When Writing About Emotions and Thoughts
Why is writing an integral part of life, for some more than others? Writers express their emotions, feelings and thoughts on a daily basis. Tim, our resident guest post author, covers expressing ourselves through writing and what it can achieve.
What’s the point of writing down how you feel? There’s not a huge lot of point unless you use it as well for yourself as you can.
Some folk write diaries. Unless you’re about to publish them, and are important enough to find a publisher who wants to read your maudlin and mundane stuff, the only use for them is to let your heirs and executors know what you had for tea on 27 January 1987, or that you are desperately in love with Penelope Pitstop, or, if you are brave enough, that something really troubled you while you were alive.
That’s a bit rubbish, really.
There is a point in writing down stuff, but it has to be used. And that means you have to use it. But some of it’s stuff you can’t share with your nearest and dearest. They might find it rather upsetting to discover, suddenly, that there’s something that both stresses you out and is, or you think is, against all they stand for.
So, how do you use it?
You could always start your own blog. ‘The Magnificent Maudlin and Mawkish Murk Murmured Mellifluously by Muriel’, and, since your name is Millicent, Myfanwy, Matthew, or Michael no-one will know it’s you. So, that’s safe from the gaze of friends and family. Yup, that’s a start.
Unfortunately it’s also safe from finding a readership. Who will ever read the ‘7M Blog’, which, while it’s a far better name for it, is well hidden in the deepest recesses of t’internet?
You do want readers.
“A trouble shared is a trouble halved.” Now that is a load of old something that rhymes with ‘rowlocks’, coz it ain’t so. There is a point to sharing. Well, there’s more than one.
The first point is that sharing something with anonymous strangers helps the issue you’re writing about get into its proper perspective. Write about it for others and you start, little by little, to see the boundaries of the issue and gain a smidgen of an insight into how you might start to make it less important in the way it ‘has power over you’.
The second point is that, if you are very lucky coz it’s so rare, someone else will write a comment below your impressive prose. It might not be relevant to your words, but it will be relevant to the person who wrote it. When you read what they write it can help put your own issues into a better perspective.
That second point is interesting. For a moment, be that second person.
What if you could find a sensible place to put your own stuff as a comment, a place where it would be welcome, and which already has sufficient reputation to have enough readers for it to be found, be read?
Hmm.
Look down.
See that comments field?
Ok, choose a pen name. And have a crack.
Why are you doing this?
Loads of reasons. The best is to make you feel a little better. The next best is to make a couple of other people feel a little better.
The key thing is that you are letting a few complete strangers know something, for your own gloriously selfish reasons.
To find out more about 13-year-old Tim, his older self has published Queer Me! Halfway between Flying and Crying
Bob Brotchie is a counsellor, mindset consultant and creator of "Conscious Living by Design"™. He writes for Anglia Counselling, is featured on various other websites and introduces us to many guest writers all covering topics related to mental health and wellbeing.
Bob provides bespoke counselling services to individuals and couples in the privacy and comfort of a truly welcoming environment at his Anglia Counselling company office, located near Newmarket in Suffolk, England. Bob also provides professional online counselling, for local, national, and international clients. The therapeutic models offered are bespoke to the client’s needs, especially those in receipt of 'childhood emotional neglect' (CEN), whilst integrating a mindful approach to psychotherapy and cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) principles. For clients experiencing trauma and/or phobia, Bob offers EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing).
I’m no good at writing stuff. I don’t do grammar and spelling well. I hated English in school. I’m scared i’ll be made fun of. At least I made my name up! Not sure what meliflusly means tho
Love your made up name, Muriel. I think you’ve hit on something important.
It doesn’t matter a tuppeny damn whether you can write well or spell well. I don’t much care about grammar. I happen to be able to do it reasonably well, you are probably better than you think. What matters, what truly matters, is the thinking you do while writing.
The end product? I want to read it, warts ‘n all. That happens when you next get brave enough. It could be here, on Bob’s blog, it could be somewhere else. I don’t care where (Sorry, Bob!) I truly don’t. What I care about is you, Muriel. I know that sounds weird. I’ve no idea who you are, or anything about you, but I know you actually want to write something out for yourself.
Will you post it here? I’m darned if I know. What I do know is that you’ve made a start.
I’m not sure what that word means either. I had to look it up. It sort of sounded right. I wanted a load of stupid words starting with M! Google was my friend!
Hahahah “Shining” – see, I’m not as good as I thought. THINKING!!!
Mind you, you WILL be shining as you are writing. But the thinking is the important stuff
If only there were a way to edit comments!!!
Just edited it for you in case they don’t read further 🙂
This is funny – I think we will all be Googling “Mellifluously” now!
@ Tim – Great post!
@ Muriel – Nice to meet you… I have an aunt called Muriel… we call her Aunt Mue 🙂
Hi Sonya. What I hope we can do is to encourage Muriel and folk like her to create something for themselves. Doesn’t need to be posted, even, but putting it in front of strangers helps.
I was going to say that strangers don’t judge, but that’s not true. Strangers do judge, but they judge what they read. Unless they are feckwits they don’t judge the person’s writing.
Reading someone’s judgement of what you have written is very useful. IT says to you “They think this.” And then you can decide whether, for you, they are right.
As well as that you can answer them. We hope they come back to answer the answer, but even that isn’t important. What’s important is getting our thinking to be useful to us.
I used to sit and fret about one thing, a major obsession I had. All that did for me was to reinforce my obsession. It made it worse. I didn’t want it to be worse. Then I started to write about me, here and elsewhere. I never said who I was really.
It took a while, but it started to help.
Very interesting, Tim. I think that is food for thought for all of us. What you say kind of reminds me that when someone is feeling down, it can help to just list the good things in life along with the bad things/problem(s). Even if the bad seems to outweigh the good, it helps get our focus off the bad and onto the good. The bad may still be there but but it gives you a lift and can help us realise what is important in life.
Yes, Sonya, even a simple list is a great place to start. After that I ‘want’ more. I want feelings.
A good/bad list helps us crystallise the ‘thing’ that may be wrong, but it doesn’t get to how it makes us feel about it. It also doesn’t get to the root of good or bad for a particular list item
My lengthy obsession felt awesome for years before I realised it was doing me emotional harm. Losing the obsession hurt in the short term because it was gone and I felt empty because of that, but worked well in the long term. That means it would appear on the bad side and on the good side and also swap from side to side.
Very good point on the good/bad list, Tim. Never thought of that but so true.
Apologies for replying ‘up’ – It wouldn’t let me reply further. Obviously talking too much 🙂