How Writing Can Help Us To Cope With Loss
Often, when experiencing loss, the words someone wants to say aren't necessarily the ones they are willing to speak out loud. Writing is an intimate and therapeutic way to release pent-up sadness when going through something emotionally tremendous.
Writing can help us cope with loss by providing a safe, personal, and ongoing outlet to moving through the different stages of grief.
If you have been through a loss, keep reading to discover how writing can help you cope as a safe and effective strategy to the healing process.
Ways Writing Helps Us Cope Physically
Writing can produce a physical response in the body, such as crying; this reaction can assist with healing emotionally and mentally, thus consequently releasing "feel good” hormones in the body.
Change in mood, disposition, and overall well-being are positive effects of putting pen to paper and scripting your thoughts and emotions. Research has shown that writing can help the immune system heal during trauma as well as decrease blood pressure, heart rate and regulate breathing.
These physical changes occur due to refocusing your attention on a single task, which in turn allows your body to “self-medicate” using endorphins to increase good emotions.
Ways Writing Helps Us Cope Emotionally
Letting go is an extremely difficult human response. Whether it be saying goodbye to a loved one from death, a break-up, or having to accept something no longer belonging in your life, letting go can trigger so many emotions at once and overwhelm even the most stable individual.
Putting emotions into words is a safe alternative to someone who may feel overcome with grief, despair, and sadness. It is not uncommon for a person to experience an abundant emotional release while writing. In some cases, it provides the opportunity for someone who finds being emotional difficult to physically express themselves.
Writing Resources
Writer’s block is a serious thing, and often students find themselves in a state of dread and depression, worrying they may fail a class or be kicked out of school for poor academic progress. Not everyone is a natural writer or even finds comfort in the art of creating papers or essays. Finding TrustMyPaper writing resources can take the stress from a potentially difficult situation for students who struggle with writing.
Ways Writing Helps Us Cope Mentally
Not everyone is capable or willing to say what they mean or mean what they say when experiencing a loss. Typically, individuals shy away from speaking their truth or disclosing the depths of their pain and isolate themselves from anyone offering a shoulder to cry on.
Writing as a coping mechanism can help an individual’s mental health drastically in a positive way by creating a safe space in which you can express your thoughts free of judgment, correction, opinions, reflection, and clarity. All you are required to do is let the words flow from your mind to the paper—no worries about correcting spelling, grammar, comprehension, or who it may affect.
This form of therapy where a person is given free rein to release all the thoughts swirling around in their minds can be a substantial part of recovering from a loss.
Writing Prompts For Coping With Loss
As simple as the task may appear to be, writing doesn’t always flow naturally to all of us. Many people require writing prompts or general ideas on where their “start here” should begin in order to find inspiration.
Listed below are some writing prompts for those coping with loss:
Journaling
Sit in a quiet space where you won’t be interrupted, and just allow the pen to create what it desires. Forcing the words or focusing on the “what” is usually the block people experience when starting a journal.
Writing A Letter
People typically have a tough time letting go or coping with loss because of the things they wish they had said or done before the traumatic event happened. Writing a letter to either the person, thing, or even to themselves expressing all those pent-up emotions is a great way to let go, find forgiveness if necessary, and possibly forget.
Write A Memoir Or Biography
According to Nancy Howard, expert writer at SupremeDissertations, “Your health can be good – until it’s not anymore.”
Writing a memoir or a biography about someone's life or the life you may have shared with them is a great creative writing project to help you cope with a loss. Time is the best remedy, and what better way to spend it than collecting precious memories, stories, legacies, and traditions from the life of someone you love and putting it all in writing.
Summary
Loss is an experience that has multiple layers, and healing is a personal experience that requires tender compassion and understanding. Writing is a noninvasive technique anyone can incorporate into their journey of coping with loss, and it has no prerequisites or conditions to begin or end, for that matter.
About the Author
Donald Fomby is a self-taught content writer who’s enjoyed success with numerous popular blogs. He’s a contributor at LiveInspired Magazine.
He built his writing portfolio by contributing to digital publishing with his articles, studies, and research essays. Donald uses his free time to learn to become a better writer and to deliver an even higher quality of work to different clients and platforms.
