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Writing is therapeutic! In fact, James Pennebaker, PhD., a psychologist and researcher, has conducted studies that show enhancement in immune system functioning and aroused well being when exploration players write in regards to difficult or traumatic events in their lives.

You may have questions with regards to what type of writing would be most helpful for you and how to get started. Would it be journaling, writing poetry, free-writing, meditation and writing, morning pages (see The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron), etc. Then there is the question of what to do with your writing-keep it to yourself, begin a blog, try to get it published, show it to friends, put it in a drawer, rip it up when you are frustrated, or join a group?

Your needs, interests, inclinations, and tastes are pivotal. For instance, you detect one day, that you have been writing poetry on the boundary line of scrap paper that you find in your pockets when doing the laundry, or someone gives you a classy blank diary book for your birthday. Then there could be alchemy and synchronicity-you see an event or group that “speaks” to you and is even happening on an evening or day you may make it. You venture into the visual attic, basement, or garage of your present or past and discover there is a pen and paper waiting for you there inviting you to write.

My own experience helping humans use writing for healing tells me that it works best when there is no firstborn concern regarding editing or showing your creation to the world in print. In fact, the original step is to free up the censors, critics, and mind chatter so that the words you need to speak onto the page may get there. I think of therapeutic writing as raw and fresh. Crafting and editing may be an important, but dissimilar share of the process. Sometimes creation bubbles up in a perfectly formed finished product, but if not, what is initially formulated is the mortar and bricks of healing because it is your authentic and freed-up voice, which most times delivers a gift, a surprise, a glimpse of something important.

Turning to poetry, poetry gives rhythm to silence, light to darkness. In poetry we find the magic of metaphor, compactness of expression, use of the five senses, and simplicity or complexity of meaning in a few lines. For example, here’s a poetic description of day breaking: As the sun begins with a bowing/ down and a drifting up,/ light, a ballerina, pliés and jetés/ with sky in a pas de deux…

Poetry is also healing when read aloud, because of the rhythms, beauty, and connection that may be made with the person who wrote the poem. This connection, the “aha” of meaning, may begin a physical and aroused alter in the listener. And if you believe that everyone is connected, then somebody writing a poem or reading a poem aloud in regards to the recent earthquake in China, hurricanes or cyclones, the war in Iraq, or childhood traumas, may connect us within the humane condition, ease our humane suffering, give us a concrete way to respond to tragedy.

One way to think regarding using poetry for healing is to write a response to a poem that moves you, or to write a poem for or with regards to someone you care about. Then, if you feel comfortable, you could share this poem with others or with it is inspiration. Any of these steps implicate healing: reading another’s poem, letting it move you, writing a poem in response, and sharing it with another. And each time you write even just a few words down on a page, you are engaging in a routine that may move you forward in ways both known and unknown.

This article was in the first place published in Open Exchange Magazine, Summer Issue 2008