Sometimes, we can be overwhelmed by life. We can feel that we ourselves are broken, that we will never be whole, that healing is impossible.
Sometimes, it feels like the ground falls beneath us. Emily Dickinson’s wonderful poem “I Felt a Funeral In my Brain” ends the poem with an image of falling through meaning-making itself:
And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down -
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing - then -
There are times when we feel that we finish knowing, that we are falling down and down and nothing will catch us. I know I have felt that way.
But even in those moments, you are not broken.
How can that be?
When Trauma Disrupts Our Sense of Self
I want to share part of my story and why I do this work of writing to heal. .
When I first began to confront the sexual abuse in my childhood, I was in my mid-thirties; On the surface, my life looked solid. I was an academic. I had studied at Harvard, earned a Ph.D. from Columbia, and was a published poet; I had two healthy wonderful kids.
And yet, I felt like the ground fell out from under me.
Inside, I felt undone; I know longer had access to my own stability, my own sense of identity.
How could something so significant have gone unintegrated for so long? I no longer trusted myself as the narrator of my life.
Trauma often works this way.
When there is something that overwhelms us, we cut it off, we block it to protect ourselves.
But it continues to live in the body, in the nervous system, in the spaces outside of language.
And when it finally surfaces, it can feel as though we ourselves have shattered.
But that experience that at first feels like it is a sign of our brokenness in fact can be a sign of our awakening, a new coming together.
The Wound Is Not the End of the Story
There’s a line often attributed to Rumi—and echoed by Leonard Cohen:“The wound is where the light enters.”
What initially felt like it had torn me apart and broken me became, in time, a place to explore more deeply who I was, what I believed in, and a deeper level of understanding.
It was only by gently looking at and caring for that wound that I was able to understand myself in a deeper way and make peace with myself.
And it was only by looking at that wound that I was able to see my life not just as a series of events, but as a soul journey.
Life throws us difficult situations: it is how we navigate them that determines who we are. We are not what happens to us, but we are the path we make through our experiences.
Our work is to make that path one of understanding, acceptance, peace, kindness, and compassion.
That path, rather than being one of shame, can be one of pride: it is by looking at and making sense of challenges that we grow our courage, our compassion, our understanding—not just of who we are individually, but also of what it means to be a human here on this mysterious, often difficult, very wondrous place called earth.
And for me, that path through was one I was able to discern with the constant companion of writing.
How Writing Helps Heal Trauma
I was trained as an academic. I got high honors from Harvard and a Ph.D. from Columbia in English Literature. I was rewarded for working with my brain and using words. I was a published poet. But none of my academic training prepared me for the curve balls that I experienced.
I needed to come to writing through my body and through my heart.
I needed to find laguage for silence. I needed to look inward, not just outward.
I needed to learn to listen as much as to create.
And when I did these things, the page became a place to witness. The page became a companion and guide. I could try out new things on the page; I could test what felt aligned.
I had safety on the page, and the page was able to form a new story and then hold that story so that my body no longer needed to carry it alone.
This is one of the deepest gifts of mindful writing: it allows the nervous system to settle so that you can step into a new chapter.
Mindful Writing and the Body’s Role in Healing
Trauma occurs in both mind and body, and its story is held in the body. But it can only be released when mind and body come together.
That’s why trauma‑informed writing must include embodied awareness, nervous system support, and practices that allow you to listen, safely, to the messages of your body.
Mindful writing invites us to slow down, to notice sensation, to breathe. It allows us to make space for emotion as we write. When paired with meditation or gentle embodied practices, writing opens up new avenues of self-regulation, and healing.
This approach helps us write about difficult experiences without becoming re‑triggered, and without re‑enacting harm on the page.
And the more we work with this practice, we are able to move from that place of feeling broken to having a new connection to the light itself, we are able to transcend the smaller plane on which we often live and have insight into what connects us all–whether we call that spirit, god, meaning, wonder.
Writing to Heal in Difficult Times
We’re being met by enormous political, social, and environmental challenges.
So many people are facing personal, professional, physical, emotional challenges.
My story is not your story. Each of us carries our own story and our own challenges.
But I do know this: it’s only when we’re rooted in ourselves that we can meet what life offers us.
If you’ve been holding a lot—grief, fear, old pain, stress, uncertainty—I want you to know this: you are not broken. And you don’t have to heal in silence.
You don’t need to be a “writer” to write. All of us have access to language–our use of language, our ability to communicate is part of our humanity.
You just need a willingness to show up honestly on the page.
You don’t need polished language or a finished story. You don’t even need to know what your story is. You can use the page as a place of exploration.
When we know who we are, when we understand our story–when we listen deeply and with care to our own life’s journey– then we can meet life with resilience, courage, and even joy.
To be whole is not to have no wounds. AS humans, we have wounds.
To be whole is the practice of integration, it’s that process of exploration, of bringing mind and body together, of exploring with curiosity.
The root of the word heal comes from the word whole: we heal by being with the full spectrum of light, of experience, of who we are.
And writing, practiced mindfully, can be one of the most powerful tools on that path.
A Gentle Writing Invitation
Write for 10 minutes in response to this question:
What part of me has been asking to be seen? It doesn’t need to be fixed now. It can be witnessed.
Find a safe place and write.
Listen to your body as you write.
Don’t forget to breathe, and bring kindness to yourself in the process.
You might also like to try my Free 5-day mindful writing challenge for healing that takes you on a journey of discovery and healing.