Writing. It has always been my go-to. My happy place. It has for years brought me comfort and peace. When my father passed away, I wrote. When my marriage was in crisis, I wrote. And it helped. It didn’t solve any of my problems. My father was no longer with me; nothing was going to “solve” that. Nor did it fix any of the problems I was experiencing in my marriage. It did, however, allow me to put into words those things which I could not seem to say in person. It did help. It helped me when my world was dark and I thought light would never shine in my soul again. Writing has always helped me to heal. I am not claiming to have written the great American novel. Not even close. But what I wrote during those dark days in my journal were my reflections, my anger, my questions, my hopes.
Writing Makes a Difference
Dr. James W. Pennebaker, a professor in the Department of Psychology at The University of Texas at Austin and author of several books, including Opening Up and Writing to Heal, has done extensive research on the study of writing as a healing tool. In one of his studies, he gave individuals the assignment to write their feelings about an ongoing emotional upheaval for 15 to 20 minutes each day for four consecutive days. The study revealed that those who did the work had improvements in their immune systems.
Healing comes in two forms. There is physical healing and spiritual or emotional healing. Both can be a struggle. Physical healing often involves rest, medication, maybe physical therapy. What happens when the body is struggling to heal? Where do you go when this time away from your life causes emotional pain which seems to engulf you? What do you do when something tragic has struck you, and your heart, your body and your mind can no longer handle the everyday tasks or experience joy?
You’ve been in a terrible car accident. Your body is mangled. You are off work for months, on pain medication, working with physiotherapists, and you feel like your body has betrayed you and your mind is not far behind. Do the physical work to heal. At the same time, do the mental work so that you don’t lose hope. Giving up mentally is an almost guaranteed way to stop the physical healing process.
In much the same way that physical therapy can aide in healing our bodies, mental therapy can aide in healing our minds.
Psychologists and Counselors often give their patients homework: to write down their thoughts and feelings about the issues which are causing them to struggle. The reason is simple: it works. Writing down a problem doesn’t make it go away. But seeing something tangible, having it spelled out right in front of you means it can no longer be ignored. And once it can no longer be ignored, the process of healing can begin.
In 1998 Joshua M. Smyth published an article in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology (Vol. 66, No. 1), wherein he suggests that writing does make a difference, though the degree of difference can depend on the form that writing takes.
Smyth says that the key to writing’s effectiveness is in the way people use it to interpret their experiences, right down to the words they choose. Venting emotions alone – whether through writing or talking – is not enough to relieve stress, and thereby improve health, Smyth states. To tap writing’s healing power, people must use it to better understand and learn from their emotions.
Turn your dreams into a new reality
Start a journal and chronicle all of the difficult things about your life at this moment. Now move beyond that. Analyze those statements. Did you cause any of them to be true? Is this horrible situation which you have now found yourself in your fault? Are you doing the best you can to heal yourself physically or financially? Next, begin the process of reframing those negative thoughts into more positive ones. Start stating the things you hope to do once you are able. Start to think of what you can be thankful for in this moment. Know your limitations, but do not for a minute think that your life is over. We all have limitations. The secret that comes from writing is that you can allow yourself to start slowly to break them down. Once you break them down, they stop being limitations and start being dreams. Do some investigating. How can those dreams become your new reality?
Let Your Questions Have Their Moment
It was at a time when many changes were taking place in my life. I stopped writing for a while. I began to have trouble sleeping. Tension headaches started appearing out of nowhere. My body began to show physical symptoms that it had never before shown. Then it hit me. I had stopped journaling. I had stopped putting everything down on paper, and my body was paying the price.
Why did I stop writing? It was because I was scared. I was embarking on a new chapter in my life and I was scared to chronicle it. I was scared to chronicle my failure. What I was doing though was allowing my fears to inhabit my body by ruminating on negative fantasies. What I should have been doing was allowing my questions to have their moment. I should have been writing; allowing myself the chance to express my fear, my failure, and maybe even my success. Once I allowed myself the chance to express the negative, I could then begin to focus on more positive thoughts such as love and peace and happiness.
Regain Your Power through Writing
In school young children are encouraged to keep journals. At very early grades, many teachers no longer correct spelling or grammar. The thought is that children need to be taught to express their thoughts and feelings without the fear of having their words judged.
As we get older, we lose that sense of abandonment in our writing. We know that our boss or a loved one or even a total stranger will read our words with judgement. And so begins the inhibition process of our lives. We begin to withhold our feelings.
We carefully ponder all of our actions, considering how they will reflect on us and impact others. As humans, one of our most basic instincts is our emotions, and with that comes one of our most basic needs: to express those emotions. Writing allows us to do just that.
Just the process of writing is freeing and empowering. Start small. Describe the weather; analyze the sugar bowl on the kitchen counter. Write the love letter you wish you had received, or yell and scream at those who are no longer with you. Yes, you can scream on paper. You can vent and praise equally. After all, it’s only paper. When you are finished, you can frame it, burn it or lock it away for your eyes only.
I’ll be honest, not all of my thoughts make it to paper. Some of what I consider to be my best starting points come to me while I’m driving. I will often talk myself through a journal entry or story idea during a trip. And by the time I have reached my destination, I have forgotten the first line to write. It doesn’t matter though, because I have expressed my thoughts. Yes, I am the only one who will ever hear those thoughts. And I have lost the chance to go back in a few months and reflect on them. However, the purpose of those thoughts at that moment in time was to help me to work through something, which I achieved.
Start the Writing-Healing Process
So here is my request to you. Go out and buy yourself a beautiful leather bound journal. Take one of the kids half used nasty scribblers or grab a clean napkin. The idea is to write when the inspiration is there. Make notes on your cell phone, carry around an iPad. Do whatever works for you, when it works for you.
The beauty of writing is that once you start, it is hard to stop. And once you start the healing process, you won’t ever want to let it go.
Sources:
Murray, Bridget http://www.apa.org/monitor/jun02/writing.aspx June 2002.
