I didn’t always. I had always dreaded writing papers in school, often struggling to find the words. Did the writing make sense, is it too much, too little? Am I even good at it? There was always a lot of pressure I put on myself to get it right. That was then.
This is now, sitting with pen and paper, barely able to keep up with the barrage of thoughts coming. I love to write! What changed?
When I finally slowed down and came to the conclusion that something had to change, that also meant that I finally had to confront the very loud chaos in my head. So many thoughts! So many emotions! How on earth was I supposed to process all that noise?
Once again, it was my daughter’s keen observations that helped. During one of our many visits where it was so hard for me to sit still, she finally told me that I needed to journal.
Writing? Uhg! I didn’t like to write and I could barely sit still. How could I sit and focus long enough to write a coherent thought?
“Just write, whatever words come out. It doesn’t have to make sense.”
She had just introduced me to journaling.
How do you begin? The same way I did. By sitting with pen and paper in hand and simply writing whatever words come out. It doesn’t have to make sense. It doesn’t have to be coherent or mean anything. Grammar and spelling do not count. The whole point of this is to relieve pressure and express whatever raw thoughts and emotions come out. This is free form writing — and it’s the most pressure free writing you’ll ever do.
For anyone who is struggling to sit still or has such a jumble of thoughts and feelings in their head that they don’t know where to start, this is for you.
Grab your pen, your paper and a timer. Yes, a timer and here’s why. It can be incredibly difficult to sit with our thoughts. We tend to move without realizing it. As many of you know, my daughter has been great at pointing that out to me. So we go into writing with an intention and a time limit. Set the timer for five minutes, set it for three if that’s too much. Then — just sit and write. Whatever comes. In the beginning, three minutes was my limit. And yes, I found myself getting up and moving before the timer went off. And without realizing it.
But pretty quickly — I discovered that I felt so much better, I felt relief, for the first time in a long time. And I found myself sitting and writing even after the timer dinged.
This has been such a wonderful part of my healing — and this surprised me. Because it has allowed me to bypass my inner voice. No worrying if it’s too much or too little, good or bad. No judgement.
Because there are no edits, I completely get to bypass the part of my brain that tells me “you’re doing it wrong.” Or that it’s not good enough. Think of free form writing like improv — it’s all made up and there are no wrong answers. None of this matters.
I was afraid to start, to be honest. I was stressed enough with these thoughts in my head. What would it be like to see them out in the sunlight, on paper? What I found, however, was quite the opposite.
It was actually freeing, like a friend that just needed to be heard. As I wrote, I felt less anxious and was able to clearly see and process some pretty long held emotions, without judgement. With my head clearing now, the next natural question was why?
Why did I think these thoughts? And all these emotions that randomly bubble up out of nowhere — where did they come from? I could now see patterns, recognize repeated themes running in my head, many of them from my childhood. And most of them wrong.
What I expected to be stressful and overwhelming ended up being the pressure valve that I needed.
Understanding that this inner voice in your head is not really you, allows all of us to stand a bit to the side, like an observer, and evaluate what we are thinking, what we are feeling. Is this mine? Does this help me? And most importantly, can I let this go?
My inner voice was always with me, a part of me that tried to keep me safe for many years. Now, I can view this voice like a nervous friend, who is easily frightened. She was just doing her best to keep me safe, after all.
What used to be a stressful monologue in my head of everything I’ve done wrong has turned into a beautiful moment where I can take this friend by the hand and tell her it’s ok. Now it’s my turn to keep her safe. That makes me relax. And smile.