Guest Post: How Writing Helps to Heal

Welcome to meryl’s notes blog (this here place you’re lookin’ at) in Plano, Texas. We’re honored to be a stop in Linda Joy Myers‘ WOW! Women On Writing Blog tour.

About Linda Joy Myers Ph.D. She’s president of the National Association of Memoir Writers and a practicing psychotherapist. She is the author of The Power of Memoir and Don’t Call Me Mother: Breaking the Chain of Mother Daughter Abandonment, which won the Gold Medal Award from the Bay Area Independent Publishing Association in 2007.

How Writing Helps to Heal by Linda Joy Myers

Most of us intuitively know that writing our thoughts and feelings helps us to feel better, but now research shows that writing helps to heal both the mind and the body. In 1999, the first studies came out about studies done by Dr. James Pennebaker and other that writing helps to heal such physical ailments as arthritis and asthma. Since then other studies have shown immune system improvements when a person writes about traumatic or upsetting events for only a few minutes. Traumas can include events such as war, natural disasters but many of us have suffered traumas from within the home through some kind of abuse or abandonment, or betrayal by a loved one.

Whether a trauma occurs at home or out in the world, it remains part of body memory and could even return in a flashback. During the last few years, a lot of new research has been done on the chemistry of the brain in regards to trauma and strong negative emotions such as rage and fear. Traumatic memories are stored differently than regular memories, which means that it’s harder to put them to rest and move forward. You might have recurring dreams or get stuck in a memory that repeats over and over again like a stuck record.

Writing your stories helps to put the past to rest, but some people are afraid of what they might encounter. I’ve learned that you can come at your writing indirectly, not confronting all the memories head on, by writing the light and positive stories as well. Pennebaker told his subjects that if a topic was too painful, they should write about something else, and the research shows that writing positive stories is about as healing as writing darker stories. You need to decide what path is better for you, and it’s important to take good care of yourself.

One way that writing heals is the weaving between being the narrator and the main character in a memoir story. This dual consciousness is part of the healing process, as the narrator helps us to develop a perspective on what happened, and the character “I” gets inside who we were then. When we write scenes using full sensual details, we take a small hypnotic trip to the past and live in our own skin for a while, then return to “now.” The process of writing and telling stories, especially if they are shared helps to heal and to change our perceptions of who we were and who we are now.

Interweaving Dark and Light Stories

It helps to weave back and forth between your dark and light memories to explore your healing stories and keep your emotional balance. Choose either the lighter or the darker topics. You may need to write a story several times to get through all the layers of your feelings.

The darker topics

Freewrite about one of the topics for 15-30 minutes. See if your feelings, thoughts, and reflections shift after writing.  Journal about your observations. It always helps to keep an ongoing writing journal about your work.

Choose a memory that includes a positive quality and write that story.

Qualities of light

Further Reflections

• What happened during the writing, and afterward?
• Write a story where the beginning is darkness and the end is light, or the reverse.
• Balance your memoir writing sessions between dark and light stories to keep an emotional balance.

The path of emotional healing is often like cleaning out an old wound: it hurts while we are cleaning it out, but we feel so much better afterward. It helps to have an ongoing practice that keeps the healing progressing. Here are some suggestions for your regular writing sessions.

• Make a list of the darker memories that trouble you from time to time.
• Write down the age you were when these difficult times happened.
• Write down what you did to cope with the event at the time.
• How do you feel now about the incident?
• What would you have liked to happen differently?

Honor yourself during the process. Because the goal of this kind of writing is healing, give yourself permission to listen to the stories that arise naturally from within, stories that have an emotional punch for you. If you get stuck writing the same story, consider therapy or other emotional support.

Write about yourself at different ages and in new voices, you will be writing and witnessing from multiple perspectives, weaving a larger, more integrated story of your life.

Dark memories or trauma are resolved if you are no longer troubled by them. Resolution means that your life is not governed by your fears and you’re not disturbed when you remember the event. In other words, you remember it, but no longer have the emotional reaction that you had before. It’s become an event that happened, part of your life story, among many others.

Writing Tips

1. Protect your vulnerable self by distancing in the writing. First, write about what happened in the third person: “she” or “he” instead of “I.” Write as if you are watching the event in a movie.
2. Write a scene about a difficult incident, but make it turn out the way you would have wanted it to. Change the incident so it ends more pleasantly and positively.
3. Tell what happened before and after a difficult incident. Write around it, but not about the event itself.
4. Make a bare-bones list of what happened in the difficult incident and put it aside. Notice your feelings as you make the list.
5. Make a list of the dark topics or stories that you aren’t ready to write. List them by title or theme.
6. Make a list of the light stories, stories that bring you a feeling of well being, happiness, contentment, and safety. They may include memories about love, spiritual experiences, and miracles.
7. When you are ready, choose from the “light” list to write a story.
8. When you feel ready, write one of the dark stories.
9. Alternate as needed so you write your memoir in a way that feels balanced and safe.
10. Be brave — write your healing stories.

If you’re interested in writing to heal, check out Linda’s book, The Power of Memoir.

How does writing help you?