Find Healing through your Story
Everyone has a story to tell, but only some are brave enough to write it down. Fewer still decide to let others read their story. What if you knew you were going to find emotional healing through writing down your story? Healing not just for yourself, but for others who shared a similar story, but just didn’t have the words to pen it? Telling and listening to stories is a primal need of ours as humans. As foundational to us as the need for water to drink and air to breathe.
Stories teach us about ourselves and give us outlets for emotions we didn’t know we had. Think of your 2020 Netflix list. Tiger King anyone? Have you wondered why we all decided to tune into that train wreck of a story? Some of you won’t yet admit how much you loved it. The truth was we couldn’t look away. Why? Because life was an hot unpredictable, chaotic mess for us all at that time. The Tiger King made us stop, laugh, gasp, step back and breathe a sigh of relief that as bad as life was locked insides our stinky homes in 2020, it wasn’t Tiger King bad. If nothing else, his story distracted us for a moment on those long, isolated covid days and nights.
What about you? What part of your story do you want to take a deep dive into? Why and how you fall in love again and again with the wrong person? Many would raise their hand and sing a loud amen to that. And perhaps as you write it down, you will even learn something about yourself. What about the story of how you first became a parent and all your wins and fails? We need to hear it. We need to learn what you learned or are still learning.
About eight years ago I started having dreams where my dead dad came to talk to me and give me advice. I was eighteen the last I’d seen my dad alive so this was pretty strange to me. But as I began to write down my dreams, I notice some buried emotions begin to rise to the surface of that locked up cavern in my heart.
At first, I thought I’d just journal a few pages about my dreams. Then, my dreams began to get so strange and apocalyptic at times, I thought, “Well maybe I’ll turn this into a sci-fi story.” The problem was, it wasn’t sci-fi. It was real life. My real life. My emotions and my very odd dreams all coming up to haunt me into dealing with some of my junk. After months of writing it I hit an emotional wall and decided I needed to go in to see my counselor. Ya, the one I’d been avoiding the past year. So much deep work was getting done through my memories as I wrote them out, I needed help processing them.
I’d been in counseling for years. I’d read book after book on healing, attachment theory, emotional intelligence. But nothing had done as much as writing out my own story. Remembering. Seeing that little girl again as though for the first time. Seeing my dad again after so many year of forgetting him.
What’s your story? Maybe start with journal entries, or write a poem or letter to your little self. Take a small step in learning about who you are and what makes your tick. You might not be the Tiger King, but I know you have a story. Don’t make us wait too long please.