Do you regularly turn to food or alcohol whenever you’re upset, stressed, angry, tired, bored or sad? Everyone eats and drinks for emotional reasons once in a while, but when you habitually use food or alcohol to manage your emotions rather than dealing directly with what is bothering you, you’d end up suffering from the negative consequences of overeating and over-drinking.
There are many other healthier ways to manage your feelings that can help you to better deal with your life situation. Other than exercise, meditation, visualization and doing conscious relaxation, I’ll share another simple and effective way called free writing to cope with your emotions.
What is free writing?
In free writing, instead of forcing yourself to write, you simply ride on the waves of your thoughts and feelings and let them flow out of you without the slightest resistance. You move your hands quickly and continuously across the medium of your choice, without worrying about spelling, grammar, or style.
Rather than keeping your emotions and thoughts inside, you release them through writing, one word at a time, without the self-censorship that we often do without knowing. You hush your inner critic and take a break from having to be perfect.
At first, you may find yourself scribbling gibberish. That is perfectly fine. Just go with the flow and transcribe the content of your mind faithfully until they run out. You will be surprised that unconscious thoughts and insights will slowly take shape, and answers to your problems can often be found in your own words.
How to write without inhibitions
For free writing to work its magic, you need to give yourself ample time to pen down your thoughts continuously without interruption. I usually take about 10 to 15 minutes to type out my thoughts non-stop. You may need more or less time. Use the medium which you are most comfortable with, be it a computer, a pen and a notepad, some loose sheets of paper or even a stack of napkins. The more practices you have, the easier it will be for you to put down your thoughts.
If you have difficulty writing the first sentence, try by describing how you feel (“I am feeling nervous because…”) or recounting the event that led to your present feeling (“Mum called this morning saying…”). Then take off from there. It is crucial not to stop at any point to read or edit your words, as your flow of thoughts will be interrupted and your inner critic will begin to take over.
When you have finished writing, you can choose to edit what you have written and continue from there; extract the important insights that have emerged and use them to deal with whatever is bothering you; or shred it away so that no one else will see it.
Useful applications
When you have acquired the habit of free writing, you’ll find that you can use it in many other ways. Here are some other possible applications:
Real-life Uses of Free Writing
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Clear creativity blocks. Free writing has been used extensively by writers to clear the proverbial writer’s block. But, it is not limited to writing. Painters and artists have also been using the same method to get over the blank canvas syndrome and re-connect with their creative energy by free painting or drawing.
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Brainstorm for ideas. You can use this method individually or in a group setting. By removing the fear of appearing silly or stupid, free writing allows you to unleash your ideas more readily.
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Improve learning. You can use free writing to help you recap what you have learned by writing down everything that you can remember about a subject matter. Not only will you improve your memory this way, you can also quickly spot the missing gaps in your understanding of the subject.
Give free writing a try
Here’s a chance to give free writing a try. Use the online notepad below to type anything that comes into your mind. Problems, concerns, joy, observations, anything. It’s completely private (just make sure no one is peeping over your shoulder!) because no one will see it, including me, since there is no button for you to submit, save one to erase everything that you have typed.
(But if you do want to keep whatever you have typed below, be sure to select the text and copied it to your favorite editor before closing the browser window.)
Remember the rules: Move your hands as quickly as you can, no stopping to read what you have written, and definitely no editing! Allow yourself to be imperfect for once!
Have fun!
