Do You Wish You Could?

If you're wondering why there's a category called "Writing" on a Holistic Health site, you're not alone. I wondered about it myself! (Which is probably weird, since I'm a writer!). Having the curiosity of a child is often frowned upon (by some 'grown-ups' I know), but I don't let it stop me. Curiosity is my forte...and it inspires my Muse. So, back to the question: why a "Writing" category?

Here's what I'm thinking:

I'm thinking that the gentleman who started this terrific site is not without his own creativity. He's a mindful and caring man who wants very much to help the world. So it's unlikely that he'd do what he's doing without giving it lots of thought. This being the case (in my mind, anyway), it's likely that he decided that writing is as effective a tool for healing as all the other 'categories' he's listed on this site. He probably said to himself, "You know, what if there are people out there who use writing as a means to their wellness? What if...I offered authors a means to share what they know about the healing powers of writing?"

I don't know if these were his thoughts. I'm just guessing. But what I DO know is that writing IS a healing tool. And if there are people who "wish" they could write, and I can nudge them along, to overcome the "wish" part and move on to the "do it" part, well then...that would be a good thing, yes?

To that end, I'm going to offer what I consider to be one of the most fundamental lessons in writing. Ready?

Get a notebook or journal or cocktail napkin, and a writing utensil. Sit down somewhere comfortable and quiet. And...
WRITE.

HUH??? You call that a lesson?

Yep. Yep I do. It was the very first lesson I got from my first Creative Writing teacher in High School. She was a bit....Avante Garde...and equally as passionate about inspiring us to write. On our first day of class, she told us we'd be required to keep a journal. It had to be a spiral notepad (easier to write in) and we had to write in it DAILY, WITHOUT FAIL. We'd be required to hand it in every so often, and there would be no notice of when we'd have to hand it in. So, we'd better be prepared and...we WOULD be graded on consistency.

There were many loud groans in the classroom that day. Followed by a flurry of questions like, "what if I don't have anything to say?" or "but I don't know what to write ABOUT".

She then told us that it didn't matter if we just scribbled a bunch of nonsense or doodled with 'cartoon captions'. The only requirement was that we make an entry at least once a day.

Personally, I thought she was nuts. I thought, "now how is this going to make me a better writer?" HAAA! She was a very clever lady. And she taught me one of the most valuable lessons of all:

If you want to write, WRITE. WHAT you write is not as important (at first) as actually DOING it. Because, once you've formed the habit, you'll NEED to write every day. And, when that happens, well...what you have to say becomes much more evident...and much better written.

Yep. It's that simple. Now...here's something else...

The use of writing as a 'healing tool' is certainly an individual process. You have your way, I have mine. HOWEVER, there is one thing I'd like to offer here, just so you can decide for yourself which perspective you'd like to take with you when you begin.

If you sit down and write about how awful you feel, how scared you are, how much pain you're in, or how much you hate being 'un-well', you will, effectively, feed those thoughts. In other words, by writing the parts you DON'T want to experience, you are experiencing them all over again AS YOU WRITE. Is this what you really want?

I mention this because, at onset (of my own adventure into dis-ease) that's what I did. I'd sit there, all filled with excruciating pain and fear, and write about how horrible it was. Within minutes, the pain would be even more intense. And minutes after that, I'd be unable to write for the pain in my hands. OOOOPS. That's not gonna work.

It didn't take too long before I realized that I was going about this 'writing as medicine' thing from a very warped (and counter-productive) perspective. I needed to rethink all this and figure out another way.

That's when I met Jenny. She'd successfully healed herself after SEVEN YEARS of unspeakable pain. She'd gone through all the various drug treatments and such, all to no avail. She felt like her life was completely in someone else's hands. She was at the end of her proverbial rope.

And then...she figured it out. She figured out that she COULD heal herself...and she DID! Now, her life's passion is to share what she learned with the world. (I can't use HTML here, but her name is Jenny Mannion, and if you just type that into a search engine, you'll find her site right at the top of the page. WELL worth visiting!)

Anyway, Jenny and I became friends, and she was sharing some of her methods with me one day, when she asked if I was writing daily. I said I was. Then she very wisely asked "what are you writing ABOUT?" BINGO. There it was. The moment she asked the question, I knew what was amiss. Felt that little tingle in my gut that said, "HEY!!! Here's your sign!"

From that day forward, I ONLY wrote about what felt GOOD in my body each day. Even if it was just two little toes and a finger, I wrote about those. If the only thing that wasn't hurting was my hair (you think I'm kidding?!), I wrote about my hair. Whatever I could focus on that felt WELL, was what I wrote about. And I'd get all deep into it too. I'd pretend I was telling a child her bedtime story...and get all kinds of dramatic and colorful with my descriptions. In other words, I made it FUN.

What do you suppose the results of those labors were?