Keep reading for plenty of free printable pages for your mental health and self-care journal.
I keep a wellness journal to track my moods, mental health, major life events, thoughts and ideas, and self-care journey. I write in a composition book, and also print out worksheets and prompts and keep them in a folder.
Personally, I struggle with a hot temper, addiction, motivation when I’m depressed, and defensiveness when I feel cornered.
My whole life I’ve expected authority figures to earn my respect before I would listen to them, rather than the other way around. This was because my early life authority figures were straight-up dangerous.
As you can imagine this all led to some trouble in my relationships and it was hard to accept the world the way it really is.
I do go to therapy and take medications for my mental health.
But I also do a lot of work on myself in between appointments.
I created this post (which is sort of like a library of helpful resources) because therapy has been very expensive. Some people cannot afford to simply go get expensive therapies for their problems. Other times, people have a therapist, but want to make some more progress on their own. Other times, people are very independent and they want to try to solve the problem themselves, because they trust themselves more than a stranger.
This post is for everyone. It’s a guide to self-help and self-improvement for anyone who wants to take better care of themselves.
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Staying Safe
First, some ground rules: I’m hoping this post helps fill some gaps in your self-care and provides additional support and growth to your life.
But the first step to creating a supportive lifestyle is to be responsible about your mental health. So first, some disclaimers:
- If you do see a doctor, please be open-minded and honest with them when it comes to taking your medications. Meds really help a lot of people. They help me. They should always be taken as prescribed, and if they make you feel badly about yourself, please open up to your doctor about that. A good professional will work with you to find a reasonable solution or an alternative treatment.
- You should really see a licensed professional if you’re dealing with something super traumatic or upsetting. I am not a licensed therapist. To obtain a good licensed therapist, you have options. I post on my blog about topics like signing up for insurance and public benefits, and selecting a therapist that really advocates for you. Keep reading for free printables like: identifying what you need help with, common types of therapy, and how to sign up for therapy.
- Turn to your local emergency services if you want to hurt yourself or someone else. No shame. You should also go to the emergency room if you might be paranoid, or if you’re having trouble knowing what’s real and what’s an illusion. See my upcoming post on going to the hospital to know what to pack and how to make your hospital stay more comfortable.
- Lastly, do NOT try to diagnose yourself with a disease or let anyone else who isn’t a licensed psychiatric doctor diagnose you with any kind of mental health condition. (Your ex-boyfriend didn’t call you a narcissistic borderline bitch because he knew what he was talking about. He was being fucking mean.)
Anyways. Let’s get started.
Step 1: Identifying Why You Need Support
The first step to getting help is to get to the bottom of what you need help with.
What Is a Mental Health Problem?
A mental health problem is when your thoughts, emotions, or behaviors become hard to
manage in a way that interferes with daily life.
It can look like:
- Feeling stuck in sadness, fear, or worry
- Struggling to regulate emotions
- Having trouble functioning, focusing, or connecting
- Feeling overwhelmed by things that used to feel manageable
It doesn’t mean something is “wrong” with you. It means you’re dealing with something
human, common, and treatable, and your mind is signaling that it needs support, rest, or
new tools and skills.
What Is Addiction?
Addiction is when a behavior or substance starts taking over the steering wheel of your life.
It becomes something you feel compelled to do, even when another part of you knows it’s hurting you or pulling you away from the life you want. It doesn’t have to be drugs or alcohol- it could also be shopping, gambling, or codependent relationships.
What causes addiction?
- It usually begins as a way to cope — with stress, pain, loneliness, trauma, or
overwhelming emotions. - Over time, the brain learns, “This thing brings relief fast,” and it starts craving that
shortcut. - Addiction isn’t about weakness or bad choices. It’s about a brain trying to survive
something hard, and getting stuck in a loop that becomes difficult to break.
What Causes Trauma?
Trauma isn’t even about the event itself — it’s what happens inside you when something overwhelms your ability to cope. Trauma can come from:
- Something too big (violence, accidents, abuse, sudden loss)
- Something too much for too long (neglect, chronic stress, emotional instability at home)
- Something too little (not getting safety, love, or support when you needed it most)
Trauma happens when your nervous system says, “This is too much. I can’t process this
right now,” and it stores the experience in a way that keeps affecting you later.
Here is a free printable that you can look at, to identify what emotional problems need to be addressed in your life:
Step 2: Knowing What’s Out There That Can Really Help
There are so many available free resources, which I have organized by condition and situation.
Completely Free Resources
For people who feel so depressed and they don’t know where to start
Here is a guide for overcoming low energy/low motivation.
For people who aren’t sure “who they are”, or what their purpose is
Start with a values analysis. This means sitting down and identifying what you believe, what works for you, and what you love in life. Try this worksheet where you write 5 letters to your future self as a way to get started with self-awareness.
And try this worksheet to identify what your values and purpose really are.
For Addiction and Codependent Relationships
the Recovery Dharma book as a PDF file you can download – Recovery Dharma is a Buddhist approach to overcoming addiction, that doesn’t require you to be Buddhist or belong to any sort of religion. It’s a practical guide to ending suffering in your life. In the back of the book, it includes questions to journal about called “self-enquiry” – these questions will help you explore why you were addicted to something and begin to break free from that cycle.
For more addiction recovery resources, click here.
For managing intense emotions better
the Dialectical Behavioral Therapy book – DBT is a type of therapy specifically developed for people who experience very intense emotions, struggle to calm down, and tend to act on their urges before thinking them through. It’s one of the most effective therapies available. This book contains practical skills for managing your emotions that go so far beyond “just breathe” or “just wait until you calm down.” And these new skills actually work for a lot of people. I’ve attached the full book, with the handouts and worksheets, as a PDF file you can download.
For beginning a diary/journaling practice
Here is a collection of journaling prompts to get started writing.
To feel more confident and fulfilled
Here is a free online course for improving your self-esteem, based on effective psychological principles.
Here is a free printable PDF self-esteem worksheet you can add to your journal. It’s a check-in, designed to help you assess where you’re at with self-esteem and make improvements to feel more confident.
For people who have been bullied, rejected, or scared by someone
This is a serious situation and one many of us have been through. Sometimes human beings are horrible to each other and it’s an acutely painful part of our reality.
I found this article really helpful for getting free and moving forward.
For people who really need justice/for life to be a bit more fair
Sometimes you’ve been through something totally unfair or you’re really being misunderstood. It’s happened to me and it made me so devastated and angry. Here are some free resources for sticking to your values and making a change in your life so it doesn’t happen again. The key is really to validate your own feelings and understand your own beliefs.
I found this article on how to cope with unfairness really helpful.
Here are some positive things you should say to yourself each morning in the mirror. Pick the one which resonates with you the most:
And here’s some shadow work you can do. Shadow work means uncovering the subconscious beliefs you hold. To identify and understand the emotional patterns that have been leading you into negative cycles. This free printable shadow work journal has space for venting about the problem and healing the problem, oriented on emotions like shame, grief and loss, anger, and neglect.
For people with a lot of anxiety who tend to overthink
CBT is a great method for dealing with anxiety and overthinking. CBT stands for cognitive behavioral therapy. Here is a great resource explaining how it works. Basically, it assumes that we experience emotional pain because our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are all involved with our assumptions about the world.
And here is a free printable worksheet for CBT, which is for cognitive distortions- meaning unhelpful or ineffective thoughts you want to get rid of so you can breathe easier.
For People Who Do Want to Try Professional Therapy
Here is a free printable guide on how to get insurance and a therapist in the United States:
Here is a free printable guide on 10 common types of therapy:
A Helpful and Affordable Shopping List
There are also low-cost resources, listed below here.
- Get a Kindle Unlimited subscription or an Audible subscription to get access to a wide variety of self-help and spiritual books for about $10-$20 per month.
- Alternatively, if you don’t like subscriptions, browse the list of self-help books and pick out 1 that you think is relevant to the problems you’re facing in life right now. Just get 1 for now.
Here are my favorite books that I highly recommend you order and begin reading. They are organized by the issues the book addresses:
Addiction
This workbook for relapse prevention.
Mental and Emotional Wellbeing
Don’t Believe Everything You Think by Joseph Nyugen
Spirituality
The Storied Life: Christian Writing as Art and Worship by Jared C. Wilson
365 Days of Tao – an eastern philosophy daily devotional
For Women
Quit Like a Woman by Holly Whitaker
Getting Older/Ageism
Walking Each Other Home by Ram Dass
Healing Trauma
The Body Keeps the Score by Besser van Der Kolk
Creating New Habits
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz
Expressing Yourself and Becoming More Confident
For Queer People
For Love and Relationships
Other items to gather for your practice include…
- Find a journal or composition book
- some pens that write well
- candles (or essential oils, or a nice smelling room spray)
- and some art supplies, if you like to be crafty.
- Also get a nice new planner for yourself to write down appointments, your daily experiences, etc.
If you’d prefer to keep it minimal, you can just use your phone or laptop and sit in an area that makes you feel happy, safe, or inspired.
If you need prompts or guided worksheets, follow our blog to get journaling ideas sent to your email.
Step 3: creating a routine to work on yourself that isn’t overwhelming or stressful
This is important: Set aside one afternoon a week in your schedule to do whatever you want and whatever makes you feel good about yourself (or at least a couple hours a week, if you’re busy.) This time should be your priority. It’s great for your mental health or your sobriety. I really believe you cannot take care of anyone else responsibly if you don’t have time set aside each week to tend to your mind, body, and spirit.
Here’s a printable worksheet for creating a daily or weekly routine that actually works for you and nourishes you, without ignoring your responsibilities. Everyone – and I do mean EVERYONE – deserves to experience their dream life, and is totally capable of it.
Step 4: Including other people that care about you
The opposite of addiction is connection, and the opposite of mental illness is belonging.
One of the most important things you can do for your mental health and for your life is to become a part of a community where you are treated like a valuable human being.
If you can, tell one of your parents or a close friend that you’re embarking on this journey to take better care of yourself. Start a conversation if you feel safe to do so.
But not everyone can do that right now. So alternatively, there are a variety of online and in-person communities you can join to support your journey, listed below.
Addiction Communities
Click here to find multiple types of online recovery meetings.
Mental Health Communities
Follow our Facebook page, Writing and Recovery, for daily mental health and self-care inspiration.
Creative Communities
Click here to share your creative writing or art with the world.
Fitness/Health Communities
A good place to start if you’re new to fitness is yoga. Yoga is accessible for people with all kinds of mobility/ability, and it’s very healing in multiple ways. You can do yoga for free by watching Youtube videos, and experience community by reading and engaging in the comments below them. Here is a list of our favorite free yoga videos.
Step 5: Tracking Your Progress
I use a free phone app called Daylio to track my mood and daily activities. It will show you the ups and downs, and the triggers that lead to negative moods. You can find the app here.
If you don’t have a phone with apps, or you want to do it by hand, try logging your moods and triggers using the free printable templates and worksheets below.
If you’re using the DBT method from the PDF book linked above, here is a free printable diary card for tracking your progress.
In summary, there are so many free and low-cost resources available for self-help. We hope this post has gotten you started.
Subscribe to our blog for more self-care, mental health, and recovery content.
Have a wonderful afternoon!
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