Journaling prompts for autumn

The Autumn equinox, which landed last Saturday on 23rd September, calls the beginning of this new season, rich with colour and ripe with change. We all have our favourite parts of autumn - the season for pumpkins; comforting aromas of spices and cinnamon; darker nights and candles lit; cold, bright blue morning skies flecked with the gold and burnt orange of falling leaves.

For the introverts, it can be a time for joy and a feeling of belonging now the bursting frivolity and fullness of summer has passed. A time that feels more at home. It is a time of transition, a change in direction, the perfect time for reflection and a time I love for journaling with autumn prompts.

Recently, I’ve noticed an abundance of red admiral butterflies in my mum’s garden, settling on the slowly decaying apples as they lie untended to on the mossy grass. And, for me, it’s a symbol of what autumn offers. A time of limbo, a world between quiet and blossoming. Not quite hibernation, not quite vitality. A juxtaposition between harvest and abundance, and loss and decay.

Nature reminds us of shedding and letting go, and at the same time, throws us the shy abundance of apple harvests and the brilliance of colour from autumnal trees. It is less obvious than the growth and blossoming of spring or summer, but a fruitfulness all the same.

Maybe it feels less hopeful or less optimistic. It feels quieter, darker, more inward, more lonely, a move towards an end rather than a beginning. But it is in what we lose that we make room for what is to grow.

In this transitioning season, I feel perfectly mirrored by what I’m about to embark on in my own life. I’m 8 months pregnant and feel in a limbo between an old and new life. I am both nearly ready to harvest what’s been growing within me, an abundance of life, calling me to embrace a new self, whilst I also prepare to shed and let go of my old self, my old life as I have known it. I am letting go for the seeds of a new life to literally be born.

It is a time to nurture and tend to myself as I create space for future beginnings. A time for a pause. A time to reflect. A time to hold myself ready for a change in direction.

So that’s where I bring these autumn journaling prompts to you from in the hope that they can guide and support you through this season of change, whether its promise of abundance or offering of letting go is what is calling to you.

journaling guides

What change in direction might you be about to embark on?
What change might you not have noticed but is calling for your attention?
What might you need to focus on within this change?
What are the seeds of something that sits in your future which you want to focus on sowing now?
What do you need to trust more of to allow this season to unfold?
Where do you need to practise acceptance of what is?
How can you tend to and nurture yourself over the next few weeks?
Which parts of yourself might you be ready to shed?
Which parts do you want to focus on growing?
Which parts of you carry and support you as you move through change?
What have you been carrying this year that it’s time to harvest?
What do you want less of over the next few months to make room for abundance?
What do you want to make space for more of?
What’s out of your control that you can let go of?
What have you noticed brings you comfort through change?
What are you quietly looking forward to?
What have you been working hard on that you haven’t acknowledged yourself for yet?
What does slowing down look like for you this season?
What still needs time to transition?
Where do you want to focus your energy for the rest of the year?

I hope you find what you need this autumn.

With love,

Suzi xx

Journaling prompts for autumn

Journaling guides