Heal Yourself By Writing In An Apology Journal

Something I love doing is using different journals for different purposes. I have all sorts of journals for gratitude, vision boards, dreams, business ideas, yoga, etc. One of the most powerful (and healing) journals I have, though, is my apology journal.

Do you ever have those moments where a memory pops up of when you weren’t at your finest? I mean, we are human after all. No one is perfect and we all have our fair share of doing things that we deem ‘bad.’ I certainly have memories that make me physically cringe because of what I said or how I behaved. 😳

“You are 100% responsible for 100% of your life.”

When I heard this quote in my coaching program, it was a hard pill to swallow. It’s normal for us to shift blame onto other people or outside forces. But once I started taking responsibility for everything in my life (good and bad), things truly started shifting. One of the best ways to take responsibility is to own those past cringe-worthy moments and finally move on.

Maybe most people don’t get caught up in old mistakes like I do, but juuuust in case you’re even a little like me, I recommend getting a journal to write all of those cringe moments in. I call mine my apology journal, because as I reflect on those not-so-great experiences, I want to apologize to the other person – and myself – in order to heal and move on.

For example, in high school, I wanted so badly to be accepted and be in the ‘cool crowd,’ so there was one girl in particular that was an easy target for everyone to pick on. I joined the crowd and was not very friendly to her. But by doing so, I was kind of haunted by my behavior. For years, I always looked back at those moments and felt so bad for her, and was so ashamed.

Another example is when I dated a guy during a time that I was not ready for a relationship at all. I was kind of a mess at that time – let’s just say there were definitely days that I acted like a 5-year old. Yikes. 🤦🏼‍♀️

But am I going to call this girl from high school or my ex to try to mend these memories? Probably not the best idea (who knows, maybe it is?!), but I can tell you that by writing about this in my apology journal helped me so much.

What I do is I write letters to these people and apologize for whatever it is that is ‘haunting’ me. I do believe in energy and even if they don’t know I wrote these letters, it feels like there is something that gets mended in that connection. By doing this, I finally take responsibility – and then let it go. Lessons learned. ❤️‍🩹

And what’s the most powerful apology letter you can write in this journal? A letter to yourself. That was extremely healing when I apologized as my past-self, and then my present-self accepted it and said, “It’s okay. We’re okay.” Trust me, it works magic. 💞

Whether you want to heal from an ex, a family member, a boss, or even a random customer service rep you lost your cool with – take responsibility and you will feel so much lighter, I promise.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Heal your Self, heal the world.

ON A PERSONAL NOTE

Well, helloooooo! Welcome to a new and improved design for my Magic Monday emails! Much like my Archive got a makeover, it was time to freshen up my email newsletter as well. It’s wild how productive I feel here in Bansko – always tapping into my creativity! Something about being in a small town amongst the mountains – ahhhhh, mind feels more clear. 🙂

I hope you all had a beautiful week! It’s still very hot in Bansko and I’m ready to start wearing my sweats and drink hot cocoa (no pumpkin spice latte in Bulgaria, unfortunately). 🍂 When I work from home, I usually have Gilmore Girls on in the background and it makes me so excited for Fall! Do you have any shows you love working to? 

Have a great week and I hope you find lots of magic today. ✨

So grateful for you,

Andrea

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You are magic. ✨