The Power of the Pen
“Write without thinking until I tell you to stop. “ I was attending a Women’s Wellness Day that I had heard about and thought sounded interesting. They had me at essential oils and yoga and here I was. Also on the agenda was energy, kinesiology, and now writing.
The writing speaker was a woman who I had actually met at my yoga studio. She turned out to be an author and writing coach. Here I was getting ready to embarrass the heck out of myself because I didn’t have a clue what I was going to write. “I want you to write about an experience that brought you joy.”
Oh boy was going through my mind. I’m gonna need some of my essential oils. “I will be passing around an essential oil to inhale and then we will meditate”. I had to laugh. Ask and you shall receive, right? I was learning about meditation and was fascinated by the experiences I was having. Still had to get through the writing part. We all inhaled the essential oil, and then she led us through a short meditation.
She had shared some of her story early in her presentation. She started by saying she was raised in the wilderness by 60’s revolutionaries. That got our attention. We all listened spellbound as she gave us a brief overview of the book she would be publishing soon. We paired off with a person we didn’t know as directed. After we wrote, she said we would be sharing our stories with that person. Oh great. (Big sigh here.) It would be over soon.
Suddenly we were writing without thinking and my pen was just flowing over the paper. I was stunned and surprised at what I wrote about joy. Next we took a short meditative break and here we go again. This time writing about a sad experience. I wrote like there was no tomorrow and realized as the time was up that I was crying. What the heck? I had to ask my partner to read my writing because of the tears.
This is the day I realized the power of the pen. This was the first time I recognized the importance of writing as a therapeutic tool. I am happy to say this is not the last time I saw the author. Yesterday I attended her book launch party for the release of the book she told us about. The Soulful Child: 12 Years in the Wilderness (available on Amazon) written by Chloe Rachel Gallaway is a reading journey I hope you will take.
Think writing isn’t for you? I think you might be surprised at how healing it can be to express yourself through writing. HuffPost recently posted about writing therapy “becoming a legitimate, well-researched therapeutic tool” useful for everything from depression and anxiety to PTSD. Below is the link if you are interested in reading more. The power of the pen can become part of your self care tool box.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/4-writing-therapies-that-will-feed-your-self-confidence_us_59ab2c51e4b0c50640cd5fdd