Working through the fear (part 2): increasing happiness and hope

Sessions three and four of the classic four-day expressive writing exercise also took me by surprise. (See blog #2: “Working through the fear: diminishing sadness” for a description of my experience of the first two sessions.)

Session three — looking at the same event from different perspectives — made me feel sadder and more upset about it during the writing, but it didn't overwhelm me. Three significant issues came to the surface. I’d felt them before when thinking or talking about this, so I wasn't surprised.

Thinking of it from a particular person’s perspective was new. It was informative and helpful to see the incident from different angles and explore what might have been going on with the adults.

Things got interesting during session four’s exercise of focusing on the future. This helped me acknowledge some sadness, anger, and loss, and made me feel hopeful. It also helped me see some self-doubt quite clearly. When I wrote, “I’d like to be able to say and really believe that I did my best despite everything that held me back,” I had a strong physical reaction that made it clear I’m not there yet.

However, after re-reading the entry a few weeks later, I noticed I was getting closer.

Therapeutic writing — the classic four-day exercise, and the pronoun shift I dabbled with earlier (See blog #1: “My third encounter with therapeutic writing”) — amazed me. Being able to take a close look at this difficult event from my childhood and being able to explore it in depth without becoming debilitated, was a first.

At the end of the fourth session, my sadness had diminished even more, and my feeling-happy rating rose from zero to two. Actually being able to feel some happiness seconds after writing about something so sad and previously impossible to process amazed me.

The optimism and hope I felt that day continues to linger and keeps me more focused and productive.