The Lighthouse - Reflections of Inner Strength & Wisdom is an inspirational journal with coloring pages. This journal explores fourteen inspirational quotes that express basic tenets. These can be applied to benefit inner growth and healing.
The author begins the conversation by including a few words on each of the inspirational quotes. These are followed by two-lined floral framed pages to be used for journaling. This journal also helps bring focus to our inner being by directing awareness to our moods - our emotions. Often, we go through life ignoring how we're affected because our attention is focused on external obstacles, problems, and stimuli. The Mood Graph is a tool to gently bring awareness to self and document our emotional state. The Mood Graph can track eight different moods for 24 hours. The graph focuses on general areas which are: Happy, Content, Neutral, Annoyed, Angry, Stressed, Sad, or Depressed. Shade the box that indicates your current mood and time of recording.
There are two additional journaling pages to reflect on your mood. Contemplating and journaling can help process emotions and bring clarity. This is beneficial and can aid in clearing up and releasing unresolved feelings.
The coloring pages serve as a therapeutic tool to relax and calm the racing mind.
A page dedicated to “Success,” for example, shares words attributed to Walter Scott on the subject (“attitude is equally important as ability”) and then Espositio’s own musings about how “Being cognizant of negative self-talk is imperative so that we don’t sabotage ourselves” and a reminder that Thomas Edison didn’t let failure get in the way of his inventing the lightbulb. Her prose is light and conversational, and some of her musings offer a jolt of surprise—her consideration of a quote attributed to Goethe promises that you have “magick” within you before offering more familiar thoughts about how you are “a strong, intelligent, and amazing individual.”
Some of the quotations, familiar from online collections of inspirational insight, often have a whiff of the apocryphal. Even allowing for the vagaries of translation, it’s hard to pin down just where the author of glum epics like Faust and The Sorrows of Young Werther purportedly wrote “Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.” Still, the coloring book pages are inviting, and readers looking for encouraging words and dedicated journaling space will find plenty here.
Takeaway: These quotations and coloring pages offer inspiration for readers eager for reflective journaling.
Great for fans of: Emily M. Morgan’s Inspire: A Coloring Journal, Kara Cutruzzula’s Do It for Yourself.
Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: B+
Illustrations: A-
Editing: B+
Marketing copy: A
