How Writing Has Helped Me Over the Years (and Pitfalls to Avoid)
What use can writing be for the individual and what one pressure can we avoid?
I have become increasingly drawn to the benefits of writing over the last few years, including attending courses and CPD (continuous professional development). I have yet to brave the jump and facilitate writing and journal courses for other people, to follow on the empowerment I have seen from other subject courses I have run. I wonder if I think writing or journal courses are meant to be facilitated by 'authors' or 'creatives', but actually, the very point of writing is that we are making sense of our own self, in language. We are putting 'it' (our thoughts) out there, which can actually be scary even if no-one else is reading it! In fact, part of the reason I am writing this, is to teach myself that the world does not fall apart when I write!
One of the activities I really found fascinating in a course I learnt to facilitate was creating your own ending. You could end it however you wanted; in fact the more elaborate, wild and wacky, the better. I ended up as some superheroine and conquered this evil being (a toxic relationship). I still remember this piece of writing with fondness. It did not 'really' happen, but the concept did: it gave me power and possibility. It shifted my brain, and that is the neuroscience of writing.
Over the years I have bought many new fancy journals to write in, as well as pens. It became the joke in the family, the number of pens you can find around the house, as if the act of buying them will create the writing. As with all good intentions, I felt bad that I was just unable to carry through my intentions consistently. This is the greatest dilemma and pitfall I hear from people I work with: the inability to journal consistently, which usually means 'daily'.
If I pull together all the pieces of writing from different journals (including electronic), over the years; I realise I have turned to writing a lot and there is a consistency within the inconsistency. This, and taking pictures on my phone of things that perk me up or take my interest, are the two common modes of communication that I have engaged with. I just have not appreciated my 'consistent inconsistency' and therefore not considered a way to document and track progress.
The reason I came to realise my consistent writing in some format was when I had to provide a statement to the police about my relationship and post-relationship abuse. The impact of this was less about me, as the police highlighted it would be a he-said, she-said dynamic, but the children were now experiencing the same experiences that I had, years previously. I wanted it documented and logged, for the children. I dragged out all the unfinished journals and the notes on my phone, all of which I dated. As I sat down and made my way through the statement, I felt a wave after wave of emotion. Sadness. Astonishment. Grief. Dismay. Confusion. Incredulousness. Anger. I also felt validation. I was right. I was right in speaking up all this time. I had been documenting things for years, in some sort of a 'journal' method, and I was simply struggling. I had been struggling with the processing of the behaviours of a high control relationship. I had been responding in ways that were so normal. At the time I had been asking for help and did not receive it. No wonder I was writing in short spurts. This documentation now became a living testimony. Either I could witness my own psychology and the struggles, or I could dismiss them all over again.
I would therefore encourage people to where possible, nurture their own writing or media in all the small ways it turns up. It could be texts, photos, singing, music, videos; whatever works for you. You can set up some anonymous email that you write to, social media memories, or have a folder on your phone (but note my 'losing the phone blog for back ups!'). Consider how you might just document things without the pressure. This is particularly true when you think you need to live up to some ideal of regular journal writing. I actually write more now I have taken the pressure off myself. When the time is right, I am able to write more, and now I have an idea to do something with all the photos that give a glimpse into my visual world.