Attended a workshop – listened to Dr Pennebaker speak …

Hey everyone,

On the weekend I attended a workshop which was held in the USA and I had to stay up until 1-2am in the morning to be present. I did this, it was exhausting. I did this though as I wanted to hear James Pennebaker speak about his research about writing therapy.

He was a pioneer of researching whether writing things down helped people, and he did some studies in the 1980s that led to some amazing discoveries. The findings were that people reported few visits to hospital, counsellors, doctors, few absenteeism from work, better university grades, release from emotional pain and release from a traumatic occurrence.

Years ago, I went through a very bad thing in my life, my ex husband attacked me physically – around my neck and I left him. It was 18 years ago but I have often not stated what this was, but now I wonder why did I do this?

Anyway, it was traumatic and I was seeing it over and over in my head, until one night I decided to write it down as it happened and how I felt about it. When I did this it completely disappeared. This is how I know writing therapy works. I have been practicing it for years since, 2007 and researching it on and off over this time. I have done workshops with others and I have seen its power time and again.

Anyway, it was so cool to see James Pennebaker the original researcher and hear him talk about everything and his findings. He also told us a new addition to writing therapy he came up with was writing your words in the air. If you don’t have paper or pen – we did it as an exercise and it was very effective – I really liked it. I feel that you are more succinct and straight to the point, so if you are ever feeling massive feelings, and you don’t have a paper and pen, then using your finger and do some finger painting in the air! It’s more about the words you are using that creates the healing and release.

It was absolutely amazing to be part of this seminar and workshop and I learnt a lot. I will check out the other workshops as well when I can see the recording.

Thanks for reading. Have a beautiful day! Suz