Dr Maggie is so happy to be back in The Writing Shed! A type of expressive writing called the exposure method can help you adjust to a difficult life or transition. With the simple act of returning to the same life situation across three different writing sessions, you will experience greater habituation or adjustment. Researchers have also found that there can be some cognitive understanding gained with this method. The idea isn’t to “beat the issue to death”; it is to continue to look at the life situation from a slightly different angle so that it begins to feel more normal and less shocking. How do you adjust to new realities? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
Lonely as a teacher? Do you ask yourself where your people are? Does your school discourage you from talking about your personal life or advocating for your mental well-being? Do you wonder why the professional development you are offered never seems to energize you? Do you laugh and secretly cry every time you hear about how well Finnish teachers are doing? In a research article in the International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing, the authors note: “Both the academic literature and educational policy documents have emphasized that in order to support teachers’ professional development, teachers should be offered both individual and personally inspiring education that facilitates the development of both teachers and school communities.” What’s your story? How could you be supported more at your school?
Dr. Maggie is back in The Writing Shed! When I learned about the research on how expressive writing helps us have an experience of letting go, I was gobsmacked. Letting go experiences are normally associated with trances or spiritual experiences. But the simple act of identifying and recognizing your emotional reactions to fearful times in your life can have powerful effects on your body. In one study done about the human fear of spiders, when the participants expressed their deathly fear of spiders in language, they were able to move closer to the spider (more than those who merely looked at the spider without expressing anything). Journal writing is powerful!
I am a bit of a science geek when it comes to learning about the benefits of expressive writing. So many writing studies have been done about the biological and physical benefits of a consistent expressive writing practice. The evidence I share with you is from Dr. Pennebaker’s book titled Opening Up by Writing it Down.
What benefits have you noticed when you take part in journaling or another form of expressive arts?
Because creative expression is hard work. Because the imagination works slowly. Because who has time to be still and listen to what resonates? Because it makes you vulnerable. Because you have to forget about yourself. Because there are no guarantees. Because failing is the point. Because it is risky. We might look stupid. People might connect our ideas with our self-worth. Because you might be wrong. You might be laughed at or shamed. You might look stupid in front of peers. You will have to admit you don’t know. Because you will have to practice new skills. Because it’s hard work. Because, as John Daido Loori tells us in The Zen of Creativity, you won’t be an original for a very long time.
Why should we practice our creativity anyway?
Because it’s hard work. Because slowing down lets us observe our lives. Because, listening, we can invite inspiration, which makes life bright. Because vulnerability builds intimacy. What a joyful cry! Because you have to forget about yourself. Just see what is in front of you. Because impermanence is the way of life. Because failing just means you showed up. Because being wrong is humbling. Because discussing shame interrupts patterns that dehumanize you.Â
Admitting you don’t know will feel like you have been reunited with friend from elementary school. She doesn’t judge you or belittle you. She too has marched in a band uniform down Main Street playing a half-learned tune.Â
Practicing new skills will make you an expert.Â
Because hard work is the way of life. Because creating something original isn’t the point. Creativity that embodies your own unique reality is the point.
Confession has a bad reputation. It is pulled from suspects in the interview room. It is linked to crowded boxes at the back of the sanctuary. It is mocked when heard from writers who describe the body.Â
I am told Sharon Olds’ confessions are pornographic–she wrote about the pope’s penis after all. I am told we live in an age of too much celebrity confession (braggadocio or commonplace varietals).Â
I say confess already.
But confession is no banana split.
My relatives mistake my questions as a request for them to confess. I have asked family members what I thought were benign questions about my ancestors, such as: What was your favorite memory of your grandmother? To which the granddaughter responded: Nothing in particular. She was kind. Okay, not many details, I think to myself. Let me ask another question: What was your father’s relationship like with his mother? She quickly stiffened and likened my questions to an interrogation. Where is this going?, she asks me. Her body triggers a response as if she were confessing, which she then immediately tries to squelch.
Confession is the wince when forking a sopapilla, releasing the scalding steam before it is ready to be eaten.
I recently asked my mother to send me a picture of herself at the age in which she gave birth to me—1979. Not only was I curious about how young my mother would look in the photo, but I was curious to see what photo my mother would select. Would she choose a photo that put her in a good light, figuratively and literally? Would she select a photo to influence how I view her now? I didn’t tell my mother this, but an energy healer had recommended I place a photo of myself as a happy child on my desk, alongside a photo of my mother when I was first born. All of these gestures are supposed to help me—in a subtle and slow way—continue to forgive my mother.
I received the photos in the mail a few days later. She had sent the photo I requested of myself—the one of me wearing yellow OshKosh B’gosh overalls in our New Jersey kitchen. She sent a photo of herself sitting at Grandma’s laced dining room table. She is looking dreamily out into the distance, with two shell clips in her hair, and her favorite ombre sweater in purple and blues. She looks like a saint—St. Therese of Avila-esque. Something is off.
I certainly don’t remember my mother like this. And perhaps this is the point of the whole exercise. See your mother as she wants to be seen, not as you remember her. She wants to be your friend. She didn’t mean to hurt you.Â
Looking at this photo of her, I can almost believe this.
When I ask my mother, Who is this woman in the photo you sent me? She says, Oh, I don’t know, all casual and non-committal. When I ask the same question another way, she snatches the air from between both of us, and says, What is this an interview?
Confession to one is small-talk to another.
Obviously, people in our lives don’t want to disclose or reveal their true feelings because of shame or embarrassment or void connected to their memories. Yet, the benefits of confession are strong. Or, said inversely, the strength required to keep something a secret (the effort involved in inhibition) has negative effects on our bodies. Researchers James Pennebaker and Joshua Smyth in Opening Up By Writing it Down (2016) conclude that “After confessions, significant drops in blood pressure and heart rate as well as improvements in immune function occur. In the weeks and months afterward, people’s physical and psychological health is improved” (41).
The changes happening on the bodily level from confession are indications that something is happening in our brain. Are we integrating our memories into our current reality in order to form a more coherent narrative? Or is our body/brain keeping memories at bay, thus limiting our ability to understand who we are and how we got here?
Pennebaker and Smyth share the study from a UCLA researcher, Matthew Lieberman, and his team. Lieberman’s study concludes that “putting our deeply emotional experiences into language and words facilitates our brain’s capacity to help us manage our emotional states” (39). They observed people who were really scared of spiders. Yet, when they were able to express these fears in the presence of a real spider, they were able to move closer to the spider (as compared to those who only looked). “Putting those fears into language appeared to confer some protective benefit” (39).
What is going to happen if I make these confessions about my mother?
And I am already badgering myself for confessing. Do you know how much flack you are going to get for this? You know you can’t share this right? Why would you want to hurt your mother like this? You’re just ungrateful. I’ve known your mother.Â
I have already deleted the confessions in the process of writing this blog. Words like cruel, ghost, and You still make me cry.
Of course, confession in a journal is different from confession in front of a person you know. Sharing your confessions does not always end well, depending on who you share them with. It can end relationships. It can also make relationships stronger.
Confession is the tong you use to pick up a hotdog from the boiling water. It’s the perfect tool, yet not the only one. You can also use a fork, your fingers, or a pocket-knife.Â
Obviously, people in our lives don’t want to disclose or reveal their true feelings because of shame or embarrassment or void connected to their memories. Yet, the benefits of confession are strong. Or, said inversely, the strength required to keep something a secret (the effort involved in inhibition) has negative effects on our bodies. Researchers James Pennebaker and Joshua Smyth in Opening Up By Writing it Down (2016) conclude that “After confessions, significant drops in blood pressure and heart rate as well as improvements in immune function occur. In the weeks and months afterward, people’s physical and psychological health is improved” (41).