Sheppard B. Kominars - Write for Life: Healing Body, Mind and Spirit Through Journal Writing

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Write for Life

HEALING BODY, MIND, & SPIRIT THROUGH JOURNAL WRITING

Revised and Updated Edition

Sheppard B. Kominars, PhD

Foreword by Frank McCourt

Preface by Richard G. Petty, MD

DEDICATION

No legacy is so rich as honesty.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, ALLS WELL THAT ENDS WELL,

ACT III, SCENE V, LINE 13

For my children

Kathryn and Linda, Hugh and Andrea, Matthew and Reeda

For my grandchildren

Kevin, John, Derek, Isaac, David, and Rebekah

For Marvin and family:

Tom and Jeanie, Ariel, Sam

And for the miraculous survivors I have had the great

good fortune to encounter in my life

Table of Contents

Why Write a Journal?

I CALL THE PLACE where you begin these writing journeys Square One, but it could also be called Home Port. Its the place within yourself that youre most familiar with. Whatever term you want to use, just remember thisthe sooner you begin to write, the sooner youll embark on your journey of self-discovery.

BEING A SURVIVOR

Everyone understands what it means to be a survivor. The word survivor comes from the Latin supervivere to live beyond. Perhaps youve faced a life-threatening disease, accident, or other condition that brought you face to face with your own mortality. Or youve lived through a crisis like divorce, bereavement, family separation, professional dissatisfaction, health concerns, economic insecurity, or any other issue that has the potential for changing lives. One hopes that youve faced that crisis and now live beyond it.

FACING CRISES

Just as with tai chi, yoga, meditation, massage, reflexology, or any other complementary therapy, journal writing is focused on healing and recovery. Through journal writing, youll discover how to get more benefit from everything that youve experienced. In the process, youll discover that what youve learned from being a survivor has enriched your life beyond anything youve ever imagined.

This book is written with your needs in mind. The Windows on Healing are five different areas that may be of concern as you consider whether or not you want to begin writing. They are a resource for you to explore when you are curious about the scientific research about writing and healing, about different writing techniques others use, about what others have written in the past in their journals, about the whole idea of healing, or about what you can expect from the process once you begin.

Feel free to explore the 15 chapters of journeys in any order you choose. The book was not designed with a linear approach. One journey may appeal to you more than another, so it is your choice as to where to begin. Each journey is organized with the same approach: Getting Started introduces the ideas to be explored; Staying Started moves into different considerations and issues; New Directions opens the way for you to further engage with and overcome obstacles and to expand your journal writing into additional areas. Youll get the most from the journal writing experience if you spend at least a week or more on each section: Getting Started, Staying Started, New Directions. Take the time to explore yourself: you are worth it! The journey Self-Caring is a good place to begin.

WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK

For more than 50 years, Ive been keeping journals; for the past nine, Ive given workshops at cancer centers, senior centers, and conferences around the country about how writing can improve your life. This book will help you start journaling. Ill begin with my own story, then tell you why others have embraced this process, which is filled with surprises and excitement. Without ever leaving the comfort of your armchair or stepping off the front porch, youll begin a new adventure with your life as you embark on a voyage of self-discovery.

What will happen once you get started on your journey? Youll find this out for yourself as you go. If youre reluctant to begin this adventure, thats okay. This book was written for the reluctant writer! Youll understand more once you read about why others are writing journals. My own journaling experience began in 1955, when I faced a health crisis.

1955: WITS END

Chronic migraine headaches were giving me so much pain that I was willing to try anything that might offer relief. My brothers best friend, Dr. G., suggested that I begin keeping a journal and writing in it on a regular basis. This was something Id never considered. Keeping a diary seemed like something only for famous people, such as Samuel Pepys, Madame dArblay, James Boswell, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Anas Nin, Albert Camus, C. S. Lewis, May Sarton, and Henry David Thoreau. In my imagination, I saw adolescent girls writing Dear Diary in their notebooks. Thats just not me, I thought. I cant do that!

No, Dr. G. explained, my journal wouldnt be for publication; it was just for me to record what was happening in my life and how I felt about it. I was to write without any self-criticism, and I shouldnt try to sound like anyone whod ever written a journal beforejust be myself. Let the words come, thats all, he told me.

Writing about myself was the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to escape from my torment, not detail it on a daily basis. What a prescription! Please begin this week, said Dr. G. You dont know how it will work unless you try it. Ill see you again only after youve been writing for two weeks. My session with Dr. G. ended and I was out the door.

I felt another migraine brewing as I turned my attention to the ultimatum Id been given. I went home and dug out an old notebook with some blank pages in it. That day, I wrote my first entry. Writing about the events of my life was bad enough, but looking over what Id written was even worse. How could I allow myself to say stuff like that? What was I thinking? That was Day One.

Day Two was a blur, and by evening I was too tired to write. Day Three started off like the previous day, with a battery of excuses. I sensed another migraine sneaking up on me. It took a few days to come and a few days to leave, so I lost almost a week, during which I could do little more than grit my teeth in my darkened room and wait for the migraine machine to stop.

In desperation, I dug out the notebook from beneath the papers where Id buried it. Turning the pages from the last entry I made, I began scribbling furiously about how angry I was that this was happening to me and how helpless I felt to do anything about it. Words and sentences tumbled out incoherently as my anger spewed over the pages. There seemed no end to my rage. When evening came, I was shocked to realize that Id written in the journal for the entire afternoon. Where had the time gone? How had I so lost myself that everything else vanished? I was completely baffled.

Dont read what youve written. Just write. I remembered what Dr. G. had said. I closed the notebook and washed my face. Over the next three days, I reviewed all the blurred stages of the headache that had overwhelmed me. When it finally spent itself, I found myself back at square one. I remembered thinking that this time, perhaps, I had a few weeks before the next migraine hit, and now I had to do something that would make a difference. Dr. G. had not promised that the migraines would end, just that they might not be as severe. And hed said that Id find out whether writing worked by doing itconsistently for several months.

I took a brief glimpse at the pages I had written. I hardly recognized myself. What drivel! And what if someone in my family discovered this notebook and read what Id written? If arguments and hurt feelings resulted from my journal, that would be a disaster. Yet something inside me wanted to find out whether Dr. G. knew what he was talking about. Curiosity got the better of me, and I began to write more.

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