The Cathartic Act of Writing
By: Robert Turner
Tags: Writing Life, Writing, Writers Life, Lighterside, Writers On Writing

The Cathartic Act of Writing

How writing can heal your soul

Yesterday I read a very moving piece written on Facebook by my nephew. He was eulogizing his father, my brother, who passed away a few days ago.

The piece was incredibly moving, a personal and intimate view of his relationship with his father and how death had given him perspective. Their relationship had been troubled and often filled with conflict, but there had been love.

I suspected the piece was not for his father, but for himself. A way of helping him cope with his feelings of loss and the grief. An attempt to make sense of it somehow. I called him after reading it to tell him how much the piece had touched me. I asked him how he was doing.

We discussed the piece and he said he felt relieved, unburdened. The words had allowed him to give vent to his emotions. He’d wept whilst writing it. I knew this. I could sense the tears in the writing, but it wasn’t just heartache.

There was something else there. A feeling of lightness, almost happiness in the piece, which made it all the more poignant. There was an acceptance and gratitude for the time he’d had with his father, the lessons learned and the life shared.

The letter was in effect a celebration of the time he’d shared with him. His words to me on the phone echoed this.

I felt I was in a confessional. These were words I could never speak aloud, but the privacy of my writing allowed me to express them, and as I wrote, the heaviness lifted. I will be alright now. I know this. Somehow, the writing, the words, have healed me.

My nephew is young still, twenty eight this December, and he is gifted. He has the ability and command over his language to create images of beauty and capture you in their spell. It now seems that his eloquence of phrase has repaid him in a way he could never have envisaged.

How much of our lives do we pour into our writing? I thought about this after we’d said our goodbyes. How much of our soul do we bare in our written words, freed from the judgement of critical ears? Things we would never dream to say out loud, flow effortlessly onto paper and in doing so, allow us the catharsis of confession. The unburdening of soul.

In this space we are truly free. Our sins seem trivial, our pain lessens and our losses become bearable, all because of the words that pour out of us. Unspoken, but committed to paper. In this space, we are safe. Safe from the prying eyes of the world. Safe from judgment.

I have experienced this myself, as I am sure many of you have. Our readers feel our pain, share our joy and shed our tears. They celebrate with us and they commiserate with us.

It is only we, the writers. that know the true cost of the emotions we lay bare for the world and it is only we that can reap the true benefit of these unspoken lines that offer us redemption. True catharsis.

If you’ve lost someone recently, if you’re grieving or if you’re simply at odds with the world, write. Empty your pain and grief into the words on the page before you. Allow the power of those words to heal you. They most surely will.