The Healing Power of Writing Your Life Story
How does writing about life events bring magic and healing? Nancy Slonim Aronie, author of Memoir as Medicine, says that everyone has a story to tell. Join us as she shares how writing through where we have been provides a pathway to deep understanding, profound healing, and unexpected joy.
Nancy Slonim Aronie is the author of Writing from the Heart and the book we are discussing in this program, Memoir as Medicine. She has been a regular contributor to National Public Radio's All Things Considered. She was recognized for excellence in teaching all three years she taught at Harvard University for Robert Coles. Aronie has joined with physicians and writers from Columbia University's program in narrative medicine to lead workshops using her Writing from the Heart.
Website: ChilmarkWritingWorkshop.com
THE YOGA HOUR TEAM COMMENTS: This conversation with Nancy Slonim Aronie about writing is extremely motivational. She acknowledges that while everybody has every excuse in the world on why there isn’t time to write, we need to get stuff out of our system. “Get the rage on the page.” We all have secrets, mysteries that no one has seen before. Nancy says write it down without worrying what other people think. Be honest with yourself. Writing can acknowledge what hurts. Truth heals. Her book, Memoir as Medicine, has short chapters each with a prompt at the end to help start the process. The chapters that are discussed here (Why Write, Insights, Solitude) definitely wet my appetite to pull out my pen and start journaling. There was a comfortable free flow to this conversation with the many “aha” moments.
DR. TRUJILLO’S COMMENTS: It was intriguing to me to discuss how writing about the events of our lives can be healing, and can allow us to see things in a new way. We talked about the importance of writing through our emotions, even those that are challenging to us. As she write in her book; "But the biggest healing and the biggest teaching, the most surprising thing: I would not have known how exquisitely beautiful the whole trip was. That’s how I know writing is medicine.” Writing helps us with the Kriya Yoga practice of Self-Study. Nancy and I discuss several prompts for listeners to write about that I hope will be inspiring to them.