Dear friends,
Does your cake recipe include: A sprinkle of growing up? A dash of soul-searching? Toppings both sweet and sour? Space for a surprise center? Layers more than the sum of their weight in chocolate grams?
My teacher, Deborah Ross, at the Center for Journal Therapy shared with me that if you are just writing down your deepest thoughts and feelings, but not making meaning of them, it “can be like gathering the ingredients but not baking the cake.”
And when we are intentional about using a storytelling structure when we journal, it can help bring coherence to the fragments. For trauma survivors, being able to tell one’s story in a coherent way has been linked to health gains because it “may adaptively transform and organize memory.”
When we journal our stories, whether that means we use more details, develop relationships between characters, or use more insight words, rest assured that physical and mental benefits should follow. The findings from a 2010 study conducted at University at Albany (SUNY) suggest that both emotional expression and narrative structure may be key elements linked to expressive writing mental health benefits, including a decrease in symptoms of stress and depression.
