Writing Will Transform Your Life
An essay for World Mental Health Day
“Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose, or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.”
~ Graham Greene
I know a lot of creatives who can relate to this statement.
I know personally, if I don’t write I get antsy, anxious and quite difficult to be around. I sink into myself, get swallowed by ‘the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear.’
There are a number of ways I keep these feelings at bay. One of them is morning pages.
Morning pages were devised by Julia Cameron and form a large basis of her course, The Artist’s Way. She proposes you do three pages of stream of consciousness writing first thing in the morning to get all the scrambled thoughts out of your head and onto the page.
By doing this, the artist can make room for creativity in the rest of the day.
If I don’t do morning pages I go a bit crazy. They’re a way for me to notice all the mental chatter in my brain and provides a space for me to attempt to change that narrative.
When I’m in flow, the morning pages can produce the start of poems or essays. When I’m out of sorts they allow space for me to purge the negative thoughts before the day begins.
“Morning pages do get us to the other side: the other side of our fear, of our negativity, of our moods. Above all, they get us beyond our Censor. Beyond the reach of our Censor’s babble we find our own quiet center, the place where we hear the still, small voice that is at once our creator’s and our own.”
~ Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way
There’s a growing body of psychological research that shows journaling is really bloody good for our mental health.
The Psychology of Journaling
In the 90s, two psychologists, Tedeschi & Calhoun, put forward their theory of post-traumatic growth (PTG), which claims a person can experience positive psychological outcomes following a traumatic or stressful event. Specifically, the event can be a catalyst for changing their outlook on life.
Their theory explores how personality, support networks, ability to process, among other things helps produce this transformation. But, one of the main elements that enables people to experience PTG is journaling.
Psychologists have found journaling, and especially writing to reframe the traumatic event, contributes significantly to a person experiencing PTG. Psychologists call this ‘expressive writing’
Overall, studies find that expressive writing is beneficial for those with PTSD by reducing both psychological and physiological symptoms. Clinical studies have shown participants who write about a traumatic incident exhibit less anger and tension, less depressive symptoms and reduced cortisol levels.
So, getting words on the page helps people to process what has happened to them and reframe the narrative. Psychologists call this desensitisation, meaning negative emotions reduce the more someone is exposed to the event.
The Role of Poetry
I would argue, poetry takes the foundations of expressive writing one step further.
Through the use of metaphor a poet is able to paint their pain onto the world. Metaphor allows the poet to put their suffering outside of themselves and explore it in new and interesting ways.
Holding ‘the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear’ at arms length the poet can interrogate their emotional pain and transform it into something beautiful. The poem is an offering of their heart to the world.
Post traumatic growth is defined by 5 factors:
appreciation of life
relating to others
personal strength
new possibilities
spiritual, existential or philosophical change
For me, those factors read like a poem. They are the fundamentals of what underlies a poem and how a poet experiences life.
The more I write poetry, the more these five elements of my life grow deeper and stronger.
And I’m not the only one.
Joy Sullivan said “name the ache” and Audre Lorde said “poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless” and Julia Cameron said “art… casts a beam into the heart of our own darkness and says, See?”
I do morning pages every day to keep me from sinking into my own skin. I write poetry to put myself into the mess of the world and feel alive.
On November 3rd I’m running a Writing for Wellbeing session. We will use some of the principles of PTG and expressive writing to explore our mental health and create some heartfelt poems.
It’s a Sunday afternoon session so we can take our time writing, exploring and sharing our stories.
Disclaimer: I have an MSc Psychology, with a specialism in trauma and alternative methods of healing, but I am not a licensed psychologist or therapist. If you are suffering with PTSD, depression or anxiety, please seek specialist help.
‘The poem is an offering of their heart to the world’ 🤍