In case you haven’t noticed, I’m especially passionate about Mindful Writing for Healing. This powerful practice can help to bring a sense of order from chaos and help us to heal from life’s inevitable difficult times. Despite our best laid plans for a peaceful life, sometimes chaos arrives in the form of trauma, loss, or other difficult times and leaves us with tightness in the chest and throat, disrupted sleep, and feelings of anxiety or overwhelm.
Research on Writing for Healing
Studies have shown that writing for healing can result in long-term improvements in mood, psychological wellbeing, and physical health. Most writers and people who keep a journal will tell you that writing about their lives helps them to feel better. I know it’s true for me. Writing about difficult events in my life has been one of the most powerful healing practices I’ve worked with.
How Mindful Writing Helped Me to Heal
Many years ago, my Mama relapsed with addiction to prescription benzodiazepines and opioids and alcohol after not using for 24 years and then attempted suicide. It was one of the most difficult events that I’ve experienced. I tried traditional talk therapy, and it helped for a few sessions, but then just talking about it began to make me feel worse.
So I started writing about it, and I experienced firsthand the power of writing for healing. I was using a mindful writing practice that I had developed after years of studying writing and healing. What began as a mindful writing practice propelled me forward to write a memoir about the experience. Writing about all of those years of growing up with a mom who was addicted, writing about how I felt in the worst of her relapse and suicide attempt, helped me to feel better than just talk therapy. It helped me to see all of that experience from a different perspective, express my deepest feelings about it, make meaning from it, and heal.
You know how sometimes we think we’ve dealt with something from our past and then it comes up again years later? Sort of like it taps us on the shoulder, begging for our attention? Well, that happened to me last year with all of those events with my mom’s addiction. I dug the memoir out of the drawer, and I’ve spent the past several months editing and rewriting parts of it, and the power of this practice never ceases to amaze me.
Mindful writing for healing practice helped me to feel less blown over by those events. The practice helped me to make a cohesive narrative from all of those stories, which was immensely healing. Something about writing it all down helps us to make order and meaning from things and feel less scattered and overwhelmed in the midst of it. Yes, that’s it, making order from chaos.
Through writing about all of those events, I was able to see clearly that in her sober moments during my childhood, my Mama was teaching me the skills of being mindfully present in nature that I would later need to heal from the impact of her addiction, suicide attempt, and eventual death from cancer.
Learn More about Mindful Writing
If you’d like to learn more about Mindful Writing, be sure to read my post on Mindful Writing Practice. And subscribe to the blog so that you won’t be missing more of my upcoming series on Mindful Writing in the near future. It’s a pretty amazing practice. Click here to register for an upcoming Mindful Writing workshop.
If you’re writing about traumatic events that feel overwhelming, please seek guidance from a licensed counselor who is skilled in writing for healing and working with people with trauma.
References
Pennebaker, J.W. Writing about emotional experiences as a therapeutic process. Psychological Science. Vol 8, No. 3. May 1997.
Smyth, J.M. Written Emotional expression: Effect Sizes, Outcome Types, and Moderating Variables. Journal of Counseling and Clinical Psychology. Vol 66, No. 1, 174-184. 1998.