Learning how to express yourself and your feelings can be an excellent technique to live a more fulfilling and authentic life. By expressing yourself, you can release emotions and can firmly believe in yourself thus building a life worth living.
If you have never thought of expressing your feelings through writing, the best way to begin is by writing a letter to yourself. To make it easier since it’s your first time, pretend to be writing to a confidential friend whom you trust. As silly as it may sound, a letter to yourself allows you to explore your feelings and thoughts. It doesn’t always have to be professional. Sometimes it’s only an expression of oneself through words. When stressed, I write to express my sadness, happiness, thoughts, stress, and anger and by the end of my writing, the burden is lifted.
Writing Releases Stress
Writing helps in expressing your anger. By pinning it down and crumbling it away, it helps to let go of those things making you angry.
The best way to handle your anger is by expressing it on a paper. School can be overwhelming, but you can have a big relief by only sitting down and jotting what you feel. It sure helps you feel relaxed.
When I am stressed, I take a paper and write all that is going in my mind. I write how I am not satisfied with myself, how someone hurt me, how I am demotivated, how I miss someone and so on. Essentially, I don’t think of big words to express my feelings, but I write my thought as they roll down in my mind. In the end, I feel free like a weight has been lifted off my shoulder.
You Can Create a Great Story
Putting your thoughts in a paper is incredible because you can come up with a great story out of it. The best book, movie, and songs came from jotting what’s in mind. A while back I came across an article by Susan K. Perry, the author of “Writing in Flow: Keys to Enhanced Creativity” she explained that the best way to come up with a story, is by exploring your memory and consider some questions such as “when did you feel most confused or afraid? Regardless of the situation, you have been in, write it up! When did I feel angry, sad, embarrassed and shame?” For each question, write a paragraph, and without realizing it, you have a whole book.
Once you choose not to think about it and to write, everything falls in place as it is supposed to. You see, sometimes I write because I would love to be a great author someday, but the biggest reason I love writing is that it’s the most fulfilling stress reliever.
Expressing Yourself Through Writing Gives You Power Over Your Emotions
As you express your emotions, also write down how you would wish to handle every situation. For instance, if during the day you saw something that made you sad such as a lost animal or someone in distress, start it off and write how your body responded physically. Make it as graphic and as raw as you like. Don’t edit yourself.
This way, you learn to translate your emotions from an edited raw state into something productive. The best thing about writing is that you won’t get in trouble or hurt others in the process of healing. For example, there is no screaming at people telling them how you hate them. You only express how you feel on a paper with no destructive consequences. When I want to deal with such kind of emotions, I write them in my journals in phrases like this, “When my folks bellow at me, I feel outraged.
This way, you get to feel and deal with your emotions without allowing them to have any power over you.
Conclusion
One of the valuable tools to deal with emotions is being able to understand and express them (assuming they aren’t giving you peace). Thus, find a perfect quiet place to examine your feelings as you write them down since it’s great therapy to clear them out of your mind. You won’t regret spending some time from your busy schedule just to write about how you feel. In the end, you will have more insight on how to deal with frustration, sadness or stress and the understanding of how they manifest. Also, the ability to articulate your feelings is crucial as it helps you to understand yourself and know how to interact with the world.
I just hope that after reading the article you will consider taking your pen and paper and relieve stress off your mind. Go forth, and express your way!
Jeff Blaylock has been a seasoned content contributor at EssayOnTime, blogger and author. For those who would wish to put their feeling out there through writing, he does the final touches to make the piece look incredible. He is a great writer by the day and a reader by night.
Image courtesy of Lonely Planet.
