A Very Personal Email
When you read this very personal email that my student, my close friend, my ally wrote to me you will understand why I am so committed to Writing for Well-being.
THIS IS MY STORY
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Many years ago I met a patient in a hospital where I was recuperating from an illness. We talked for only an hour before she was discharged & I never did get to know her name. Confidentiality is a persons right and a hospitals obligation. She offered a few words about a person who was conducting a group called "Writing for Well Being", where to find this group and nothing else.
So began my quest to find out "HOW TO WRITE". When I first attended the class I could not make head nor tail of it. No one said this is a sentence, this is a paragraph,this is how you start, this is how you finish, this is what I expect of you. I had been trained in the health area to write in a very clinical way of a clients well being in terms of what I had done for them,their medication, there bowel movements, etc. Now I never was allowed to write about their feelings or their body language or if they cried continually. Keep it clinical its better for doctors to understand it this way. Here I was in my new writing adventure and being able to write out my anger, my sadness, my joy, my future, my memories. This was a new experience, one I did not come to terms with until I was told that my writing was becoming softer and that the anger and self doubt was receding and this was showing as I wrote every day sometimes for an hour at a time.
I made myself a promise in those heady days to write every night as to what wonderous small pleasures I had encountered in my work situation, my moving on alone, my progress, and most of all my feelings about myself. I had never sat and thought about the good aspects I had to offer myself and my skills to take chances. I had perhaps loved a life where Greek Mythology, Muses and Goddesses were seen as, being lets say. Off the Planet.
I revelled in all of these wonderful stories of Women of Strength and looked back at my Maternal ancestors and realized I was one of them. I read book after book. I adopted my own Muse who accompanied me everywhere I went. I asked her for guidance, I wrote letters to her of my most intimate thoughts, and through all my ups and downs she has stayed .
When I do not write for days on end I always apologise to her for my falling beside the wayside. Now my story says this of me........I have to write to survive. But it is not a chore! It is a joy and as I write I feel released from any tension. It is a bit like a massage or a spa. My stomach often churns over at the happiness I feel when I write about a day of pure joy either in my garden or walking by the sea with my dog. When you are able to recall your day it can surprise you with all that has happened in a 24hr.period and that the unhappy moments are outweighed by the joyous ones.
As I have said often to my TEACHER, without finding the magic of writing for Well-being I would not have moved on in life and found the person I really was. Not the Daughter,not the Wife, Not the Mother, Not the worker but Lois and finding her through writing about her has been a revelation.
Thank you Lois!
Heather Blakey
When you read this very personal email that my student, my close friend, my ally wrote to me you will understand why I am so committed to Writing for Well-being.
THIS IS MY STORY
==============================
Many years ago I met a patient in a hospital where I was recuperating from an illness. We talked for only an hour before she was discharged & I never did get to know her name. Confidentiality is a persons right and a hospitals obligation. She offered a few words about a person who was conducting a group called "Writing for Well Being", where to find this group and nothing else.
So began my quest to find out "HOW TO WRITE". When I first attended the class I could not make head nor tail of it. No one said this is a sentence, this is a paragraph,this is how you start, this is how you finish, this is what I expect of you. I had been trained in the health area to write in a very clinical way of a clients well being in terms of what I had done for them,their medication, there bowel movements, etc. Now I never was allowed to write about their feelings or their body language or if they cried continually. Keep it clinical its better for doctors to understand it this way. Here I was in my new writing adventure and being able to write out my anger, my sadness, my joy, my future, my memories. This was a new experience, one I did not come to terms with until I was told that my writing was becoming softer and that the anger and self doubt was receding and this was showing as I wrote every day sometimes for an hour at a time.
I made myself a promise in those heady days to write every night as to what wonderous small pleasures I had encountered in my work situation, my moving on alone, my progress, and most of all my feelings about myself. I had never sat and thought about the good aspects I had to offer myself and my skills to take chances. I had perhaps loved a life where Greek Mythology, Muses and Goddesses were seen as, being lets say. Off the Planet.
I revelled in all of these wonderful stories of Women of Strength and looked back at my Maternal ancestors and realized I was one of them. I read book after book. I adopted my own Muse who accompanied me everywhere I went. I asked her for guidance, I wrote letters to her of my most intimate thoughts, and through all my ups and downs she has stayed .
When I do not write for days on end I always apologise to her for my falling beside the wayside. Now my story says this of me........I have to write to survive. But it is not a chore! It is a joy and as I write I feel released from any tension. It is a bit like a massage or a spa. My stomach often churns over at the happiness I feel when I write about a day of pure joy either in my garden or walking by the sea with my dog. When you are able to recall your day it can surprise you with all that has happened in a 24hr.period and that the unhappy moments are outweighed by the joyous ones.
As I have said often to my TEACHER, without finding the magic of writing for Well-being I would not have moved on in life and found the person I really was. Not the Daughter,not the Wife, Not the Mother, Not the worker but Lois and finding her through writing about her has been a revelation.
Thank you Lois!
Heather Blakey