Every once in a while I do one of the free-write assignments I give out during a workshop. Free-writing has been one of the most enjoyable healing techniques I've tried. Enjoyable and healing haven't always existed in the same sentence for me. Affordable and healing haven't either. Maybe that's why I love free-writing so much.
For me, the process is always joyful even if what is written about is heavy. It seems that way for many others as well. I enjoy sharing it with others once a month, for free.
If you have ten minutes and want to try a free-write, please do.
Some easy instructions.
How to Free-Write
1. Take a pen to paper or your fingers to a keyboard and type or write:
- Suggested prompt: "I wish..."
2. Write, without stopping for ten minutes and start only by finishing that sentence. Go wherever it takes you.
- Don't worry about grammar, punctuation, spelling, sounding smart or logical or even making sense.
3. Keep your hand (or hands) moving and if you get stuck and can't think of anything, just write, "I can't think of anything" as many times as necessary until something new comes which it ALWAYS does.
- When you free-write, the audience you are writing for is you. Your writing is to benefit you. The end goal is to express rather than to impress. You never need to share or even re-read your own words.
- The point of writing quickly is not to be fast or frantic but to get you below your thinking mind into feelings and images and your deepest self. This way of writing actually helps you get still enough to center, to be quiet and to listen to your own deepest self. That's the real point of this style of writing. You connecting to your own words, images and experiences.
The prompts are invitations to go in new directions which makes it a little different than diary writing or venting (which can also be great, but is different).
Free-writing is stress-free. You can't do it wrong.
It's also playful and often sounds similar to your speaking voice, which for some, is less formal and more authentic.
I describe free-writing as one type of creative exercise. As with working out, you don't need to be an athlete to benefit from exercise. The same is true of free-writing. You don't need to be a professional writer to benefit from writing.
To learn more about free-writing, check out these titles:
- Writing from the Heart: Tapping the Power of Your Inner Voice, Nancy Slonim Aronie
- Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, Natalie Goldberg.
Learn More About Expressive Writing for Health
There are lots of great books on the healing power of writing. If you are interested there are some books/links below. Expressive writing is quite similar to free-writing but it's not identical.
Expressive writing is generally done for closer to 20 minutes, for four consecutive days in a row and is usually done writing specifically about traumatic events and secrets. It's often not shared with others and people often feel sad for a few hours after doing this.
So why do it if it makes you a little sad? It's like the type of sad from seeing a drama or having a "good" cry. It's cathartic and a release. Plus, people report fewer colds, flus, medical appointments, improved wound healing, sleep and other things good for anyone but great for trauma survivors.
To learn more about expressive writing and how it can ease symptoms of traumatic stress, check out these titles:
- Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives, Louise DeSalvo
- Opening Up By Writing it Down: How Expressive Writing Improves Health and Eases Emotional Pain, James W. Pennebaker, PhD & Joshua M. Smyth, PhD
Also, Donna Jackson Nakazawa writes briefly about writing in her latest article on ACEsTooHigh and in more depth, in her book, Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, And How You Can Heal.
I have a white paper on the topic as well if you are interested.
As for free-writing, I've done it with friends and relatives and students of all ages. I've done it at schools and shelters and in my own living room. People are often eager to share and eager to write more. Almost everyone is surprised that they find the process enjoyable.
Sharing is not necessary and the fear of having to share can keep people from writing at all. Sharing writing can be wonderful, when it's done in a safe and warm setting and is completely voluntary.
This type of writing isn't about plot or word choice. Ever. It's not about giving others advice. It's not about sounding smart or trying to publish. At all.
It's about making sacred space to be who and how we are in the moment. For lots of us, that doesn't happen often enough and/or takes some practice. Many of us have to be prompted and invited to even consider taking ten minutes to be still or creative.
The funny part is that beautiful writing is often created and poems, essays and letters do get revised and shared. It's not the point. It's a secondary bonus and an added benefit.
To have written at all is the point.
Maybe you will give it a try.
Go with the "I Wish..." prompt and see where it takes you. Here's an excerpt from the writing I did on this prompt. As you will see, from the start, logic can be abandoned. What you write need not make a bit of sense.
I Wish
I wish I could make my bed on the center of a sunflower so my head could rest on petals and I could soak and swallow yellow, green and orange even in the darkness.
I wish I felt the warmth above and below me opening my tight chest and melting my shoulders when they can't un clench.
I wish I wore polka dot pj's all day without apology.
I wish I sang, hummed and swayed in the kitchen making homemade food which never burns.
I wish I loved offensively more and defensively less.
I wish I didn't treat relationships like tennis games where I studied the serve and return so often and just lost myself in the play.
I wish when someone tossed love my way I used my catcher's mitt to improve my chances of holding on.
I wish I didn't see kindness as a trap, good fortune as luck and people like a mind-game puzzle I'm being challenged to figure out.
I wish I said more sooner to some - and promised less to others.
I wish I could let go of the last word and didn't use the full force of my weight in tugs of war.
I wish I covered my own shoulders and didn't use my skin as an umbrella to absorb water or pain when raincoats hang within reach.
Click to read the rest of the free-write or just go to the page and start writing!
P.S. The ONLY thing that isn't great about free-writing is that if you do it a lot, as I do, you may forget all about grammar and punctuation even when you aren't free-writing. And if I've done so in this blog post, I apologize.
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