Authoring Experience
In times of confusion and uncertainty, expressive writing can be a helpful tool for making sense of our thoughts and emotions. By putting pen to paper, we create a safe space to explore inner landscapes without judgment.
“I don’t know what I think until I write it down,” — Joan Didion
Writing about experience enables us to articulate feelings that otherwise may remain suppressed, unclear, or unspoken. Writing is a reflective process, enabling us to identify patterns in our emotions and thoughts. It can be particularly beneficial when facing change or transition, as it helps us clarify what truly matters. Through expressive writing, we can uncover insights that guide effective decision-making and foster growth.
According to Pennebaker and Evans in Expressive Writing: Words That Heal (2014), expressive writing can enhance emotional regulation, allowing us to distance ourselves from overwhelming feelings. By externalizing our thoughts and emotions, we can observe them from new perspectives, reflect on them, and gain self-awareness and resilience.
Incorporating expressive writing into our regular routines does not require extensive writing skills or time. A few minutes jotting down thoughts each day and focusing on feelings and detailed experiences can provide significant benefits. Expressive writing includes note taking, journaling, memoir, poetry, fiction, opinion, thought pieces, etc. It is a powerful ally for navigating the complexities of change, overcoming challenges, and gaining a renewed sense of purpose.
Deborah Siegel-Acevedo argues in her 2021 Harvard Business Review piece “Writing Can Help Us Heal From Trauma” that it’s not what you write but how that matters. Research has found a set of four practices for expressive writing to heal us. First and foremost, the writing is just for you. Second, it includes concrete, authentic, and specific details while, thirdly, telling a story with a beginning, middle, and end that, fourthly, links your feelings to events on the page. These parameters for writing transform our experience. As we narrate experiences, we exercise control over what and how we tell them, reclaiming agency.
Here are three strategies adapted from Siegel-Acevedo’s article for using expressive writing to heal:
Write With Abandon
Don’t worry about grammar, spelling, or editing. Set a timer for 10 minutes and start writing. Prompt #1: Write words, notes, phrases, and sentences about a dramatic moment from your experience.
Focus on Detail and Emotion
The power of details is how we make writing real. Imagine yourself amid the experience. Use your five senses to select meaningful details. Prompt #2: Think of one object that signifies a moment in the experience you wrote about in #1. Imagine it in full color, feel its weight, use all your senses to write about the object, and link its meaning to the experience.
Make Meaning
Humans make meaning of experience. It’s how we learn. Writing about your experience is an opportunity to reflect and look for lessons. Prompt #3: What is one thing you know now that you didn’t know when the experience you wrote about in #1 happened? How did you learn this? When did your understanding change?
“The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is—it’s to imagine what is possible.” —bell hooks
Expressive writing is an accessible tool for processing our experiences and lives. Authoring experience enables us to remember, honor, render visible, witness, make meaning, and envision ourselves as whole.
Are you interested in cultivating a practice of expressive writing? Contact me here.