Photo: Kari Herer
This week: an interview with Kate Simpson, co-author of the Take Two Journal, exploring how the Journal can be used to deepen our resilience. Take Two: a Journal for New Beginnings offers science-backed tools that teach practices proven to grow our resilience, or the ability to more easily transcend whatever life throws our way. Take Two is released on July 28, 2020, and can be preordered now.
As Kate describes in the interview, the Take Two Journal uses the seasons as a metaphor for the process of moving through a transition and offers concrete tools within each section that are proven to boost resilience, such as journaling, mindfulness, compassion, and gratitude.
Resilience can be learned, but it takes commitment and practice, just like exercise.
It only requires a commitment of 10 minutes a day.
According to current neuroscience, we can choose which neural grooves we want to deepen: ones that lead to feelings of more contentment, or those that lead to feelings of unease.
The practices offered in the Take Two Journal help you develop the ability to be reflective and notice what thoughts you are having: you can’t change what you don’t see.
Once you notice your thoughts, you can then choose how to respond to them. Is there a repeating story you’re telling yourself? Do you routinely reactively respond to certain situations or triggers? Creating the ability to notice your thoughts and “pause” before you react is key to both resiliency AND consciously creating the life you want.
Help is available
If you’d like support learning these practices, Take Two has developed an online course that guides you through the work of the Journal over 28 days using videos, additional writing prompts, illustrations to more easily explain the research, and guided meditations. The Journal’s co-authors have also taken the course and share their experiences via video reflections along the way.
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This blog is created by Take Two: a Journal for New Beginnings, a self-guided journal that shares tools, activities, and writing prompts designed to build resilience. We also offer a 28 day course to guide you through the journal with videos, additional writing prompts and guided meditations. The Journal will be released July 28, 2020 and is available for pre-sale. Published by Chronicle Books.
Disclaimer:
As an Amazon Associate, Take Two earns from qualifying purchases. Nothing is ever included that hasn’t been helpful to the authors themselves.