The Writing Cure

Physical and Energetic Reasons to Journal

I’ve always used writing as a cure for what ails me. Whenever my heart feels clogged, writing gets me unstuck.

There are physiological reasons for this. Writing literally moves trauma from the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex, untangling the stuck emotions and organizing them into a manageable narrative. You can feel the relief when the chaos is moved out onto writing pad, like a giant knot of yarn become a skein of usable wisdom.

Traditional Chinese Medicine has a wonderful explanation for why this is so. Practitioners like to point out that writing is done with the heart and pericardium channels, which run through the middle and pinkie fingers. The adage about “writing with your heart” finds a physical explanation in the Eastern understanding of the body’s energetics.

Actually, the lung, large intestine, small intestine, pericardium, san jiao AND heart channels run through the hands, but who’s counting

There’s always a hidden reason for my writing. I set out with a goal in mind and end up somewhere completely unexpected but foreordained, as if my future self had been throwing breadcrumbs out in front of me all along. The numinous feeling of discovering what had been lying submerged in my psyche inscribes a hope of God. That alone can be healing.

When the page becomes a two-mirror into my emotions or my past or future and I reveal myself to myself, something always breaks loose in my body. A sigh or a shudder or a cry or a memory. In it’s place returns warm circulation and liberation.

In his best-seller about how people people heal through talk-therapy, Focussing author Eugene Gendlin reveals the key to this kind of alchemy: Find the exact right word for what ails you. Ursula K. Leguin would surely agree: Naming our experiences with precision defangs their power over us. Not that the process is actually that mystical. When brought to light, hidden beliefs and traumas simply no longer have access to the subconscious, from whence they function.

But there certainly are traditions that understand this on more energetic terms. In Sorceror’s Crossing, Taisha Abelar describes the Toltec practice of recapitulation, which combines remembering past encounters and events with a double head turn—the first to draw the past back to you and the second to sever the tie. This is said to consolidate your energy into the present, which strikes me as being related to what happens when we attend and allow the body to finish metabolizing past trauma.

When I suggest journaling to my clients, I especially like to recommend a practice that comes from the Corelight Foundation, run by Brad Laughlin. He teaches a methodology called “The Four Square” that’s especially good at liberating the subconscious, which I sketch out here. Do this wonderful practice with pen and paper if you can!

Love,

Stella