What the medical research now contributes is the fact that it seems as though just imagining yourself as granting forgiveness may lower your blood pressure, decrease your heart rate, and produce skin conductance changes–all physiological signs of improving your health. Best of all, your mood can improve when you focus on forgiving. This is helpful for a number of conditions ranging from anxiety, depression, substance abuse, and chronic pain. (1)

If you have dropped in on this blog in the past, then it should come as no surprise to you that I endorse expressive WellWriting to promote well-being and health. As I have continued the work of writing for healing (WellWriting), it has become apparent to me that hanging onto anger, old hurts, and resentment contribute considerably to many chronic health and pain syndromes. The answer? Forgive to live and for the health of it.

Forgiveness is a learned skill and very much a process. My current work is a book in the making. If you have a story of forgiving and then being better and want to share that story, please add a comment to this blog entry.

Meanwhile, a number of books exist to address the issue of forgiveness. To browse a few, click here.

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(1) Source: Integrative Medicine: Text with BONUS PocketConsult Handheld Software (Rakel, Integrative Medicine)

My recent discovery is that you can go to the Starbucks website and for $4.00 you can customize a Starbuck’s card. The card will go out from the company with your own return address.

How cool is this?!? You can check it out at www.starbucks.com

–Julia Cameron

Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, found herself 50 pounds heavier after being placed on a new medication. What to do?

She found the answer in her own work after noticing that students taking her 12-week course in writing often left the class thinner than when they began the course.  She wrote the book, The Writing Diet, once she made this connection. You can read a Newsweek magazine interview with Julia by clicking here.

Tarcher Talks feature several of Julia Cameron’s books. To see the video featuring her book about writing for weight loss, click here.

Our bodies consist of billions of molecules. Stories, on the other hand, weave the fabric of our life.

Do you know what your story is? What shapes meaning and drive in your life? Many of us do not know but we can learn through the use of a personal writing practice, just 15 minutes a day three times a week.

To learn more about writing to know your story, please visit a previous post on this topic by clicking here.

by

Ellen Taliaferro, MD

The May issue of the journal of psychology publishes an article that looks at expressive writing as a preventive tool.[1] Many studies have demonstrated a benefit on the use of expressive writing” regarding a past or ongoing stressful experience results in a wide range of beneficial effects, including physical health and cognitive functioning.”

This article, Effects of expressive writing on standardized graduate entrance exam performance and physical health functioning, differs in that it looks forward and not backwards. The authors looked at the impact of expressive writing to prepare for a stressful examination.

Findings? The students who used expressive writing to prep for the upcoming examination produced a mean exam score significantly higher (19 percentile points) than the control group of students. Of note, the students in the experimental group who wrote on 3 or more occasions experienced the greatest benefits.

Click here to see the article abstract.

[1] J Psychol. 2009 May;143(3):279-92.

Ellen Taliaferro, MD

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”

–Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude

Got a problem? Get a journal. Let your journal, and you the author of what goes into it, be your caring friend.

There is no substitute for a listening ear. About 400 years before Christ, Hippocrates noted that every person had a doctor inside him or her. The trick is to bring out that doctor and activate his or her wisdom. So often we know what is wrong with us or in our life but we just don’t know what it is that we know. Thus the common observation among many writers that they “write to know.”

Journal writing affords the private opportunity to express feelings, examine reactions to stressors, and explore feelings. Journals keep their secrets while you can let yours out by confiding in the pages of the journal.

What to write about?

Folks new to journal writing often wonder what to write about and where to start. The simple answer is to start anywhere and write about anything as long as it is about you. How do you:

• Feel about something
• Delight in what you see in the clouds
• React to distress

When you engage in such writing, you lay the path down to establish an ongoing writing practice. At first, it may seem that you need to force the words out but if you keep writing an amazing thing happens. Words begin to emerge on their own. Then they might even dress themselves up and try evoke different responses. You know you have arrived in the right spot when you go back an read a journal entry and then think to yourself, “Gee, I didn’t know that I know this.”

Jump-start exercise

Take a painful event that happened to you at sometimes in your life. Write it down on the top of a blank page and then start writing about how that event impacted your life. Write without thinking or editing and write steady for at least 15 minutes a day three times a week. If you wish, write longer than 15 minutes in each session and write more often than three times a week.

Big events extract big costs. It’s OK if it takes you many sessions to write about how an event impacted your life. Just keep writing. Past research has shown that this type of ongoing writing about stressful and painful events builds and restores health.

Write on!

]]> http://ellentaliaferro.com/caring-through-sharing/feed/ 0 http://ellentaliaferro.com/redressing-the-balance-%e2%80%93-writing-with-the-whole-of-our-brain/ http://ellentaliaferro.com/redressing-the-balance-%e2%80%93-writing-with-the-whole-of-our-brain/#comments Thu, 22 May 2008 14:33:20 +0000 Ellen Taliaferro, MD http://ellentaliaferro.com/?p=52 by

Juliet Platt

Last year, with the kids home for summer I resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t going to have much time for writing or research. Not wishing to feel like the weeks were slipping by unproductively, I needed to look to other sources to keep my creative imagination alive.

While the kids watched TV or played with friends I either got on with chores or picked my way through a jigsaw. Curiously, I began to notice that writing ideas were flowing thick and fast over the jigsaw pieces or the ironing, and I realised that certain manual tasks lend themselves very well to the flow of writing inspiration. Like therapeutic basket-weaving, certain activities serve not just as relaxing, enjoyable and productive past-times, but also as a way of stimulating the creative process. And I started to wonder, what’s the link between mundane manual or logical tasks and heightened powers of imagination?

My curiosity was further sparked during a creative writing course I attended. The course tutor was Crysse Morrison, novelist and performance poet. In a very relaxed and comfortable atmosphere she invited our group of writers and nervous wannabes to throw caution to the wind and get writing. She introduced us to numerous exercises to “silence our inner critic”, and allow our imagination to fly. She talked about left-brain and right-brain functions, and again I found myself wanting to know more.

Googling “left brain right brain” throws up an intriguing visual illusion circulating on the internet. It portrays the silhouette of a pirouetting ballerina. Whether you view the pirouette as moving in a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction indicates which side of your brain is dominant at that particular time. I’m fascinated by how long it takes for me to see her switch direction, and how my view of her is affected by the activity I was engaged in before I looked. Searching through files on my computer? How does that make her spin? Reading a poem? How then?

Our brain is the most amazing of all human tools. Yet we probably don’t really know how to use it properly. In our hectic modern lifestyles we find ourselves stressed-out and anxious, often unable to sleep, and frequently frustrated by the lack of creativity and spirituality in our lives.

As writers we are plagued from time to time by an unsettling dearth of ideas, or with debilitating hesitation and censorious tendencies when it comes to developing the ideas that eventually present themselves.

Is it possible that our experiences in life and in our writing indicate an over-reliance on mental processes that are typically the preserve of one side of our brain only?

Neurological science shows that the brain is divided into two lateral hemispheres, the left and right, which are each responsible for different mental and intellectual functions.

The left side typically governs muscular activity in the right side of the body, our use of logic and language, as well as our perception and understanding of order, patterns, details and numbers. The right side governs muscular activity in the left side of our body, is more imaginative, and governs our capacity for artistic ability, belief, intuition and spatial awareness. Scientific evidence suggests that any imbalance between the two hemispheres results in psychological and behavioural problems, diminished feelings of well-being and below-optimum performance.

Of course, the brain is an extremely complex organ, and popular psychology has been quite rightly criticised for over-simplifying it, such that there is a tendency towards categorising people as predominantly “left-brain” or “right-brain” thinkers.

Over-simplification of brain function can also lead to one side being promoted over the other, depending on the desired context. In the business world right-brain intuition can be judged as “wishy-washy” and insubstantial, whilst creative types sometimes view left-brain logic as prosaic and constraining.

Interesting as the simplified insights may be, it is more helpful to consider our brain function in its entirety, in order to learn how to use our cognitive and creative abilities more effectively.

For writers, the creative process of producing something that others will read clearly involves a “whole-brain” approach. The difference between “becoming a published writer” and “daydreaming about writing”, as Simon Whaley puts it in his recent “Positively Productive” piece for Writers’ Bureau, could be down to how well we integrate the two sides of our brain.

Words, language, grammar, punctuation, structure, submission guidelines and deadlines typically fire the left-brain hemisphere. Language nuance, intonation and emphasis, along with imaginative ideas and vision are typically governed by the right-brain. The craft of the writer is to bring together both modes of thinking and deliver something new, illuminating and pleasing to read.

By return, the experience of the reader is to recreate the picture in their own mind, using the building blocks of language presented to them. Both reader and writer engage their brains holistically in the creative and re-creative process.

Modern western society has frequently been characterised as the product of predominantly left-brain thinking. Our preference for logic, reason, rules and knowledge is curious. It might be the result of the predominance of right-handedness, which fires the left hemisphere of the brain with greater regularity; it might be due to the rise of scientific education, and the importance we place on commercial viability and efficiency; it might equally be a consequence of the decline of old-fashioned manual crafts, hobbies, and past-times such as cross-stitch, knitting, model-making, pottery, even origami.

Research by Katrin and Yuri Shumakov at Rostov State University demonstrates that the bi-manual nature of origami significantly enhances communication between the two hemispheres of the brain. It seems that the slogan of the Protestant work ethic “the devil makes work for idle hands” has more significance for neurological development than it would first appear. Using both hands in a creative activity seems to strengthen and stimulate both sides of the brain in equal measure, leading to a calmer disposition, better understanding of language and greater non-verbal awareness.

Dr Roger Mills, president of the Center for Sustainable Change in California, emphasises that our minds are most productive when we are relaxed and calm, and when we aren’t thinking too hard. This usually means when we aren’t allowing our left-brain to run the show with worries and anxieties about how things should be, or how they’ve been in the past.

Dr Mills says of our more analytical, left-brain processing capacity, “Used in the way it is supposed to be used …[it] is helpful and necessary in life. Used in the wrong way – against ourselves – it can be our worst enemy!”

The idea that we can use our brains differently, and change our thinking habits and patterns, is testament to the brain’s plasticity and reflexivity. In a remarkable feat of cerebral acrobatics we can use our analytical minds to create the environment and container for our imagination. This neurological “double-jointedness” can be compared to using our right hand to scratch an itch on our right elbow.

Prema Sheerin, Coactive Coach and spiritual shaman distinguishes between “head” (left-brain) and “heart” (right-brain) intelligence, and suggests that we think of our logical, safe, rule-based, head as our Personal Assistant rather than our Managing Director. In this way we can consciously find tasks to delegate to that part of our function in order to occupy it productively, and prevent its less productive characteristics of anxiety and worry from dominating proceedings. To-do lists, project plans, budgets, goals, background problem-solving, devising strategies, commitments and routines are all activities perfectly suited to our left-brain PA, which thus engaged, allows our creative and visionary MD to flourish.

When we read accounts of fellow writers’ approaches to their craft, there are two words which consistently appear: routine and discipline. Philip Pullman will not allow himself to indulge his passion for carpentry until he has completed his mandatory three pages a day. Sue Gee describes a day that is punctuated by the Today Programme at 1pm and “exactly the same thing for lunch as I’ve had for the past 20 years.”

Rather than demonstrating writing martyrdom, these are meaningful examples of writers recognising the well-structured container they need to have in place to support their creative process, and to satisfy the needs of both sides of the brain.

So what is Crysse’s advice for writers wanting to boost their creative powers and fill pages? The answer is short sharp exercises containing a set of constraints to satisfy and quieten left-brain anxieties, so that it has a job to be getting on with while the right-brain does its creative bit. Spontaneity is crucial too. The longer we linger over a piece of writing, the more likely it is that our inner critic will have something to say on the matter, so spending no longer than 5 minutes on each exercise is important. For example:

• Write a list of your favourite things without using the letter “e”
• Write down the name of the place you think of as home so all the letters are in capitals and vertically arranged towards the left hand side of the page. Use each letter to begin a new idea, which evokes home for you and write this horizontally beside each letter. Across-sticks like this can be used for any word that you feel like getting creative about, and as long as you spend no more than a couple of minutes on it you will be surprised by the results.
• Take an opening or closing line of a story and write your own paragraph from it
• Start a paragraph with a memory, such as “I remember wearing…..”

A combination of daily writing practice, short, medium and long term goals, a comfortable routine, a positive approach to life, work, relationships and leisure, and maybe the odd jigsaw, folded paper bird, or bit of wood-craft, seem to be the practical keys to keeping our brains happy and healthy, and our writing flowing.

By learning to use all of our mental capacities appropriately and wisely we can become stress-free, infinitely more creative and give our writing a boost. All we need to do is give each half of our brain the right stuff to get to work on. After that it’s like riding a bike.
Activities to maximise inter-hemispheric communication and connection in the brain are those which involve manual dexterity, such as:

Doing jigsaws;
Cross-stitch;
Origami;
Drawing;
Painting;
Writing pen to paper;
Doing the ironing;
Gardening;
Preparing food;
Driving

Further information about concepts and courses mentioned here can be found at the following web-sites:
www.cryssemorrison.co.uk – writing courses in the UK and the Greek Islands
www.oriland.com – for fascinating insights into the benefits of paper-folding on brain performance
www.principlespsychology.org – for information about the work of Dr. Roger Mills
www.healingwisdomcoaching.com – spiritually-inclined life coaching with Prema Sheerin

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You can visit by Juliet’s website by clicking here.

The 2008 Writers Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers just arrived in my mailbox. I look forward to this list each year and find that I have some favorites that I follow, such as C. Hope Clark’s Funds for Writers. Having exchanged some emails with Hope in the past (she is a neat lady), I find myself rooting for her to make the list each year. Once again, she is there with her content-rich website.

Writers, whether or not they intend to keep their writing personal for their own healing or hope to be published, need resources. Why not take a stroll over to this year’s 101 Best Websites and start exploring right now?

This past Thursday, on April 24, 2008, ten attendees came to the Creekside Communications Seminar on WellWriting: Seeking Wellness, Story by Story. Feedback in the evaluation forms turned in at the end of the day reflects the success of the group and their participation.

Feedback highlights included comments such as “I learned that…”

• “Writing is healing for the soul.”
• “That I have a story to tell, and I can write.”
• “Making the commitment to writing will help me organize and express years and years of ‘people experiences.’ The impact of today will keep me motivated.”

and

• “I am now truly ready to compile my poems and writing to give testimony to my life struggle, loneliness, and finally coming into the light of ‘power, love, and a sound mind.’”
• “I am enthusiastic about my own experiences and wish to share those with others.”
• “That suffering comes in many forms but that writing is a perfect method to come to terms with your struggle and then perhaps find meaning [in it].

The goal of this course and our work is to encourage attendees to develop and maintain an ongoing personal writing practice for better health, well-being, and productivity. Toward that end, Creekside Communications will be offering future courses for newcomers and past attendees. Stay tuned for future information concerning course dates and times.

Seven writers gathered at Cameron’s Pub and Inn to attend our April 19th, 2008 WellWriting Workshop: Seeking Wellness–Story by Story. At the end of the day, the group was bonded, happy, and pleased with their day. Each participant took home their writing materials and output as well as a CD loaded with resources about developing a personal writing practice and living the writer’s life.

Highlights from feedback provided at the end of the day:

• The workshop inspired me to believe that writing is something I can do.
• I learned that I can write! I learned that I have a creative side. I learned that taking time out to explore writing was well worth it!
• There are many niches in the writing world and there is a place for your writing—whether it’s private/personal or public.

Many of the attendees noted they had learned to appreciate how valuable a personal writing practice can be and vowed to continue developing and maintaining a personal writing practice once home. As one attendee wrote that she hoped to use her writing to achieve “more clarity in goal-setting” as well as “better mental/spiritual well-being.”

When queried, “Would you recommend this course to a friend, client, or student?” attendees said yes and noted:

• It’s a great way to treat oneself to some creative, personal growth with kindred spirits.
• The group forum/feedback was especially powerful.
• Great opportunity to “dive in” to writing in a safe, comfortable, and relaxed atmosphere (not a “classroom”).
• Recommend (the course) for anyone interested in furthering a writing career, or using writing as therapy.

Did you miss the class? Not to worry. The same workshop will be offered this coming Thursday, April 24th. To learn more about the upcoming seminar or to register for it online, click here.