Write Your Way Through
Dream On, Volume 12
Last volume I wrote about the nuances of being a therapist and a writer—the juxtaposition of being the holder of secrets and the teller of stories, and the slippery balance of personal disclosure and clinical insight. Balancing these personas is far less binary as I age. I also spoke about the desire to be of service all the time, and how that in some ways, may hem in my expression — both on the page and in life! I’m going to offer you a few of what I call therapeutic writing prompts to explore and express yourself in perhaps, unexpected but much-needed ways.
I often use writing as a tool in therapy. Tailoring therapeutic writing prompts to what my patient is dealing with specifically. I also love writing to a prompt myself, (for years I was in one of Kathy Katims’s dreamy Saved by a Story groups) and find that what comes up in my writing is often surprising—it can serve as a big release, like a good cry, or deep long belly laugh.
Some studies show that it can reduce anxiety. Others show that writing about an experience may be more effective for people who have a hard time naming and expressing their emotions. I love when the art of healing — the witchy intuition side of it — gets codified with material science: Research shows writing about what troubles us may have a positive impact on our health in part by reducing stress, which boosts immunity.
Writing about our experiences and feelings isn’t for everyone. I don’t propose you write about something traumatic over and over again without some attempt to move feelings through you, find meaning, shift the perspective, or process it with a trusted person or group. The positive impact is supported by the writer feeling a sense of growth or shift coming from the writing. I liken this to the difference between nightmares and PTSD nightmares. Our bad dreams can be helping us prepare for the future, metabolize a challenging experience, or shine a light on something that is troubling us and needs attention.* PTSD nightmares are a different beast — ones in which you are reliving a traumatic event, symptomatic of unprocessed trauma, and require a different kind of intervention (there are more and more available now to help with this).
So when it comes to writing about your experience, it’s okay to be tentative about getting into the nitty-gritty details of a traumatic event. You might find it serves you better to do that with a therapist or a trusted healer.
I find that in writing, we can access and process repressed emotions. I finally wrote and published an essay about a traumatic loss decades after the fact, and in doing so found a deeper understanding of how that event has evolved to live in me—and how far I have come from being regularly subsumed by it.
Based on what I spoke of in the last volume, I wanted to offer some therapeutic writing prompts that touch on themes for feeling hemmed in, the nature of being of service, and writing regardless of fear or shame, in fact write your way through those feelings!
Choose one and set a timer for 10 minutes and get started writing. It can be a list, a scene, you can write “I don’t have anything to say right now, I feel stuck, waiting for something to come… still waiting…” —something will eventually come, I promise.
Where do you feel hemmed in by your desire to be of service?
What do you inadvertently gain by positioning yourself in the service role?
What is the thing you wish you could write about for the world to read but feel too scared to do so…go ahead and write it. You don’t have to share it, but get it out!
Ready, set, write! (We have been watching a lot of The Great British Bake Off over here.)
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*more on this in my upcoming book Dream Minding.
Encouraging! I've pre-ordered your book.