The writing cure
The writing cure
on the timeless benefits of learning to articulate your inner world
Today’s most popular self-help advice focuses on tips, tools and tactics.
You are what you do, and if you can manage your time more effectively and reshape your habits, the life you desire is just around the corner.
In other words, the solutions to your problems are practical upgrades: you’re one routine or one new meditation away from nailing it.
This message is convenient and comfortable; a soothing soft porn.
And when life doesn’t miraculously change, the implication is that you didn’t set things up correctly or follow through with enough gusto.
But here’s the truth: 95% of the time, what’s missing is not a system or routine.
95% of the time, people struggle with feelings of which they’re only dimly aware: fear of failure, anxiety about the unknown, and pressure to conform.
Familiar, old foes.
A lack of clarity
One response is to identify the emotions as hindrances: to be “more rational”, to push on, to not get “caught up.”
However, this problematises emotion, the result of which is thrashing yourself ever deeper into the swamp.
You can go to war with your feelings, but you’ll find they’re bigger, faster and more potent than the limp, best-seller routine you nervously wield at them.
If you want to move forward, you have to work within this inner ecology.
If you can do this, the tools and tactics become secondary; icing on the cake.
You can’t make progress if you’re fighting an invisible enemy, so the first step is always clarity.
It is the lack of clarity, not any emotion itself, that keeps us stuck in place.
The writing cure
The best way to create clarity is to write.
Here’s how: remove distractions, block out 10 minutes, turn to a blank page or open a new note.
(You do not need a pretty journal. You do not need creative intent. You do not need inspiration.)
Write whatever is on your mind.
Let the words tumble out as they arise and stay attuned to what’s going on inside you.
If you feel intimidated by writing, write that down. If you’re frustrated and at your wit’s end, write that down. If you don’t think you have enough time to do this, write it down. If you feel like your relationship is suffocating or your boss is an asshole, write it down. If you feel numb, write that down. If you feel sad—but have no idea why—write that down. If you’re at the edge of murderous rage, write it down.
Bitch, moan and berate.
Be petty, impulsive and judgemental.
This is your arena of discontent. Gratitude is optional.
There is no need to tidy or censor. No one else is going to read this.
You don’t need to paint a beautiful picture or write prose.
You don’t have to figure anything out.
You only need to write down what comes to mind for the magic to happen.
Keep throwing out words.
Most of them will fit like a family hand-me-down. But occasionally one will land, and you will have a toehold.
Rather than a vague sense of unease, you now know something is going on. It may not be pretty, but you have a foot in the door.
Then: keep throwing out more words.
Don’t worry about getting the “right” words: just maintain a sustained assault on unclarity.
All you need to do is punch a hole big enough for the nebulous feeling to spill out from your internal darkness into the light of day.
If it feels awkward and uncomfortable, you’re doing it right.
If there’s a voice in your head screaming that this is bullshit, you’re definitely doing it right.
Remember: this is not about solutions, it’s about clarity. Problem-solving has its place, but it’s 10x easier after you have clarity about what’s going on.
Following the thread
I’ve been doing this for years, through the happy times and the terrible times.
I still fight it sometimes. And I’m still continually surprised at how it works.
I usually go in expecting some neat resolution. Instead, getting a grip on the first feeling reveals a slew of other beliefs and feelings hiding just below it.
All I have to do is follow the thread: honouring each thing as it comes up and being receptive to what follows it.
Irritation opens up to tiredness. Restlessness points to a deeper change in bearing. Inadequacy softens into a righteous rage.
Sometimes the writing feels like failure after failure at describing what’s going on.
Until suddenly, out of desperation, a few choice words skewer the feeling tone of the moment and there is a jolt of recognition.
Sometimes the wonderful idea I wanted to keep hermetically sealed dissolves at the first sign of inspection.
Sometimes the desire I’m worried about indulging is not at all what I thought it was.
I have no idea until I start writing.
Won’t this just make things worse?
It sounds too simple to be true.
It is simple, but it’s not easy. Why?
To write like this means admitting up front that you don’t know what’s going on. This admission creates the space that clarity requires. No space? No clarity.
To write like this means facing something that might overwhelm us. If we indulge the emotions, won’t they just get worse? Won’t it be too much?
Perhaps the deepest fear is that in admitting and naming a feeling we might give it permission to fundamentally define us. Maybe I am just an angry person, a sad person, a lazy person, after all.
The writing itself is the answer to all these fears; the confirmation that you can feel it all and carry on; the understanding that no feeling can fundamentally name you; the realisation that you can play the sinner and the saint in the space of a sentence; and the proof that these feelings can be intense, but that they’re always moving to and from a horizon that precedes them.
What I’ve learned is that emotions do not ask to be the final word in who you are. In fact, they do not require you to do anything at all.
But they do demand attention and articulation: that you show up, however confused and clumsy.
They are patient. But if they are continually ignored, they start to let off a smell that taints everything else.
Emotions can’t come to rest if they’ve never taken off. It’s up to you to allow them the gift of flight and pay attention to where they land.
A life raft
Whether you’re a writer, an athlete, a builder or a baker, learn to write your worries down.
It is transformative, in the true sense of that term: you don’t know where you’ll end up. But if you follow the thread, you’ll be changed by the end of it.
Learning to articulate your inner world is a skill, like any other. Each time you do it, the vocabulary of your inner life expands. You are less at war with yourself and better able to bring your many selves to bear on what you care most deeply about.
You could say this practice has many benefits. But really, the practice itself is honesty, curiosity, and courage in action.
This practice—whether we call it journalling, writing or ranting—is a quintessential life skill and, one shitty day, you might also find that it’s a life raft.
