It Can Be a Tool for Storytelling – and Self-Discovery

Sharing stories is a great way to build a community of like-minded people. Hearing or reading a story about a life-transforming, personal experience also holds the power to transform your life. How many times have you heard or read a story that helped move you through a life challenge? Writing is a self-discovery tool for the reader and the writer. 

Many people mistakenly think that writing is only for those who are “creative,” whatever that even means. But writing isn’t only for publishing. Most importantly, it is a way to explore and reach into areas of the psyche that aren’t evident on the surface. Writing is a basic tool of self-discovery that illuminates the experience of inner exploration and insight.

The Transformative Path of Writing for Self-Discovery

A classic guide to what it means to write at any level is Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within. This book is a great place to begin any writing journey. Goldberg’s approach is aimed at uncovering the inner life. Her process invites the reader to write whatever comes to mind for a set period of time each day, perhaps 20-30 minutes. This stream-of-consciousness type of writing bypasses your inner editor.

The inner editor is the part of you that says, “This isn’t good enough!” even before the words come out. Then shouts, “Fix that last sentence before you scribble another word!” Suspending that part of you as much as possible is the aim of Goldberg’s book.

This stream-of-consciousness writing process often uncovers a hidden, secret world inside that you might not even realize is there. We all have a need to express that deep part of ourselves in some form. Writing is one of the more accessible ways to get at it. All it takes is something to write with – either a keyboard or a paper and pen.

When Writing for Self-Discovery, Slow Down and Listen

Goldberg’s book has sold over a million copies and been translated into many languages. It speaks to a part of each of us that goes unheard in the bustle of modern life. It asks us to slow down, listen to our inner voice, and go with the flow of impressions and phrases that, with practice, become increasingly accessible.

Other classic books on writing, like Dorothea Brande’s Becoming a Writer and Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life also advocate their own forms of unedited free association to get this “flow” going.

Once you’ve written down something, they all advocate putting what you’ve written away and emphatically not trying to edit or make sense of it right away. Save that for later. Your inner voice has spoken. It has come alive and has been heard for a little while. It doesn’t want to be judged right away. Give it some breathing room.

This is the spirit of my own writing. I write my personal stories about my health and life journey for self-discovery as well as for communication. Being professional or polished are not prerequisites for getting out a first draft of anything.

An Invitation: Write Something for This Website

So, I ask you to submit something about your own journey to this website that you have found useful in navigating life. Your contributions are as anonymous as you want them to be. Be honest and write from your heart. It could be an insightful lesson about life, a practical life solution that works for you, or something you’ve come across or observed that made an impression on you. Send your thoughts directly to me at Info@RonKastner.com.

Allow that hidden, spontaneous part of you to safely express itself. Go ahead, give it a try! You’ve got nothing to lose and so much to gain.

This quote might help inspire you. In her classic essay “Of Power and Time” in the collection Blue Pastures, Mary Oliver wrote:

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave it neither power nor time.”

P.S. Overcoming Resistance and Inertia

I probably have thousands of journal pages, written on paper or computer, that will never be seen. In many cases, they are my way of just spending time capturing whatever’s on my mind, usually in the morning. The words usually reveal something or lead to something I hadn’t been aware of. In some cases, I find an answer I had been searching for or the inspiration to write something new.

In many cases, the words on those pages are simply my way of sorting through the myriad issues of life by giving full expression to them. I find that if I slow down and listen to my internal world and give honest, unedited expression to it things become clearer. This method is usually the way I write a first draft of anything. Writing is like any other form of self-expression, self-discovery, or self-improvement.

As Steven Pressman points out in The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, two common nemeses for any activity are resistance and inertia. This seemingly powerful tag team is responsible for keeping us from doing, to quote Pressman, “Any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health or integrity … any act that derives from our higher nature instead of our lower.”

All we need for inertia to recede is to act. Writing down some of our deepest thoughts (without letting our inner editor stonewall us) gives us an easy, nonjudgmental, way to begin the journey of self-discovery.

Again, I invite you to write a bit about your own journey and send it to Info@RonKastner.com. I look forward to reading your thoughts!