Unleash Your Story: Writing From the Heart

WRITING THROUGH THE TEARS: TURNING EMOTION INTO EMPOWERMENT

“I love you.” It was all I could get out before I became incoherent. Salty blobs rolled down my cheeks as all the emotion I’d been holding in over the last year burst forth, finally free.

The six-page dedication to my grandmother in my memoir, What Cancer Said – And what I said back was written through floods of tears and deep, choking sobs. She’d passed away while I was in Italy, competing in the 2018 International Breast Cancer Survivors Dragon Boat Regatta. We’d shared so much – Nanna and I – including a breast cancer diagnosis.

RECLAIMING YOUR VOICE: HOW WRITING HELPS HEAL THE HEART

More than once, after reading my book, I’ve had people tell me that this dedication brought them to tears. I knew it would. If I felt that depth of emotion as I wrote from the most secret part of my heart, it was a given that my readers would as well. I was sharing a piece of myself, allowing them into my world.

Writing that dedication – let alone the rest of the memoir in which I completely unleashed every emotion I’d experienced in the year I’d spent with breast cancer – was tough. There were times I wanted to call it quits. Times I wanted to revert back to my closed self; reconstruct that brick wall that didn’t let anybody in.

WHAT WAS I THINKING?

I’d never told anybody any of this and now I was not only writing it down, but I was publishing it – putting it out there for anybody to read!

Then I remembered the words of Maya Angelou – that beautiful, strong woman who inspired and continues to inspire, even in death, millions of women worldwide. In writing her memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, she said that writing was her way of reclaiming her voice after trauma, that it was the best form of personal healing.

Now, I am no Maya Angelou, but I can attest to her words.

I still tear up when I read that dedication but now I also remember her strength and support that got me through that year. And, having written about all those emotions – denial, guilt, fear, hostility – I can now look back on that year with gratitude.

Yes, gratitude. I even wrote a chapter about it.

Salt-water gratitude flowed, healing me as I reflected upon my year. It sheared away the ties that had so long bound me to my past life and carved a path for me to embrace the opportunity to start again.

TEARS ON THE PAGE, STRENGTH IN THE HEART: THE HEALING POWER OF WRITING

You don’t have to write a book right now though. It took me five years and pages upon pages of scribbled ramblings in a journal before I did. But that’s part of the process. According to psychologist Dr James Pennebaker, spending just twenty minutes a day writing about emotional experiences – writing from the heart – can reduce stress and improve overall mental health. And who knows, one day – probably sooner than you realise – you might be ready to share your story and help other women like you.

FROM HEARTACHE TO HEALING: WRITING YOUR STORY TO FIND STRENGTH

Kellie Nissen founded Just Right Words in 2019 and is an author coach and self-publication mentor who specialises in adult and children’s fiction and memoir.

She is the Group Expert for Book Publication and Author Support in Yeah the Girls 40+ Community. Every time Kellie writes, whether it’s a story or an article, she learns something new about herself.