Expressive Writing Paradigm

Writing, especially expressive writing, is known to have therapeutic effects on mental and physical health. Pioneered by James Pennebaker, the benefits and positive effects of expressive writing on stress management, mental health, and some systemic diseases have been noted for over two decades.  

In the early 1980s, Pennebaker discovered that keeping one’s trauma secret— holding back powerful emotions, thoughts, and behaviors caused low-level long-term stress, often leading to the dysfunction of one’s immune system and poor physical and mental health. These studies led the way to open the path to the expressive writing paradigm.

Professionals in the fields of medicine, social work, and psychotherapy have widely applied this concept as a healing tool.

How Did I Begin Writing in Grief?

Though I had a very intensive period of writing when I was young from teens to early twenties, I hadn’t written anything substantial until I lost my husband, Patrick to stage IV metastatic melanoma of the brain, in the summer of 2016.

Patrick was not only my husband but also my partner, and best friend of 26 and a half years. Before his passing, we’d been on the fastest roller coaster ride and fought the fierce battles against cancer for three years. When he died, I felt nothing was left with me, like I had been thrown into the darkest valley, unable to see its bottom.

Lost, I turned to writing to try to process the gravity of the grief I felt. I held some doubts and questions over what had happened before his death, which were tormenting me, so the drive and force for writing was unyielding and explosive. I needed to release all the emotions and the impact of his illness, death, and things that I’d experienced before his illness.

When I began writing, I wrote about any unanswered questions and emotions around specific memories. I cried over specific memories of our days together. I spent almost all day and nights intensively writing and then completed the “incomplete” version of the first draft in just a few months. But, it still had lots of hidden secrets and things that I couldn’t face or speak of aloud. During this earlier period of writing, I could heal a little but not as much as I wanted to heal.

How Did The Healing Take Place?

The first several months of free writing were very much needed to release my emotions and trapped electric charges inside my brain and the heart. However, after this period I knew that my writing would have to dig deeper to uncover the deeply embedded trauma and secrets within.

Finally, at the end of 2019 with much hope, my writing became a book, and I began to take a couple of consecutive six-month memoir writing courses.

During these courses, a writing coach sometimes asked questions about the areas that I deliberately hid, because of the pain associated with the events. Though difficult, I decided to be open and vulnerable to my pains, and risk myself for the chance to heal.

As I agreed to be vulnerable, many moments of awakening began to occur during my writing. At the time, I’d been a devout Buddhist for almost two decades. In my spiritual practice, I perform the six paramita practices which are: offering, discipline, perseverance, diligent practice, meditation, and wisdom throughout the day and night. To visit the hidden experiences and excavate more truths, I needed these spiritual principles to support my writing, so I became more disciplined, tenacious, resilient, and meditative in writing.  

Once writing became one of my spiritual practices, I persevered and became more patient with myself. I practiced self-care and self-love while I faced the most difficult events, which accompanied a lot of pain and agonizing discomfort.

During such a period of writing, some writers may experience re-traumatization from past events and memories. I’d also got through many of these crucial times, but I knew the healing that I’d wanted would happen by finding my true ground, not by taking more time to ease my pain. So, I’d chosen to surrender myself to the facts and accept whatever happened as my reality.

Finally, during the second round of the writing course, I found myself surrounded by more light shining through what I thought was once just rubble.

Conclusion

From my own writing experience, the initial healing occurs when our minds are open to allow for the release of pain and emotions. However, it is also important to push through to the next step.

The real healing comes when we realign ourselves to see the pain and discomfort not as a victim of the tragedies but as good survivors of the difficult experiences. In the latter writing, our words become lifted and more universal and relatable stories.

In this way, writing becomes not only a way for us to heal, but also to heal anyone in the world.

The healing power of writing can heal us beyond time and space, in the now.

Kyomi O’Connor is the author of memoir, A Sky of Infinite Blue- A Japanese Immigrant Search for Home and Self. After three years of intense caregiving, she lost her husband, partner, and best friend, Patrick, of 26 and a half years to stage IV metastatic melanoma in his brain. In her grieving, Kyomi began her writing. Soon, as she’d already been a devout Buddhist, writing became one of the fiercest spiritual practices she’d undertaken. In the end, the light was found everywhere in the rubbles once she thought she’d been lost in. Please visit her website, https://kyomioconnor.com.
You can find her on her website or follow her on Instagram and Twitter.

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Confronting the Past

My story begins with the sudden death of my brother, Lawrence. He was twenty-three at the time; I was fourteen. He had been my True North and all at once I was catapulted into the world without a compass. Shortly after his accident, I became a Christian and found hope and a path forward. 

A few years later, I graduated high school, moved away from home, and began taking a path of my own. I believed in Jesus, but following Him was a different matter. So off I went, doing my own thing. 

For years. I never lost faith. I believed. I just wanted to do faith my way. And I tried, and failed, time and again.

As I wrote, my memoir began to evolve into the story of my journey back to faith. I stumbled upon dark, painful memories that I had a hard time facing. I’d tell my writing coach that I dread writing this next chapter. I’d procrastinate, take naps, read—anything to avoid writing down the awful things I’d done. 

As I began to remember, I fell into shame. How on earth could I face my past, much less share it with the world?

I’d pray, and finally, type something into a blank Word document. Why am I doing this? Because I must. Still, shame persisted.

The Grip of Shame

I thought I knew a lot about shame. I’d been following Brené Brown’s shame research for several years. I’d read her book, Daring Greatly. I’d even taken her COURAGEworks class, where I spent weeks learning about shame. Brown defines it this way:

“Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging. It derives its power from being unspeakable. If we cultivate enough awareness about shame to name it and speak to it, we’ve basically cut it off at the knees. . . . Language and story bring light to shame and destroy it.” (Brown, Brené, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead.) 

So I began to push through those painful memories, one sentence, one paragraph, one chapter, at a time. 

I would finish an especially difficult passage and take a few days off. 

A week later, I might stumble on another unpleasant memory and think, “I can’t write this. It’s too embarrassing. What will people think?” Then I’d remind myself that I’d survived the last terrible thing I’d written about. I was still here, sitting in my chair, slowly chipping away at my manuscript. I’d survived.

That’s when something began to change. Not only with my writing, but with me. First, I realized I’d been walking around with baggage I didn’t even know I had. Secondly, I began to see my shame for what it was: something that was keeping me small and afraid. Opening the doors of my memory released that shame and brought it to light, where it could no longer survive. In the process of discovery, shame lost its grip on me. 

The Power of Story

For many years I have been a fan of author and theologian Frederick Buechner. I’d heard him interviewed once about writing his memoir, Telling Secrets, the account of his father’s suicide—and it’s fallout— when Buechner was twelve. 

Quoting a meditation from his novel, The Final Beast, Buechner says, “I walked back through my memory, as though it was a long hall. I asked God to open all the closed doors, and bless whatever he found inside.” 

I’m a visual writer and I was captivated by that imagery. So I did the same.

Each day as I would sit down to write, I would close my eyes and ask God to walk with me down the halls of my memory, open each closed door, and bless whatever was waiting there. When I began asking God to enter with me into my shame, that’s when it not only began to be exposed, but destroyed.

The Gift of Time

What I’d find behind those doors wasn’t always heart-rending. To my surprise, I’d often discover a beautiful memory I’d completely forgotten. A hug from my mother. A moment of childhood bliss. 

This process became the path to my healing; these forgotten memories became gifts. 

“The sad things that happened long ago will always remain part of who we are,” said Buechner, “ … but instead of being a burden of guilt, recrimination, and regret … the saddest things can become … a source of wisdom and strength for the journey that still lies ahead.”

Madeleine L’Engle once said, “I am still all the ages I’ve ever been.” I believe that’s true. All my actions, and their associated memories, are part of me. 

But they are not me. The older, wiser woman who wrote Untethered is not the carefree—and willful—young woman I spent two years writing about. And there is comfort in that. 

We can certainly learn from our past. Writing about mine set me free. 

Tell us in the comments: How have you dealt with difficult emotions, like shame or fear, in your writing?

Laura grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina, the daughter of a journalist and a teacher. She has been an advertising copywriter, newspaper columnist, staff writer for an international relief agency, travel writer, blogger, teacher, communications director for several nonprofits, and personal assistant to a New York Times bestselling author. Laura is passionate about her faith, books, travel, nature (especially the beach), social justice, and her family. 

Her memoir, Untethered: Faith, Failure and Finding Solid Ground publishes on April 5, 2022.

You can find her on her website or follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

The post Facing Shame: Healing through Writing a Memoir appeared first on DIY MFA.

In Episode 1 of this column, I wrote about the moment I recommitted myself to this dream, and how NaNoWriMo was the catalyst that made me believe it was possible. I then explained how a writing master class with Rachael Herron (her amazing “90 Days to Done” course) spurred me on to finally write that manuscript.

From the end of Episode 1: To my own pleasant surprise, I wrote for at least 60 minutes per day, six days a week. I averaged 90 minutes and 1,800 words per day. I wrote and wrote and wrote.

And then something unimaginably awful happened.

The Unthinkable

As I usually did every morning, I woke up at 4am on April 14, 2020 and wrote for 90 minutes. Two hours later, coffee in hand, I tried to motivate my younger sons for another day of remote learning when my phone rang. 

It was E, my 25 year-old son’s fiancée. They lived in Houston, where they had moved in together ten months earlier. I thought it was odd for her to call me so early, but I answered, thinking maybe it was my son and his own phone was charging.

We are never prepared for those unthinkable moments, the ones that turn our world from color to black and white.

E told me that my son had passed away in bed less than an hour earlier. 

Brain aneurysm. He had been diagnosed with several over the years, ticking time bombs we thought would stay buried like land mines from decades old wars.  

Because of the pandemic, there was no traveling, no funeral, no proper goodbye. I spent the succeeding days and nights inside a web of cotton, a silken cocoon of grief. Everything criss-crossed inside me as I tried to make sense of the blurry outlines and colorless forms that moved around my upside-down existence. 

I took a week off work, the only amount of paid leave I was permitted to take. And of course, I stopped writing. Rachael told me to take as much time as I needed, that I could go back to writing my book later, when I was ready.

But I knew there was no such thing as ready after something this unthinkable.

Coming Up for Air

The same day I went back to work, I decided to get back to writing and back to class. Was I ready? No, but I knew my son would’ve wanted me to continue. He was invested in my book almost as much as I was. We spoke several times a week, and he was with me on this journey to fulfill my childhood dream every step of the way.

I felt guilty sometimes, sharing my dream with him in detail and pursuing it with such passion. You see, he had to give up his childhood dream due to his illness, and he still hadn’t fully let it go.

From the time he was a boy, he wanted to be in the Army. His father and I were Air Force veterans and his older brother (my oldest son) was attending the Air Force Academy when Daniel and his twin brother were diagnosed with the rare genetic disease (so rare that they are still the only two known humans to have it) that ultimately took his life. 

As a kid, Daniel loved war movies. He watched the entire series of Band of Brothers about a million times, and in his senior year of high school, he went to enlist in the Army. He wanted to become a medic, to help his wounded comrades. He didn’t know just how ironic that dream would become until he failed the Army physical.

The Army doctor heard something strange in his heart and told him to go get checked out, that it was “probably nothing,” and then he could come back and try again. Daniel wasn’t worried; after all, his twin brother passed his physical, had already taken the enlistment oath for the Marines, and had his date to ship out for Boot Camp.

Somehow, the doctor who approved Forrest (Daniel’s twin) to enlist in the Marines had missed it: an aortic aneurysm that had begun dissecting. They both had it. Thus began a years-long journey of aneurysm after aneurysm throughout their bodies. Forrest had to be medically discharged from the Marines even though he had never even gone to Boot Camp. Daniel had to give up his dream of being an Army medic. Now instead of helping wounded fellow soldiers, his own body was betraying and wounding him.

Attending his older brother’s graduation from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 2015 was bittersweet: he wanted to be happy for him—and he was—but there was a part that felt jealous for the stolen dream he still hadn’t made peace with yet.

Therefore, I tried not to talk too much about my book with Daniel, but he kept asking questions. 

“How much did you write today?” he’d ask.

“What’s happening in the story now?” he’d inquire.

“Is she still dating the boy from Honduras?” he asked, as if wanting in on the gossip.

I told him all my plans for the story and the things I was still working out. He encouraged me and told me he was proud of me. 

So, even though no one would’ve faulted me for it if I had, I decided the best way to honor him was not to quit, but to finish the darn thing.

My first day back at the keyboard was tough. After having written for so many days consistently without a break, coming back even after only a week off, I felt stilted in the process. Nothing flowed like it had before the unthinkable had happened.

However, when he passed away, I had already written 71,448 words. My goal was 80,000, but on the fourth day after I started writing again, I finished the first draft. It was 78,461 words, a little shorter than I had planned before the unthinkable happened.

Exactly 74 days after starting and only ten days after my son’s death, I reached the end of my story, so I typed every writer’s favorite word: END, and called it a day.

Emotionally drained, I printed my manuscript and held it in my hands. The weight of 374 pages felt heavier than I had imagined. I knew it wasn’t just paper and ink, but the bewildering contradiction of anguish and joy. Of smiles and tears. Of pride and guilt. 

I didn’t yet realize that the hardest part of finishing this book was still to come.

You can read all about it in the next installment of this column. Stay tuned for Episode 3: A Finished Manuscript, Now What? 

Anita Ramirez is a writer and teacher who transforms dispassionate teens into lovers of books — one reader at a time. When she’s not teaching Hispanic/Latinx literature and composition to her high school students or linguistics at the college level, she’s revising her first novel, a YA contemporary featuring bilingual characters. She loves the poetry of Pablo Neruda, teen movies from the 1980s and café con leche. You can check out her website, or follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The post Life of a Writer—Episode 2: The Unthinkable appeared first on DIY MFA.

But there are also medical narratives that put medicine into a more human perspective and add social context to mental health issues that aren’t being talked about. Think “The Fault in Our Stars,” the quintessential young adult novel by John Green that produced enough tears to form a waterfall that would put the Niagara Falls to shame.

With the much-loved TFiOS, Green succeeded in creating a beautiful, moving novel about teenagers living with cancer without appropriating the lives of people who have actually faced this reality. Ultimately, he taps into a highly sensitive medical topic in such a poignant, honest way that has been unmatched by almost any other fictional work – except maybe Jodi Picoult’s “My Sister’s Keeper.”

Simply put, we need more writing like “The Fault in Our Stars.” If you’re searching for titles with similar themes of health care, clinical practice and inner strength in times of illness, look no further than this week’s #5OnFri.

Along with the following five books, I’ve included quotes from each that illustrate a sliver of the insight that made them widely known favorites. Warning: Today’s #5OnFri books may change your outlook on life. These aren’t just for the medically minded, after all, but for anyone who has been touched by the human condition.

5 Medical Narratives: Fiction and Nonfiction for the Medical Mind

Flowers for Algernon

“I am afraid. Not of life, or death, or nothingness, but of wasting it as if I had never been.”

By: Daniel Keyes

Written in the form of fictional diary entries, “Flowers for Algernon” follows a mentally disabled man named Charlie Gordon, the first human test subject to receive a surgery that significantly boosts his intelligence. His doctors continue monitor the health state of Algernon, the laboratory mouse who underwent the surgery before Charlie, and we discover that the results of this miracle experiment may not be permanent.

Later adapted into a movie, this book first started out as a short story published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1959 before it was expanded into a full-length novel. With themes of rehabilitation and renewed hope in science, similar to the nonfiction book and critically acclaimed movie “Awakenings,” this novel explores societal treatment toward individuals with mental retardation, the role of language in human intelligence and self-awareness of one’s intellectual and emotional capacities.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

“And I myself was wrung with emotion – it was heartbreaking, it was absurd, it was deeply perplexing, to think of his life lost in limbo, dissolving.”

By: Oliver Sacks

This is the book that, after reading it for a class in college, made me seriously consider attending graduate school for clinical psychology. Oliver Sacks, the same author who penned “Awakenings,” was a neurologist who compiled a series of real case studies in this book, chronicling the details of his patients’ disorders and their everyday lives in “doctor’s notes” fashion. Some of the disorders that are covered include autism, aphasia (language impairment), memory loss and prosopagnosia (the inability to recognize faces).

This one isn’t just emotional – it’s thought-provoking, and compels readers to ponder over the ways in which certain neurological deficits are translated into different behaviors (hence, the title). It’s clear from Sacks’ writing that he’s a scientific thinker, and did not write the book for readers’ entertainment. At the same time, the book is fairly easy to follow and fascinating enough for anyone willing to learn more about the human mind.

A Walk to Remember

“There are moments when I wish I could roll back the clock and take all the sadness away, but I have the feeling that if I did, the joy would be gone as well.” 

By: Nicholas Sparks

Before “The Fault in Our Stars,” there was “A Walk to Remember.” Many of us have forgotten this Nicholas Sparks classic (was this really published in 1999?), a romance novel in which two very different adolescents – Landon, the school jerk and troublemaker, and Jamie, the daughter of a local Baptist minister – fall in love. What ultimately comes in the way of their relationship is Jamie’s diagnosis of leukemia, making them star-crossed.

Unlike the last three books, prior medical knowledge does not significantly enhance your reading experience. Rather than focusing on the cancer itself, Sparks delves into Landon’s relationship with his school peers, his relationship with Jamie’s father and his blossoming romance with Jamie, even as her inevitable fate comes nearer. Although fictional, “A Walk to Remember” draws upon the true story of Nicholas Sparks’ sister, who met and married the love of her life while she was battling cancer.

The Work of Human Hands

“At the age of 66, Hendren can operate 24 straight hours and then, after a shower and quick breakfast, do another 12 hours of surgery. For this reason, his nickname is ‘Hardly Human.'”

By: G. Wayne Miller

Not many people know about this gem, but for those of you who love biographies, you’ll want to get your hands on this one. “The Work of Human Hands” explores the life of Dr. William Hardy Hendren III, a world-renowned chief surgeon who has saved the lives of hundreds of children with physical deformities who required incredibly complex reconstructive surgeries. We come to know and care deeply for the families of these children, as well as Hendren himself.

The biography also provides a sneak peek into the famous Boston Children’s Hospital, where Hendren was chief of surgery for decades before he retired. Though I may be biased, being one of the many individuals Hendren operated on when I was a few months old, this book made me better appreciate my family’s unwavering commitment to my life and understand the world of pediatric health care.

Mountains Beyond Mountains

“I think Farmer taps into a universal anxiety and also into a fundamental place in some troubled consciences, into what he calls ‘ambivalence,’ the often unacknowledged uneasiness that some of the fortunate feel about their place in the world, the thing he once told me he designed his life to avoid.”

By: Tracy Kidder

Paul Farmer is a physician who specializes in infectious diseases. He is a Harvard professor, co-founder of Partners in Health, a world traveler. “Mountains Beyond Mountains,” a New York Times bestselling nonfiction work that has multiple awards under its belt including ALA Notable Books for Adults, is written in first person from author Tracy Kidder’s perspective about his encounters with Farmer. He writes about Farmer’s family background, his philosophies and his mission to fight tuberculosis overseas and “cure the world.” Instead of adopting an objective tone like Miller does with “The Work of Human Hands,” Kidder lends readers his own perception of who Farmer is, giving his biography of Farmer a more personal touch.

You don’t have to be a doctor or a psychologist to appreciate these books. What books do you love that deal with health, medicine and healing?

As a recent graduate of UNC School of Journalism, Wendy Lu has written for a variety of print and online publications, including China.org.cn, The Daily Tar Heel, Raleigh Public Record and Chapel Hill Magazine’s The WEEKLY. In college, she served as the managing editor of UNC’s Blue & White Magazine and print co-editor for The Durham VOICE. Wendy is also a former publishing intern at Sleepy Hollow Books and a NaNoWriMo 2008 winner. Learn more about Wendy at https://wendyluwrites.com.

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