Writing to learn, and writing to understand what the learning is

I’d like to share a story with you. It starts kind of sad, but the ending is very joyful, very jubilant:

In 1995, I bought a beautiful plain notebook with a specific intention. I’d always been a note-taker, a list-maker, but this was quite different. This journal was to be my companion as I sat with my mother who was about to die.

As an only child of a dysfunctional mother, I needed a friend there with me, and I told this lovely purple book, with the thick, smooth pages, everything that happened over those few hot sticky days in August as I sat at the bedside.

Over that time the journal evolved from being purely a diary of events, a watching daughter’s notes about her mother’s breathing patterns, the way different health professionals treated us and spoke to us. It began to occasionally lapse into stream of consciousness. It became a deep personal reflection on the meaning of my own life, my own mortality.

And as I wrote and wrote, in the time after her death, a strange kind of healing took place. The joy, the delight in my life crept in slowly at first and then obliterated what was in fact a pain unrelated to the death itself.

Something about the experience of writing that summer had profoundly affected me; I’d made a deep connection with myself, and with this process. I was beginning to get to know me.

That winter I started the journal that would be the blueprint for all those which have followed. Largely they are explorations of joy, of happiness, curiosity about the unknown sides of my own way of being, allowing me access to all areas.

The tone lightened very quickly, though the content became ever more fired by pure instinct. Over the years I’ve worked through innumerable life situations – the challenges of being the mother of teenagers and most recently the utter bliss of moving towards and becoming a grandmother.

Now, all this time after that first memorable experience of writing it all out, my pen acts as a conduit, tapping straight into my soul, allowing me to pour a kaleidoscope of emotions onto the page and to pick through all the possibilities to find the right way forward.

Now, here and now, I’m still learning about the high voltage energy potential of the pen. The connection with the brain, and also with the soul.

Writing provides a direct link to our instincts, to our values, to the essence, the very heart of us.

I shared this quote the other day:

If you’re able to be yourself, then you have no competition. All you have to do is get closer and closer to that essence. Barbara Cook

I think that’s part of what writing it out allows us to do.  To get closer and closer to that essence.

I see it on an almost daily basis with the women I work with, women who are learning to harness the power of the pen for their own lives, for their own development.

And I still see it, still feel it, day by day, as I write things out in the pages of my own journal, and explore and share ideas with you on the pages of this blog.

I’m still learning how it works.  I’m still learning how far I can go with it, and still learning from the people I work with just how much power this simple tool has.  And the joy of this approach is that it invites you to learn as you go – to write out what the learning is, to get closer and closer to the heart of it.

Bit by bit, day by day: getting closer and closer to the essence.

This is a contribution to a group writing project at Joyful Jubilant Learning: How do you Write to Learn

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Tagged as: 1990s, 2000s, change, creativity, family history, getting older, inspiration, journaling, knowing ourselves, mother, questioning, writing