Creativity and Care: Thinking That Touches the Heart - Part 3: Words and Recovery - What Happens When We Speak?

When you are going through a difficult or painful time, putting it into words can be very hard. You might not even understand what you are feeling yourself, or you might feel like you cannot convey it to anyone. Yet, even so, there are moments when people feel a desire to speak.

In this installment, I would like to think about the relationship between words and recovery. Why can speaking lead to healing? Or, when we try to convey something despite an inability to speak, what kind of creativity is at work? I hope we can explore these questions together.

The act of speaking does not necessarily mean talking to someone else. For example, writing in a diary, murmuring to yourself, or exchanging just a few words with someone you trust—these are all ways of taking your experience and putting it outside of yourself for a moment. From there, your feelings and events begin to take shape little by little.

In narrative therapy, it is said that people can re-weave their own stories by speaking about them (*1). In other words, speaking is also the work of giving your past and your emotions a different perspective or a new meaning.

But of course, putting things into words is not easy. The more painful things are, the harder it can be for words to come out, or you might fall into silence. However, I believe that silence is also an important part of expression.

You do not have to force yourself to talk. Searching for words little by little, at a time and in a form that you can manage—that process itself might already be the beginning of healing.

Creation is not necessarily about making something grand; it is about retelling your own experiences in your own way. By doing so, you recover little by little. I would be happy to share this thought with you as you read this text.

Next time, under the theme of "Silence and Creativity," we will consider how the inability to speak and the presence of stillness can become a power for creation. Please look forward to it.

*1: White, M. & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends. Norton.

References

• White, M. & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends. Norton.