The Healing Power of Writing

I hit a low point in my life at age 32.

My marriage to my partner of the previous 9 years ended, and within the same month, a scandal hit the newspapers involving my family of origin.

I felt as though the house had burned down, and I was left standing alone in the rubble.

Thankfully, I was a writer. So I wrote.

I wrote a memoir, setting the stories within the framework of my first ten-day Vipassana meditation retreat. I called it 10 Days of Silence.

I never did get it published. I never even tried. Parts of it felt too personal to share publicly. 

But I did print out copies and give them to my dearest friends and family members, who lovingly took it all in. They told me how much more deeply connected they felt to me. How I had revealed parts of my past they had never known about before.

Most of all, the process of writing the book helped to heal my wounds. It helped me understand my feelings, accept the mistakes I had made, and realize the lessons I was learning.

Now, over 15 years later, I'm brushing it off. I'm editing out the bits that feel too personal while safeguarding the raw vulnerability. And I'm planning to publish.

But the real gold was in the healing. 

WRITING TIP OF THE WEEK: Write to Heal

A recent study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology revealed how powerful it can be to write our stories as the Hero's Journey – placing ourselves in that heroic central role.

Picture yourself as a modern-day hero: Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, Moana, even Barbie. They all set out on hero's journeys in which they left the security of home to embark on some quest, fought enemies, forged alliances, gained wisdom from wise elders, and then defeated the ultimate demon – the ones that lived within themselves, that live within us all. They then brought their wisdom back to the rest of the world to enlighten and inspire others in their journeys.

Can you retell your story from this perspective? Not necessarily ever to share, but to heal? 

Yes, to heal.

Aloha,

MeiMei

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"I suppose that I did for myself what psychoanalysts do for their patients. I expressed some long felt and very deeply felt emotion. And in expressing it, I explained it and laid it to rest."

– Virginia Woolf