Good for Your Health: Writing, Gathering, and Sharing

Write it down, girl. Tell everyone how much it hurts. Sharing will make it easier to bear.

— Terri Jewell

A Healthy Journey

When we decided to get together and give ourselves spontaneous writing exercises to access our memories and our emotions about our alcoholic parents and childhoods, we had no idea how profound and useful this process would be for us. We certainly had no idea that research would lend credence to and understanding about how writing and sharing are good for one's health.

Storytelling was the first significant human technology — fire came later! From the oldest practices of recording thoughts and events in songs and spoken stories to later practices such as diaries, journals, ballads, and letters, and even newer examples of memoirs, blogs, chat rooms, and Facebook postings, personal storytelling is the central way we relate to each other. As humans, we are designed for connecting with one another. We have used stories as the most common vehicle to communicate who we are and to find out who you are. For years, people have used writing, therapeutically, to make sense of their stories of illness, of grief, of abuse and oppression.

In our case, we wrote because we wanted to create a book and writing was something we knew how to do. We got together because we had wanted to generate a collaborative project. We wrote about the scenes and legacies caused by alcoholism in our families because we were willing to break the secrecy and silence of our pasts to try to make sense of our experiences in the safety of our group. And so, we also wanted to share, first with each other and now with you, because we could still feel the powerful hold on us created by alcoholism and we wanted to lighten our burdens.

Writing and sharing can be "course corrections" if one is troubled by the way things are unfolding in one's life. Maya Angelou said, "I write in order to discover myself." We believe the act of sharing our past experiences, first in writing and then with others, helped us discover hidden truths about ourselves, to appreciate and honor our pasts, to recognize our basic goodness, and to begin to let go of the painful memories and self-deprecating assumptions of our long-held stories.

What Is Spontaneous/Expressive Writing?

We referred to our writing exercises with our loaded words as "spontaneous writing" — identifying a word, setting the clock for ten or twenty minutes, and then saying "Go!"

We particularly liked the word "spontaneous" because it reminded us we were to just write and not stress about it. At the time, we didn't know that "expressive writing" and "therapeutic writing" were also accepted terms for essentially the same process. In the research literature, the term "expressive writing" is most commonly used, but the spontaneous part of the practice is very important.

Whatever term is being used, though, the intentions and guidelines are generally the same and very simple: Just write ... without pre-thought or judgment or concern about spelling, punctuation, or grammar.

Write about an event or events you associate with stress or trauma (past or present) or something that troubles you in some way.

Write continuously for a short period of time, ten to twenty minutes.

Write frequently, ideally every day for several days.

There is something quite liberating in writing quickly, without a predetermined plan or an internal (and often critical) editor. Many of us typically find it hard to live in the moment, but spontaneous writing, with a clock ticking for ten to twenty minutes, brings us to "right now."

We hope that you will be inspired to try such spontaneous/ expressive writing yourself. At any point in reading this book, feel free to put it down and take ten minutes to capture something that comes into your head or heart. Start by just writing or at least making some notes to remind you of your spontaneous thoughts or feelings or memories to return to at a later time. We've provided a number of writing prompts later, in chapter 5 — titled "Your Turn" — but you don't have to wait ... you can start now.

For us, our loaded words were like lightning rods, attracting energy that cracked us open, taking us to deeper places in ourselves. We may have thought we didn't remember much from our childhoods, but writing had a way of unlocking our souls' storage units, full of memories, images, and feelings that we had tended to lock away.

What we didn't know during the various times we got together, writing and sharing, is that there is a growing body of evidence that supports the healing power of spontaneous/expressive writing and group process. It has been gratifying to learn that others recommend writing and sharing as a process to enhance one's health; it was what we simply chose to do.

The Benefits of Spontaneous/Expressive Writing

Writing enables people to create order out of the chaos of memories, to lighten the load of situations that cause stress, and to apply a healing balm to emotional pain. The products of writing are valuable, not just for the writer but also for those who love the writer. Through the writer's words, loved ones can often learn and understand more about their friend/family member and become better able to offer empathy and compassion.

Writing is used as a therapeutic approach in mental health programs and in hospitals with patients dealing with physical and/ or mental illnesses. In university departments, writing programs enhance students' self- awareness and self-development. People who have experienced any form of trauma often create narratives of their stories to help them see their experiences more clearly.

A 2005 article in Advances in Psychiatric Treatment by Karen Baikie and Kay Wilhelm, titled "Emotional and Physical Health Benefits of Expressive Writing," summarized the benefits, which include the following:

Fewer stress-related visits to the doctor and fewer days in the hospital

Improved immune system functioning

Reduced blood pressure

Improved lung and liver function

Improved mood, reduced symptoms, and decreased worries in depressed individuals

Reduced absenteeism from work and quicker reemployment after job loss

Improved memory

More recent studies have identified additional benefits of expressive writing, including the following:

Wounds heal faster

Reduced viral load and increased level of virus-fighting immune cells in HIV-positive patients

Reduced levels of stress hormones

Improved satisfaction among soldiers returning home from war zones

An article...