Writing Yourself Well

Feelings buried alive never die. Everyone has difficult emotions from time to time. Most of us have gotten pretty good at burying them. If you are living with a chronic illness, you have more than your share of unpleasant feelings. The only way to get past these emotions is to express them. But the feelings are so terrifying that we dare not take the lid off the pressure cooker. We are afraid that if we express even the smallest part of these feelings, we will explode and our arms and legs and head will fly off into space. Keeping feelings buried takes all of our energy, energy that would be better used to heal.

I don't know about you, but no one ever taught me constructive ways to express painful feelings. Last year, I took a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction workshop and a relationships workshop from a wonderful local psychologist, Beth Meeker. Beth uses a combination of meditation, journaling and small group sharing. Her workshops are typically 5 hours long! Beth recommended The Artists Way: A Spiritual Path to Creativity. There are short, thought provoking chapters, followed by tasks for that week. Some of those tasks are journaling prompts. One of the things the author, Julia Cameron, recommends is what she calls "Morning Pages." She encourages the reader to write three pages in a journal first thing every morning.

Since writing my "Morning Pages" nearly every day since August 2011, I have finally been able to express some tough emotions and let them go. It's no coincidence that my health has continued to improve. I hope and pray that some of you will give journaling a chance. Let me know if you do and please share your experience.

The Myth of Venting

This morning I turned off the email notifications for almost all the Facebook illness groups to which I belong. Why? Every day, all day, it is the same thing…people carrying on about every little detail of their chronic illness. They post pictures of rashes and bruises. They obsess endlessly about each symptom. Many of the posts begin or end with the words, “I just need to vent.” Where did we get this idea? Does venting really make anyone feel better? Is our experience of chronic illness validated by telling others how much we suffer?

I will be the first to say that the only way to deal with difficult emotions is to express them and then move on. The only way out is by going through. There are no shortcuts. In fact, buried feelings don’t die, they come back even stronger. We need to explore our feelings and express them. Usually, that expression has to do with words-speaking, journaling, meditating on them. This is far different from “venting.”

Sometimes the pop psychology notion that “venting” is good, is merely a cover for ruminating about our situation. People who vent usually have a litany of complaints that they repeat endlessly. It’s their rosary of suffering. “My partner doesn’t understand. My doctors are stupid. My meds make me nauseous. I wish people could be in my situation, and then they wouldn’t say stupid things. Why doesn't anyone care about what I am going through?” Nothing changes for the better when we do this. In fact, we feel worse because we are consumed with the unfairness of it all. Is it unfair to have a chronic illness? You bet it is! Does complaining help? Not at all!

Instead of “venting” we need to find constructive ways to express what we are feeling. How do we do that? The first thing is to quiet both the body and the mind. As long as was are agitated, as long as we are engaged in incessant mind chatter, we can’t do much else. Journaling is one of my very favorite tools for expressing difficult emotions (and good ones, too). All you need is a notebook and a pen. Go to a quiet place like a park, bookstore, or library. Go in your room and close the door. This time is for you and you alone. Check in with yourself. Start with the question, “How are you doing today?” Then write whatever comes to mind. Don’t censor or edit. Just write. Ideally, you will want to write for 15-20 minutes each time. It takes that long before things really get moving. If you do this several times a week, you will notice that you are “venting” less and living more.

Two Handed Journaling

During a Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction workshop that I recently took we were asked to do what I call "two handed journaling." I did it years ago when I was working through some old emotional wounds that just didn't seem to want to heal. This is a very simple but powerful technique to get in touch with yourself, or parts of yourself that you often ignore.

Start with your dominant hand, the one you write with. Write a simple question like, "How are you doing today?" Pause. Take the pen in your non-dominant hand and write an answer. From there, continue the dialogue for a while, alternating hands. If you get a chance, please share your experience with me!

Journaling Part 1

Developing a chronic illness and then receiving a diagnosis along with the information that there is no cure. You will be stuck with this as long as you live, or at least for a very, very long time is traumatizing. Invasive medical tests and procedures are traumatizing. Stigma, loss of identity and self-esteem, and a myriad of unpleasant emotions are all companions of chronic illness. You may be inhibiting the expression of this trauma because you are afraid of acknowledging it or because you are afraid that you will alienate people who have to listen to you. In Opening Up: The Healing Power of Confiding in Others, James W. Pennebaker states that, “actively holding back or inhibiting our thoughts and feelings can be hard work. Over time, the work of inhibition gradually undermines the body’s defenses. Like other stressors, inhibition can affect immune function, the action of the heart and vascular system, and even the biochemical workings of the brain and nervous systems. In short, excessive holding back of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors can place people at risk for both major and minor diseases.” You certainly don’t need another disease and you don’t want to make the one you have worse. But you don’t want to drive people crazy as you tell and retell ‘your story.’ You may think that no one wants to be around a sick person. But as you just read, one way or another, the story and the feelings that accompany it have to be expressed. What can you do? You can journal. It’s just as effective as telling, and maybe even more so.

Your journal can be written or you can speak it into a tape recorder. Either way, expressing what is on your mind can help you clarify your thinking and have a profound influence on the way you see yourself and the impact of the disease on your life. When you talk, or write, about the trauma of chronic illness you stop the stress of inhibition and gain insights into yourself.