I have a friend, or had – she moved away a few years ago – who told me that her worst fear was to have to write something and share it with others. I tried to arrange a fun writing night with a writing teacher I knew. Everybody would show up, she would lead us through some prompts, we’d each write an account of a childhood memory, and we’d all leave with a story of a certain moment of our lives that was worth remembering. “Oh, no,” she said. “You don’t understand. There is no way I would ever in a million years do that. I just can’t write.” “But…“ I started. “Don’t even invite me,” she said. “I won’t come.” We all can write, even if we don’t often choose to. Even if it’s only a shopping list
As a therapist, I used to urge clients to write – to express feelings, to sort out experience in order to find meaning, to hear themselves think, to figure out what they wanted, to get to the root of their pain. I would urge myself to write too, as I knew that every day I came across an amazing assortment of dilemmas, heartaches, crises, and unsolvable problems that people managed to stand up to. I found I couldn’t write then, for very long at least. Career, parenting, real life was too much for me to set aside. I marveled at therapists who could – Harriet Lerner (The Dance books - …of Anger, of Connection, of Fear) and Mary Pipher (Reviving Ophelia, The Shelter of Each Other) managed brill
