The Life Coach School Podcast · Brooke Castillo

Ep #515: Journal Coaching with Ashley R. Wright

February 29, 2024·36 min

Ashley R. Wright is a seven-year coaching veteran and Life Coach School employee who runs Strokes of Freedom, a journaling coaching practice built around the idea that clients can write their way to freedom without needing external permission. Her practice originated from a breakup that sent her into emotional turmoil, and returning to journaling helped her separate her actual circumstances from her racing thoughts. Brooke Castillo opens the conversation by describing journaling as something she has done lifelong, but acknowledges that many people find the purpose unclear, setting up Ashley to define it as a tool for making sense of what is happening in the brain by externalizing thoughts onto paper. Ashley distinguishes between two modes: spontaneous brain dumps to clear mental clutter, and prompted journaling that leads to directed exploration — comparing the brain to a bucket of blocks that can only be sorted once emptied. She shares a signature prompt — 'What four words best describe your life right now and why?' — and a more confrontational one, 'What part of myself am I trying to avoid?', noting that resistance to a prompt is usually a sign it needs to be written on. Her one-on-one sessions run 45 minutes: five to seven minutes of discussion to establish context, then ten minutes of parallel writing where both coach and client write simultaneously to the same prompt, followed by reflection and coaching on whatever surfaced. She calls this body doubling, borrowing from productivity research, and notes that clients access material in ten minutes of writing that would never emerge in an equivalent oral coaching exchange. Ashley hosts in-person journaling pop-ups at coffee shops and tea bars around her area, and a free weekly Thursday night Zoom group called Let's Write Together at 7pm Eastern, which she promotes via her Instagram handle strokes of freedom. She addresses fears about others reading journals by arguing that refusing to be held hostage by your own written thoughts is itself a form of freedom. Brooke connects journal coaching to business and idea generation, describing how clearing mental clutter revealed her own creativity and wisdom. Ashley segments her ideal clients into two groups: those who feel blocked and want to build awareness, and those who have already done significant personal development work and need a new tool to get unstuck. The tone is warm, enthusiastic, and practical, with both women connecting across shared experiences. The episode is aimed at coaches looking to add tools to their practice and anyone interested in using writing as a psychological and developmental resource.

As heard by us

Journaling is framed as a practical way to write honestly and feel freer.

Brooke Castillo frames this episode as a plainspoken look at journal coaching, with Ashley R. Wright making the case that writing can support honesty and a sense of freedom.

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Why you'd press play

Turn journaling into a more honest, freer way to write down what is on your mind.

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