“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. “
- Maya Angelou
Do you find it difficult to focus at work? Are you perturbed by life’s challenges and find it hard to maintain self-confidence? Do you often end up self-doubting yourself?
Then it’s time to let your emotions go freewheel.
Research has shown that writing is an effective way to release stress and improve health and emotional wellbeing. Writing can help you activate your body’s innate healing potential and be an active participant in your own wellness and healing process. This is especially true for those who have experienced trauma, illness, or other even ostensibly less traumatic but constant life stressors.
These events can cast a tremendous negative impact upon your mind, body, and your spirit, and also career and relationships. Writing is something that can help us sail through suffering by first exploring it, and then healing it through self-discovery. You come to realize that you are capable of far more than you expected. You discover that life has given you more reasons to be happy than you thought.
Noted Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor asserted, “suffering ceases to be suffering … at the moment it finds a meaning.” Writing is in fact, a healing modality that helps us let go of painful emotions and memories. It is also a great way to search for the meaning and purpose of life, and explore new identities and pathways to wholeness.
Write to express your emotions
Write not to write, but to express your emotions
Writing for wellness is using the written word to express thoughts, ideas, and emotions to promote health. The form of writing can vary—journaling, poetry, short stories, letters, and so on. What really matters is that you express in the form you choose. It gives you the opportunity to acknowledge, process, release, and create through words. Writing for wellness is not about improving grammar, spelling, or mastery of a language. In fact, paying attention to those aspects of writing can impede the effectiveness of using writing as a tool for healing.
Penning your pains, finding your path to wellness
Close your eyes. Meditate. Think of an incident that has shaken you to the core or impacted you greatly. Open your eyes and write about that. Perhaps a fire that broke out in the building adjacent to your office, last year. Write how scared you were, thinking of the plight of the inmates of the building or how you saw firefighters risking their lives to save a pantry staff stuck on the fourth floor. Or you may write about your son’s victory in last week’s soccer game. You were exasperated and happy, at the same time, for missing his Chemistry tuitions and for him winning the match. You realized how your son has become a thoughtful strategist in the field, even at the age of 16! You wanted to scream out in joy or hug him, but you stopped yourself when you saw him spending more time with his friends after the match. You wanted to tell him how proud you feel as a mamma, but somehow, could not steal a quiet moment with him, thanks to your (both your time and your son’s, that is) busy schedule. Time and again, you feel like going back in time and cheering your son for what he did, and self-doubting yourself for not being able to. Being a helicopter mom, you have always monitored his actions and have been very strict about his academics. But this time you seriously missed what really matters, being open to his emotions, his love for sports.
Writing Therapy
Write down all that touched you, taking note of all the small moments that cannot always be captured by a high-speed camera, but are stored in the innermost realms of your heart. Let it out. Trust me. You will feel a lot better. Pent-up emotions hurt us in more ways than open wounds. Writing about your experiences has a cathartic impact on your senses. You begin to feel free and liberated. Think of all the times you felt life was kicking you hard and could not find a way up to the tunnel. When you write off all those experiences, you are actually reliving those moments and reacting in a more mature manner.
Write for your soul, write for your wellness
Writing is something that you will help you introspect. You can engage in it at your ease. It is a secure outlet to your emotions. Write every day. You may write a single paragraph or you may write a thousand words. The choice is yours. But do give it a try.
If you are already a writer you may submit your writings in The Write Scene for a review.
Our team of qualified reviewers will help you grow as a writer and get published. We encourage young talent to grow as writers and unlock their hidden potential.
Never stop dreaming.