Dwell: A Journal for Naming, Processing, and Embracing Your Emotions

by Devon Loftus

This marvelous journey through landscapes of human emotion provides readers with journaling prompts to help them embrace the full range of their feelings.

    This wise and inspiring book invites readers to welcome all of their emotions, positive or negative, to come sit and talk, as they would with a very good friend. Using personification as a tool, creative writing teacher and Positive Psychology practitioner Devon Loftus takes readers through a process of describing their emotions—joy, discomfort, anxiety, contentment—without judgment or shame. Thoughtful and comforting, this book will help readers reconnect to the place inside themselves where all their complex and beautiful emotions dwell.
    In poetic essays that serve as inspiration, Loftus personifies more than fifty emotions—such as Playfulness, a redhead with three freckles on her right cheek only her closest friends notice, or Love, who slowly brings every person she passes on the street to life—to encourage readers to sit down with their emotions in a creative and curious way. According to Loftus, when we allow ourselves to view our feelings without judgment, we are able to witness them (and therefore ourselves) more fully, with all of their quirks and humanness. Dwell is an invaluable tool for readers seeking greater self-understanding.

272 pages, Paperback

Published April 18, 2023

Reviews

[Roots.Branches.Wellness · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Dwell' is a lovely journal for 'Naming, Processing, and Embracing Your Emotions, by Devon Loftus @_devonloftus As the back of the book states, "Dwell introduces you to forty-eight unique emotions and gives them each their own style, look, and personality. As you meet each new character, you will be encouraged to reconnect with those parts that you may have hidden away or pushed aside because all emotions, especially the messy ones, are worthy of your attention. With inspiring, poetic essays followed by workbook pages and prompts, Dwell serves as a space to discover your own internal landscape with compassion."

The introduction to emotions as "characters" is very similar to parts work, which I think is so helpful. The questions invite you to recognize, sit with, understand, and move through the many different emotions we experience as humans. If you are looking for a new guided journal, check this one out!

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed the personification of each of the emotions. It was enjoyable to read through, and I think it will be even better to come back and sit with individual emotions as the arise in my life. I'm looking forward to exploring applying the author's way of thinking about emotions to my own internal landscape.