The relationship between writing and healing
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I’ll be honest: I had a different note queued up for today. I was always planning to tell you about the Healing Through Writing Festival, but the way I introduced it was going to be different.
That was before I found out that one of my best friends from childhood—who had been in remission from stage 4 brain cancer for the past fifteen years—went into hospice last week, at age forty-one.
We met in second grade, and were basically inseparable until her parents did the most awful thing: move away the summer before we started our freshmen year of high school. It was a tumultuous time for both of us. It also didn’t help that my mother, a real estate agent, sold their house. She seemed like an accomplice for something that would have happened anyway, but the sting felt a little bit worse.
So what’s an emotional fourteen-year-old to do? I wrote a story about it but changed everyone’s names. I was actually so proud of it that I eventually submitted all three-thousand words to some kids magazines, forcing very kind editors to read my poorly crafted teen agony. They were right to reject it. But that’s not the point!
The point is, I instinctively did something to process my grief: W R I T E.
Funny thing is, I still have that story in a file box. I rediscovered it for the first time after moving into our house five years ago, and pulled it out the day after learning about my friend. Reading it on the couch one night clued me in to a few details I didn’t even remember, like how she and her mom stayed in town for a month so she could finish out the school year. And how on her very last day, my mom took us out to dinner and then we drove her back to the hotel before hugging for the last time. I don’t remember actually doing that, but I’m certain I did.
I talked about the rage we both felt. About how I watched her start pulling away from me, yet somehow understood that her behavior wasn’t actually about me. I talked about walking into her empty house and seeing grooves in the carpet where a couch used to be.
I said we met in second grade, which is the same year I both learned to write and started writing for myself. At first it was just silly, rhyming poems in a hot pink, spiral bound notebook.
What I didn’t know then was that this sacred act of putting pen to paper was the beginning of a lifelong process to help me grow, heal, and connect to my inner world.
That tethering has sustained me, as I know it sustains you, through the mess and beauty of life.
It’s literally the first thing I thought to do. Write something, anything, capture a memory on paper of something we shared, scream at the unfairness of it all. You can bet I’ve done my fair share of messy crying, but the writing helps too. It always has.
Writing the tough stuff requires feeling our feelings, letting our bodies have a voice, and tenderly exploring the memories it holds. This simultaneous attention to body body and craft is one of the reasons I’m honored to be a speaker at this year’s Healing Through Writing festival.
Over four days you can look forward to:
Presentations to help you tap into your body’s wisdom and write from an embodied state
Live workshops on writing (and stitching) through your grief, understanding the connection between resistance, creative blocks and your nervous system, and more
Personal story and mindset shifts to help you write and understand experiences in your life from different perspectives
My session, Breath & Bone: Gentle Practices for Excavating Our Stories, offers guidance and prompts for entering the realm of memory, and covers essential self-care reminders for working through difficult material. When you sign up, you’ll also be able to download a bundle of two relaxing yoga nidra meditations.
Here are some of the other workshops I have my eye on:
Somatic Journaling: Come Home to Your Body by Giving Your Body a Voice
Writing from the Charge: How to Work With Big Feelings
Fear is an Opportunity
Shifting Resistance and Creative Blocks Using Your Body
If you’re a sensitive and thoughtful creative (which I know you are), you won’t want to miss it.
The event is free to attend, but if you're unable to make the live sessions or watch the recordings before they're taken down, an All Access Pass makes it easy to digest everything on your own timeline. *As an affiliate, I'll receive a commission if you choose this route.
If continuing down the courageous healing path is something you're committed to and/or if you’re currently going through something hard and want support to write your way through it, I hope you'll sign up.
—N
For the skimmers:
Sign up for the FREE Healing Through Writing Festival from March 26-29, 2024
Can’t attend live? Consider an All Access Pass to watch the recordings at your own pace.