Express Yourself for Better Mental Health
Hello friends,
We’ve talked before about the virtues of journaling for promoting mental well-being, but there’s a slightly different form of writing that has been shown to be especially powerful for helping people recover from traumatic situations and generally “getting out of our own heads.” It’s called expressive writing, and it helps us make better sense of ambiguous or otherwise anxiety-causing thoughts and feelings. Once we make better sense of them, it’s easier to move forward.
It sounds simple because it is! We’ll start this week’s discussion by watching a brief video about the power of expressive writing and how to get started with the practice. From there we’ll reflect on when and how writing/journaling exercises such as this one have (or could have) made a positive impact on our well-being. We might even try a mini-exercise together during the discussion!
Our warm-up question for this week:
Flashbulb memories are vivid, long-lasting memories about a surprising or shocking event from the past. What’s a flashbulb memory from your childhood?
See you soon,
Alex