Journaling from heartache

Journaling from heartache for clarity, freedom and hope


Do you journal? Or do you want to, but aren’t sure how to start? Perhaps your mind is muddled with all that life has thrown at you. The days are long, tedious, and your current heartache has brought you to a place of despair.

In all the murkiness, it’s hard to see the benefits that writing can have on your life. Yet, writing is a beautiful tool and used often, it can alleviate some of the confusion that plays in your mind and heart. By incorporating writing into your daily routine, you will see what a healthy life-sustaining activity it is. All you need is time, a pen and a journal.

First off, writing brings clarity. When you place a few lines about your situation or your emotions down on paper, you are then able to clarify what’s transpiring inside. While your thoughts might be a mass of uncertainty as you go about your day-to-day responsibilities, seeing your written words produces lucidity. From there you can ponder upon what is going on, how you feel and what you want to happen. Emotions can be bottled, but pouring them out onto paper unleashes them so that your journal can carry them for you. Sometimes reading your very words brings a better knowledge of what your real situation is about. Writing allows you to state your struggles black on white.

Writing produces freedom. If you can write with honesty (your mother or English teacher is not looking over your shoulder to censor what you want to say) and let your unfiltered words onto the page, there is freedom. I recall how freeing it was to set a time each day to write what I wanted. My four-year-old son had just died and there were days that putting one foot in front of the other was all I could do. Yet, my mind was a constant stage of emotions, anguish and yearning. Knowing that my journal greeted me at the end of each day was like meeting with an old friend. I wrote with abandonment, without editing and without worry that anyone would read my words. And yes, some of what I wrote was downright truthful and not nice, but it sure freed me.

Writing shares hope. As you see growth in your writing and in the situations you are dealing with, you can choose to let others know what you have learned. Much of our heartache is like bleeding on paper. Yet, in time, we might cultivate our thoughts and actually produce an article or poem to share. One person’s pain and what she has learned from her journal entries, can transform into an article about how to help someone else going through a divorce, death, illness or job loss. While journals are private, what we choose to share can profit the lives of others. Like leaves on a wet path, your journey can have portions of beauty others can glean from and claim as their own.

Let writing unveil its benefits to you as you embrace it as a tool for clarity, freedom and hope!

~ Alice J. Wisler would love for you to join her new wriitng course, Journey Through Life's Losses. Sign up today.

Write with us!

August 21 is a significant date. It's the day that my son Daniel was due. He didn't arrive that day. He clung to the womb and waited another four days, pressing heavily against my sciatic nerve. When he was born on the 25th---a healthy nearly ten pound baby---all my pain went away. Joy and excitement filled my heart.

Four years later, the pain would be back---a different pain---consuming me both physically and emotionally. On February 2, 1997, Daniel left Earth for a journey to Heaven. His body had weakened due to a small blue cell tumor, and from all the treatments involved to rid his little body of it.

This year on the 21st, the second Writing the Heartache All Day Workshop will be held. I'm looking forward to welcoming all who join us to write through the funny memories as well as the painful ones. I anticipate hearing the stories of each participant as we write poetry, essays, letters, and learn how to cope with sorrow. We'll learn to write from mementoes and photographs. We'll see the value of journaling and writing for publication and advocacy.

Please head over to my website to read more about the day and to register for the course.

I hope to see you there!