry a lot
14. I have a dysfunctional relationship with food, prescription drugs and alcohol
15. Most of my family members are addicts
16. I can and tend to be very clingy and codependent
17. I have never ultimately turned anyone away from my life
18. There is little you can do for me to not forgive you
19. I can be irresponsible with money
20. I can be alone for right now, but I fear dying alone
21. I’m scared I’ll be a bad mother
22. I’m scared I won’t be a mother at all
23. I worry I will never forgive my late mother
24. I worry my potential children will never forgive me
25. I don’t know if I believe in God
26. I definitely believe there are immediate and latent meanings for everything in our lives, we have a higher power
27. I believe we are reincarnated many times in one life span
28. Im a hopeless romantic, but also a cynical non-believer that true love will ever happen to me
29. I worry of being so self deprecating I will come off unlikeable
30. I want desperately to be a successful writer

*Trends: I have trouble following through, but I will get most things done provided I give myself the time to do it. A lot of facts about me are fear based or wanting to be accepted. I did not lose any physical or psychological traits. Most of my facts are behaviour-related.

How would you have responded to this same prompt?  Can you connect with how Ashlinn responded?  If you’d like to sign up for this program, please go here.

Journal Prompts Straight To Your Inbox

journal at a cafe

Did you know that we have a program where you can sign up to receive a journal prompt sent to your inbox once a week?  This program has been on hiatus so far this year but it starts back up next week!

If you would like to participate in some stressfree, prompted journaling let us know!  You will be sent a journaling prompt each week.  The prompt will help you focus the chaos going on in your life and mind in order to write away some of those cares and anxieties.  If you would like your writing to be read and considered for use here on Lacuna Loft as a personal story, let us know that too!  Just fill out the form below and we will reply to you within a week with your first prompt!