My Best Friend and Healing Balm
Being familiar with my own ghosts, I see how the unhealed past exerts itself upon our present - magnifying life’s challenges. The pandemic, fires, floods, smoke, divisive cyber influencing, mass murders, need for reconciliation and growing planet peril further burdens our ability to cope. I see immense emotional/mental suffering amidst family, friends, neighbors, strangers, and the world.
How do we manage this growing mental health crisis in our homes, communities, and the world? In a recent conversation someone suggested it is time to get “over it and pull up our big boy/girl pants,” referring to the legacy of trauma.
With certainty, over my 68 years of life, I have learned that attempting to get over, ignore, or run from our fear/hurt never works long term. These coping strategies may help us survive short term, but our pain will resurface repeatedly as daily events trigger them.
So how do we navigate through life’s pain?
Therapy can help when we are distressed, depressed, fearful… but, in the moment, how can we help ourselves?
Journal writing has been my best friend and healing balm.
For over 50 years, when faced with emotional and mental turmoil, I turn to the empty page – expecting nothing in return – and write it all. The writing itself does not matter. Voicing our truth, feelings, turmoil, and life does matter. Write without judgement, without making it right or wrong. If you notice writing amplifies your distress – stop.
Help yourself to feel safe.
If writing your current challenge seems overwhelming or too scary, sit and ground in your body. Feel your feet on the earth and your legs, hands, body supported by your surroundings. Return your attention continually to the contact point you feel most strongly. (Sign up for a free Contact Point Exercise.) Go for a walk/ run/ sit in nature.
Listen to yourself. If I feel too fragile to write of a painful situation, I respect myself and wait a day or so. Remembering a time in the past wherein we navigated through a difficult time well enough can be a healing place to journal.
Writing a prayer asking for inner peace/healing/insights within my journal helps me settle too (be willing to live with the question whether answered or not). When feeling more stable then, write of your experience. Notice – does the anxiety, loneliness, lostness, fear, and/or pain shift in a small (or big) way?
Write it all…day after day…trust yourself…trust the process.
If your mind declares journaling or revisiting painful bits in your life is “crap” you might want to read of the guiding dream I had entitled, “The Wolf Whisperer.” This dream showed me that revisiting this “poo from the past” is a precious gift that gives us our life back.
Rereading our journals, the next day, weeks or years later we see life learnings upon the page. Writing of them, we anchor our truths and heal bit by bit. During my reread, I highlight, title and post-it-note these insights for easy recall. Revisiting our words, we begin to see the type of thinking/actions that cause us pain and those that heal.
Our suffering lessens and our healing blossoms.
Being with the whole of us upon the page, without judgement, we become more accepting of ourselves, of others, of what is – without wanting it to be different. In time, we meet a good friend upon the page.
By sitting daily and practicing the bold, powerful act of journal writing we create sacred space…bringing our self, our guidance and healing home.
Write my friend, write…
PS If you are struggling and need help – reach out! Talk to someone you trust or seek help online. Google “mental health help” or “suicide help.” There is help near you. You are not alone.
This article is not meant to replace professional help with mental challenges.
