Learn to feed the stories that heal - Rewrite your life story

Ladies, it is possible to write your pain away. Heal yourself with writing from DailyOM  is a gift to those of us who are ready to do just that.

I address the ladies in particular because we feel things deeper and we habitually hide the pain we feel inside. This then is a perfect way of ridding yourself of the poison you're holding on to.

Take your time, read slowly and carefully and then take action by doing it. I have only included the first part of the article and you can go here to read the rest and follow the directions to write your pain away.

Writing about what hurts you inside is extremely cathartic, healing and most importantly, so very liberating, it seems unbelievable that every woman hasn't done this yet.

I have done it so often through these many years and it saved my life. It was suggested to me by my Jungian psychologist - yes, she also interpreted dreams - and I have lived the beneficial results under her care for 12 months during my suicidal depression years ago. And I remember and do it when I feel I'm getting knocked down too many times.

I combine them with other healing techniques  like EFT - Emotional Freedom Technique.

Heal Yourself with Writing


The following is an excerpt from the Heal Yourself with Writing On-Line Course by Catherine Ann Jones.  

I first launched this course at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California as The Power of Story: Healing Trauma Through Writing, and was amazed at the response. During the three-day experiential workshop next to a restless Pacific, participants who had spent years in traditional therapy with little result had actually healed a split within themselves.

One woman who was very successful in Silicon Valley had been sexually assaulted by her brother and his friend when she was only fifteen. Now thirty-four, she continued to feel split, separated from herself. After the Esalen Institute workshop, she wrote to me that she had returned to herself for the first time since the trauma experienced at age fifteen.

What had occurred in this short period of time to achieve such a life-changing result? One thing was crystal clear. I was not the cause - only the catalyst. She had chosen to do the inner work necessary to heal the split within, and she had done this through specific writing exercises combined with courage and a deep resolve to change.

We all know the value of psychology in uncovering our deepest feelings and the importance of catharsis in temporarily releasing our pain. Yet while psychological techniques may help prepare us for the journey of healing, they often are not enough to lead us through the deeper way of transformation.

Healing without transformation risks re-living negative patterns over and over -sometimes even reinforcing them by repetition -, rather than truly putting them behind us.

What psychology does well is help us understand how we feel. What psychology doesn't always do is provide the way through.  

Einstein once remarked that significant problems cannot be solved at the same level of the thinking which created them. Only by rising to a higher or deeper level can an ultimate solution to psychological problems be found.

Our lives may be determined less by past events than by the way we remember them. Memory can be either disabling or enabling.

Dr. Viktor Frankl, holocaust survivor and author of Man's Search for Meaning wrote that "…everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms: to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

What we think or imagine in fact is our reality, both individually and collectively. Healing and transformation is possible only through changing one's perspective from within. It is by making meaning out of memory that true healing and empowerment can occur.

What story are you living? How do you choose to remember your story? The following allegory offers a clue.

Two Wolves: A Native American grandfather is talking to his grandson about how he feels about a tragedy in their village.

"I feel as if I have two wolves fighting in my heart. One wolf is the vengeful, angry, violent one. The other wolf is the loving, compassionate one." The grandson asks, "Grandfather, which wolf will win the fight in your heart?" The grandfather places his hand on his heart and replies, "The one I feed."

How do we learn to "feed" the stories that heal?

How do we put together the pieces of the past? How can we rewrite our life story so that pain becomes meaningful and actually promotes growth and transformation?

One answer lies in focused journaling. This course offers a step by step journey of discovery and re-visioning through focused journaling. Throughout this course, the reader will be presented with writing exercises designed to facilitate healing and transformation. In this way, global healing takes place one individual, one tribe, at a time.

Negative patterns sometimes evolve for a reason. A child growing up in an alcoholic and/or abusive environment may create a wall around him or her for protection. Such defensive methods may actually ensure surviving emotionally and physically through challenging and threatening times in our lives.

Years pass, however, and though now safe, these walls and other defensive mechanisms may sabotage our personal and professional lives. The wall is no longer needed yet it remains. It has become habitual.

The first step is to become aware of what we have built around us. What stories we continue to tell ourselves to fortify the wall. Stories from the past live on in us long after the cause or effect is gone. 

Here's one small example. I recently taught a workshop at Esalen in Big Sur, CA.

A woman had broken up with a man who also happened to be taking the workshop at the same time. Sitting in the circle with this former lover made the woman increasingly uncomfortable. And though she had looked forward to taking the workshop, she now felt unable to focus.

I spoke with her privately for a few minutes then asked if she could for a moment separate the perception of the man from the inner story she was telling and re-telling within.

She closed her eyes and was able to discriminate between seeing him and listening to the story she was keeping alive within herself. I asked her, "So who is telling the story?" She laughed, took a deep breath, and was able to release the old track from her mind – at least enough to return and focus on the remaining days of the workshop.

This is not to say that her work was done in this moment, but she had acquired a new tool in lessening the trauma she had experienced from the break up with her partner. With a small shift in perspective, she had gained an insight into a deeper self enabling her to step back and witness a life event that had stalled her moving forward into a new life.

So what exactly happened here? A woman felt powerless because she was unable to let go of a story she was holding onto which made her a victim. Even though she no longer saw this man, her former lover, she carried him within, and over and over again inside was keeping this version of the story alive.

Thus, in doing so, she made herself more and more powerless. All she did now was to step back and take responsibility for the story she was telling and re-telling. She could see herself as separate from what she was doing. She became a witness to her own creation of her daily life.

Please, ladies, follow the exercises provided by Catherine Ann Jones and watch your world change and your life turn around.

You are worth it!