Bosun
Journaling
Exercises
Module Two (August 2025)
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Step 1:
Think of something that triggered you in the last week and write it down in your journal. Don’t go too far back in memory, let’s try and keep your examples recent.
A trigger is something that provokes a reaction within us. It might be something someone says to us, or an event or experience we go through, or a thought that pops into our head. The result is that we have all sorts of negative emotional reactions come up in us, ranging from subtle to overwhelming, like irritation, anger, frozenness, resentment, fear, shame, outrage, etc. The emotional reaction then prompts a certain behavior depending on how we typically react when triggered: shutting down, defensiveness, aggression, dissociation, passive aggression, etc. This is similar to what we did last time where I asked you to come up with a starting point that I described as an issue, or something that annoyed you. This time I’m introducing slightly different language and I’m calling it a trigger. The trigger that begins a cascade of reactions in you.
And we will also do the following, just as we did last time: I want you to describe the event and try to do so with the following instructions:
- Journal from the point of view of an objective bystander. Describe what happened as if you are writing a newspaper article about it.
- Scrupulously avoid any expressions of sentiment such as anger, or feelings of any kind.
- Also, avoid drawing any conclusions, assertions about another’s motives, or judgments about the reasons why things happened the way they did. You are merely stating the facts today.
- Allow yourself no further analysis.
- Describe in as much detail as you can. What do you objectively OBSERVE?
Step 2:
Now we’re going to explore what you needed during that trigger.
What are needs?
This is my definition: a need is wholesome, archetypal, and universal in you. Needs for love, recognition, to be heard, to be seen, safety, autonomy, independence, sovereignty, closeness, warmth, nourishment, shelter — these are wholesome, are they not? These are some examples of needs that are most essential to our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well being. They are motivating and fueling toward human fulfillment. They are universal by nature; fundamental to everyone.
Make some guesses about what you needed when you got triggered - the trigger you described in step one. You can find a list of needs words in the link below. Pick the ones that resonate with you. Write down as many as you can. The more the better. You don’t have to know why or justify your choices, just write down the ones that make sense to you, or that resonate with you.
Here is a protocol you can use:
"When I was triggered I needed ____________________"
Step 3:
Strategies are the things we DO to try and get our needs met. Everything we do is to meet a need we have. Strategies are the behaviors we enact. Everything we do, everything we say, is a strategy to meet a need in us.
It can be a useful exercise to explore what kinds of strategies we tend to use. Do we tend to get aggressive with our communication, or do we tend to go along to get along. Do we get bossy, or controlling, or "wag our tail" to calm either ourselves or the other?
Very often we will use strategies that might be problematic for us — we just hadn't noticed it before. A little self-reflection on the strategies we use to try and get our needs met might help us see alternatives the next time we get triggered.
Here is a journaling prompt you can use:
Because I needed ________________ this was my strategy to meet that need at the time: _______________.
Module One (July 2025)
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Step 1:
Think back over the past week or month, and pick an issue about which you feel stuck or which was troubling in some way, or simply annoying.
Here are some examples of issues you might have been dealing with to help you:
- Argument with a family member
- A conflict with a person at work
- An annoying customer or interaction that left you with some strong feelings.
- A memory that came up, triggering a cascade of difficult feelings
- A challenge that came out of left field for which you were unprepared
- A sudden accident or loss of opportunity
- An experience of despair, desperation, or stuckness, perhaps triggered by an event
- A situation in which you have no idea how to get out of
- A dilemma you’re facing and you don’t know which direction to go
- A decision you must make, but its not clear to you what the right thing to do is
- A recent experience that has left you perplexed, worried, or afraid
- A challenge in a relationship in which you don’t know what to do to make things better
- A situation you found yourself in where it felt like a checkmate, or a stalemate.
- It could be a chronic or reoccurring problem as well.
Describe the event and try to do so with the following instructions:
- Journal from the point of view of an objective bystander. Describe what happened as if you are writing a newspaper article about it.
- Scrupulously avoid any expressions of sentiment such as anger, or feelings of any kind.
- Also, avoid drawing any conclusions, assertions about another’s motives, or judgments about the reasons why things happened the way they did. You are merely stating the facts today.
- Allow yourself no further analysis.
- Describe in as much detail as you can. What do you objectively OBSERVE?
If you have more than one event to write about, you can list them all out but work with only one at a time for the journaling exercise.
Step 2:
Read through what you wrote, and now add what you did after it happened in the moments, hours, even days.
- What sorts of behaviors did you respond with?
- They could be as small as shutting down, or getting a little defensive. Or, they could be bigger and more dramatic such as storming out of the room, plotting revenge, passive aggression, or something else.
- What did you do?
“I behaved like…”
Step 3:
Next, how did you feel about what happened? Write as many feelings as you possibly can. Feelings can be legion and they can be subtle. See if you can capture them all.
If you are struggling to come up with any feeling words, you can look at this feelings vocabulary list and write down all the words that resonate with you.
“I felt… “
Step 4:
Now, let’s explore what lies behind the feelings you identified. What do you believe about what happened? For example, if you felt shame about what happened, you had drawn a conclusion that you did something wrong, or that you were a bad person. Another example: if you felt anger, then you believed that you were wronged in some way, that you were the victim of someone else’s ill considered or thoughtless action.
“I believed….”