[2023-01-09] Writing is like a mirror

At the suggestion of a friend, I started watching Jonah Hill's film Stutz, which is a documentary about his psychiatrist, Phil Stutz.

Early in the film, Dr. Stutz talks about three relationships you have, namely your relationship with:
  • Your body
  • Other people
  • Yourself
To develop a relationship with yourself, Dr. Stutz recommends that you "activate" your unconscious through writing, which he calls "a magical thing." He explains:

You enhance your relationship with yourself by writing. Some people say, "Well, write what? I'm not interesting. I'm not a writer." It doesn't matter. If you start to write, the writing is like a mirror. It reflects what's going on in your unconscious, and things will come out if you write in journal form that you didn't know that you knew.

Since seeing this part of the film a few days ago, I've told several people about it, including a friend whom I met for coffee today. As we talked about our lives and our success in overcoming early challenges, I credited my profuse journal writing in my late teens and early twenties for my ability to process emotions and build my self-esteem.

I would spend entire weekends reading and writing. One of the books I read that inspired many writing sessions was The New Diary: How to use a journal for self-guidance and expanded creativity. As I've written before, author Tristine Rainer defined the New Diary this way:

[T]he New Diary is a practical psychological tool that enables you to express feelings without inhibition, recognize and alter self-defeating habits of mind, and come to know and accept that self which is you. It is a sanctuary where all the disparate elements of life—feelings, thoughts, dreams, hopes, fears, fantasies, practicalities, worries, facts, and intuitions—can merge to give you a sense of wholeness and coherence.

Through my writing, I recognized erroneous beliefs I had about myself, and I came to know and accept myself—a process that continues to this day because who I am is always changing.

Rainer identified a broad range of therapeutic and creative benefits of keeping a journal, including:
  • a healthy way to express feelings and release tensions,
  • an opportunity to nourish yourself with friendship and self-acceptance,
  • a path to self-awareness,
  • a place to find creative solutions to problems,
  • a means to enjoy solitude,
  • an approach to gain perspective on your emotions and to resolve the past,
  • a home to preserve family and personal history, and
  • a workbook for creative writing.
For me, journaling not only did all these things but also laid the foundation for my blogging later in life, especially in Jenesis. Chronicling my cancer journey has been just as therapeutic as the writing I did 35 years ago.

As Dr. Stutz indicated, writing is a mirror that reflects what I feel, think and believe. It allows me to acknowledge and address the lows, and to see and celebrate the highs. And it guides me on my quest to know and love myself.