A former teacher and a journalist discovered the help writing can be when she was trying to come to terms with her son’s 27 months deployment as an infantryman in Iraq. This benefit and revelation led Sue Diaz to conducting weekly writing workshops in the US with war veterans.Diaz says: “The heart of each workshop session involves writing together. I offer a prompt – a word, a phrase, an object – to get pens moving. We all write for 20 minutes, then take turns reading aloud what we've written. That part's always optional, but most make that choice. It's a chance not only to be listened to, but in some instances to at long last be heard.”
Read the article to learn how the practice of writing, especially communal writing, helps to confront pain and work through difficulties.
Then write your way to healing and wholeness.
Sue Diaz, ‘To Help Veterans Confront War: Pen and Paper’, CSM, 9 November 2007.
Image: “For Your Sickness and Pain take up a Pen and Paper.”