In this episode, we look at “Bite 115 – Don’t Be Afraid of the Pain” in my book, Eating an Elephant: Write Your Life One Bite at a Time!
We discuss why someone would willingly write the tough stuff that encourages writing about our painful memories.
While writing is not therapy, it can be therapeutic and provide many benefits including insight, clarity, understanding, and possibly even forgiveness.
Share your experiences with writing, or not writing, painful memories. Give us your thoughts in the comments section below. Remember, the only way to do this wrong is to not do it at all!
So true it is difficult writing about painful situations in one’s life but as you said Patricia, “It’s important to document even these times or why you don’t want to document these times.” I have and continue documenting on my experience with domestic violence in my childhood and again with a partner. Writing about these times has brought back painful memories but also much healing to the memories of traumatic events. Release of these happenings from the heart in a safe and healthy manner is life changing. These events have been discussed with counselors and women who have shared similar… Read more »
Need to write about my brother.
He is on end stage of cancer and I would love for he to know how much I appreciate him.
Wonderful. Very helpful and encouraging. I’ve been allowing my sister to hover over my shoulder cautioning me not to write anything negative about our family. It’s difficult but I’m going to have to give her the boot ( mentally) if I’m going to write an honest and compassionate book.
I have written stories of painful memories over the years. When I write about the situation, I tend to glaze over the top, because I don’t want to feel the pain again, sounding like I am complaining about something trivial. The pain is there, but I don’t poke the bubble where the pain resides: otherwise, it will ooze out and get messy. Through the years I have worked to get myself out of pain and depression. I have gone to psychologists and even a psychiatrist. I read self-help books, like Healing the Shame that Binds You, A Road Less Travelled and Feeling Good: The New… Read more »
Pain is part of life. Writing about it helps you deal with it, possibly see it from another angle, might even make you stronger.
Pain is a part of living. Pain is sometimes the cause of mistakes, and other times it’s the result of mistakes. I have always made notations of painful episodes and have felt liberated by the exercise; the writing was a way to express hurt and, sometimes, anger; it released tears that were bottled up; at times it shed light on my part in an unfortunate happening. I easily write about my feelings because it is a practical way to confront them and deal with them.
When we were reading the Mary Karr book, one thing she said was not to put off writing the painful times, write them now. I took that advice and wrote about the most painful thing in my life. It was very hard to write how I felt while this was happening. Patricia suggested to write about a painful time, then put the pages away where no one would read it. I did that and haven’t felt like that darkness owned me anymore. I don’t know if that would work for everyone, but it helped me.
I’d take that painful stories class.
I prefer to write about the pain even if you ball up the paper and throw it away. For me it has been better to wait awhile. Perspective is important. Even though my maternal grandmother not support my desire to be an artist, it took a few years to see that her negative attitude was indeed propelling in the direction I wanted to go. She did not live to see me become a success in my career choice.
I embrace pain in my writing. Writing about the painful moments in my life helped me see them from a different perspective years later. I am not afraid of pain. Pain, like joy, is part of life and our human experiences.