Write It Out!: Essays, Tips, Exercises and Interviews on the Daily Practice of Writing
By Robert Yehling
A Word Journeys Electronic Publication
Release Date – Autumn 2007
WRITE DEEP, HEAL DEEP
Brenda suffered from an aggressive form of breast cancer. Her long brown hair was a wig. Her outward condition was the result of taking runs on the beach while suffering from the after-effects of chemo. Inside, she stuffed an awesome gift of God—the ability to write so beautifully that her words could peel the stone veneer off the hardest of hearts. It was killing her.
Brenda realized that her inability to share these stories with others was subtly contributing to her illness. She held this writing, and all of her deep emotions, close to her chest—the location of breast cancer. She wrote intense, beautiful and sometimes wrenching material, exactly the sort of stuff we need to get off our chests and share. However, a deep fear of rejection, caused by past relationships and others' expectations, prevented her from hitting the proverbial "send" button. She came to the workshop to fine-tune her skills; instead, she received a vital component to her healing process.
Within six months, after supplementing her medical treatment with a daily regimen of good eating, meditation, visualization, holistic healing and journaling, Brenda the news: her cancer was gone. During this time, she'd laced together several journal entries into a story, and sold it to Chicken Soup for the Women's Soul— an ideal venue to touch women with her sacred gift.
She will tell anyone that writing deeply—and getting it out—saved her life.
How Writing Opens Us Up
Brenda's story underscores the relationship between writing (or any form of creative expression) and healing. Authentic writing requires us to plume deeply into our own truths, patterns, issues, experiences, dreams, fantasies, relationships, hearts and souls. While our minds provide the words, structures and general pictures of what we write, our bodies and souls provide the raw material. We store considerable energy, personal and ancestral memory in our body cells; when something clogs them up or generates abnormal cell growth, dis-ease manifests. Our minds might block out a life trauma or childhood event, but our bodies never forget. Recently, while running along a country road in New York, I passed a ditch in which weeds were burning. The scent took me back to the seven-year-old boy who spent an idyllic summer in Iowa. Memories flooded me. The body carries everything—good and bad.
"Whenever there are health difficulties, it's because the flow of life-force is blocked or out of harmony in some way," said Gyandev McCord, Ph.D., director of Ananda's Expanding Light retreat center in Northern California and co-author, with Dr. Peter Van Houten, of Yoga Therapy for Headache Relief. "Any technique that can restore the natural flow is a boon to health. A creative endeavor such as writing can be an excellent auxiliary healing technique because 'getting the creative juices flowing' is all about freeing and increasing the life-force."
When we can write without fear of exposing our deepest truth, we open ourselves up. We tap into a universal current of energy that flows through us, and clears our bodies of stagnated material. We transform from swamps into rivers. We release fears and mental blocks, and dive into our inner worlds to procure the jewels of our own experiences. I often begin workshops by encouraging participants to "shut off your minds and let it all pour out" in a brainstorming session. I ask them to forget about punctuation, the last sentence they wrote, and everything except what is pouring through at that moment. The goal: To create a pure, open conduit through which both divine spirit and body memory can pour. In those few minutes, the sum total of their life experiences, dreams, memories, intuitive guidance, conversations, readings and outside observations can integrate and flow onto the paper, in sentence after glorious sentence. By doing this, we “fly above” the chitter-chatter of our self-censoring minds (ego) and write with our natural open minds. We learn to trust ourselves and create a state of ease in our writing, ease in our bodies and ease in our minds—which, of course, is the opposite of dis-ease.
Using Writing To Locate The Source of Dis-ease
"Recognizing the deeper causes of dis-ease in our own bodies and minds is one of the best ways we can heal ourselves—either before or during our experience with the symptoms," said Dr. Randall, the author of the forthcoming book, Soul Doctoring. "When we recognize how our attitudes, beliefs, actions or lexicon of fears feed into the bad cells of a cancer, or blood sugar level gyrations of diabetes, we can sometimes reverse the course of the dis-ease on the spot."
Fifteen years ago, Kenneth Fink was a high-powered corporate lawyer who watched his well-ordered external world crumble around him. A business school classmate of Donald Trump's at Wharton, Fink faced the ultimate mid-life crisis—a broken marriage, difficulties with his career, his mother's terminal illness, failing health and complete lack of focus and purpose. "I unexpectedly was unable to get out of bed. This was the beginning of a lengthy illness that would prompt me to seek a different way to live. For the first time, I was unable to push through to a solution; pushing no longer worked," he said.
During the ensuing quest to find himself, a textbook case of the motif Joseph Campbell immortalized in Hero With A Thousand Faces, Fink embraced the combination of a multitude of spiritual and healing paths. He also recognized that the best forms of integration came from prayer, meditation and writing. His freshly opened heart and highly developed mind connected, and he wrote an exemplary book about his experiences, Unbuttoned: Who Says Men Can't Change?
"Writing is a practical and readily available method for men to work through our issues," Fink said. "Our expressions can be open and outlandish and need not be suppressed for fear that our process will be unacceptable or inappropriate. Writing can be done anytime and anywhere. If we are able to let go in the process, it takes us to places that we were not aware of in our external consciousness. It can offer solutions as to what actions will serve our purpose and allows a tremendous freeing of the unexpressed within. Expressing through writing can prevent the deleterious effects that holding back has on our well being on all levels."
Putting Your Pen To Work
Once we've accessed our deepest selves, and gained trust in both our journey and the process, we're ready to go to work. There are several types of writing and exercises with which to work—inner dialoguing, journaling, clustering, story vignettes, dream writing and writing scenes of a play. Confront that which ails you—broken heart, an acute or chronic illness, depression, fatigue, or any form of emotional, physical, spiritual or mental imbalance. Give it a name and even a "face," if necessary. Honor its presence as a lesson-giver in your life. Offer it the space to convey its message or its story. Often, dis-ease carries incredible stories, since storytelling is a sacred and ancient form of "passing something down" and the body knows that a good story will attract the mind. The rhythms and vibrations of storytelling reside deep in our cells, deep in our DNA. It goes well beyond hearing "The Wizard of Oz" when we were kids. By attuning to, listening to and telling the stories of our inner selves, we throw open the floodgates that can lead to wholescale healing.
"Writing helps to bypass the self-critic and judge and opens the doorway to the true voice of our soul," Iana Lahi said.
Write the story or transcribe the inner dialogue "voice" as it comes to you. Do not question. Do not edit. Do not erase. Do not keep starting over. Just move forward; you will have plenty of time to fine-tune your work later. Or leave it raw and exposed to the light of your health. Let your pen and your body flow freely together, cavorting in the playground of your inner Muse as the conversations and stories of your dis-ease or imbalance appear on the paper. If you feel like bailing out, if something comes up that you don't want to face, keep writing—you're making a breakthrough. Let the laughter roar, the tears flow, the body quake and the thoughts of longing, regret, anger, broken dreams and other subtle causes of dis-ease roll through in their pure, unfettered form. You're bringing these shadows into the light of who you are, right now. Don't let them return to your body—release them onto the page and thank them for enriching your soul.
A Quick Word on Dreams and Recovery
Two areas of our lives offer tremendous opportunity and material for healing and expression: dreams and recovery. Our dream world is as real to our souls as waking consciousness; in fact, in a society bombarded with media and advertising, some spiritual teachers will say the dreamtime is more real. The symbols, hidden meanings and deeper solutions to our worries, cares, situations and ailments often come through the dream state. "Often the answers come in metaphors and all we have to do is to understand that metaphor to decode the dis-ease," Dr. Randall said. "Our bodies’ symptoms are metaphoric means of gaining our attention to not only the physical but also the mental, emotional and spiritual imbalances in our existence."
By recording and working with our dreams, we learn our exclusive metaphorical language, how to decode it, and the messages we need to carry forward. The dream world operates in the 90 percent of consciousness that the waking mind misses; it's a great place to visit. A common objection to dream work is, "I never can remember my dream." A simple remedy: Keep a notebook next to your bed. When you awake from a dream, write down three or four quick sentences that capture the essence of the dream. Then go back to sleep, or start your day. When you come back to the passage (preferably within 24 hours), it will retain its emotional and energetic charge. You will find it much easier to remember details. Who knows? A great healing might be sitting on the page…or a great story. Many of history's greatest forms of healing and greatest stories began as dreams.
Most people are in some form of recovery—from childhood trauma, alcohol or drug dependencies, emotional issues and many other forms of imbalance and dis-ease. Pick your issue. Dr. Terra Pressler has spent 20 years in recovery, and has used her ability to plume her innermost depths to root out one imbalance after another. In the meantime, her creative process has flowered to include writing and performing music, award-winning plays, book authorship, and changing careers from family law to creative writing professor. She's used writing to find her rhythm, and she's jumped into the flow. Writing has been the enduring sidekick of her healing and recovery.
"When I'm uncertain, I turn to my journal," she said. "When I'm out of balance, I turn to my journal. When I'm depressed, filled with doubt, hurting in every psychic joint, I'll turn to my journal. Like being in wilderness, journaling has become a deep form of prayer for me and I am invariably eased and returned to my center by the practice. I've used journaling to discover myself, to learn what I really want in career and relationship, and to grow in spirit.
As Dr. Pressler's story illustrates, writing deeply to heal is not easy. It is a bold, courageous step, perhaps one of the most daring adventures into the unknown we will ever take. But its rewards exceed all risks: At the illuminated end of this tunnel stands greater understanding of self, a deeper connection with both the Divine and the rhythms of the body, and more astute perception toward our health. Furthermore, we will emerge all the wiser. In writing to heal, we're releasing the collective knowledge contained within our bodies and bringing it into the light. That wisdom goes back to day one of the human race. And who knows? You might emerge with the makings of a book that changes the lives of others—the ultimate gift.
