Solitude Won't Heal Your Life – Talking and Writing Will

How to practically exorcise the demons of your emotions.

Don’t get me wrong. Being alone is wonderful. I’m able to recharge my batteries only when there’s nobody around, and as a mom of two preschoolers, I hunt for moments of solitude just like a hungry cat tracks down its prey. 

Besides, meditation and mindfulness—two powerful antidotes against emotional distress—are best served when one is left in peace. And yet, it’s the (not so ‘sexy’, perhaps) communication between two humans that often yields the mightiest results.

You’ve heard it before. Words are magic. Words heal. But how can that be, when words of other people are typically the very thing that drags us into the stinky waters of pain, self-pity, anger, and shame? 

Let’s simplify the whole thing. We use words to describe something to another person. In order to describe something, we need to first understand it. And here is your key. 

Let me elaborate.

A chair is a chair. But for me to label a piece of woodwork with this word, I need to identify it as such in my head. Now, we don’t describe only pieces of furniture and other worldly objects. We also describe our feelings. And if I’m able to put my feelings into words, I’m able to initiate the process of self-healing.

Each emotion has two components:

ENERGY—which can be used to solve the problem, but which we often turn against ourselves.

INFORMATION—about the nature of the problem and the possible paths to its solution.

An objectively neutral event is followed by our mental evaluation—negative, neutral, or positive—of such event, a thought. 

A thought is a product of our reason—an analytical interpretation of the surrounding reality. And each such thought triggers a physical reaction, a pleasant or unpleasant emotion.

Most of our thoughts instantly branch and form webs of thoughts that permeate all three levels of our mind: conscious (what we’re aware of right now), subconscious (automated processes and information to be retrieved when needed), unconscious (storage of thoughts, feelings, and memories that aren’t under our direct control anymore).

This means that in one moment, these webs of thoughts generate a waterfall of emotions targeting all our body cells. And since each of these emotions carries a specific message, if they’re not heard and understood, they’ll keep broadcasting over and over. Until one unfortunate day, a painful physical illness forces us to listen at last.

Candace Pert, an American neuroscientist and the pioneer in the holistic approach to health, brought forward the idea that the basis for this 'information highway' is chemical substances known as neuropeptides (short chains of amino acids produced by our nerve cells) and their receptors, which are found on other cells of the body. 

Pert even used the term “bodymind” to emphasize that there’s actually no separation between these two. In her most famous book Molecules of Emotions, published in 1997, she says, “I’ve come to believe that virtually all illness, if not psychosomatic in foundation, has a definite psychosomatic component.”

She further explains, “I show how the molecules of emotion run every system in our body, and how this communication system is in effect a demonstration of the body/mind’s intelligence, and intelligence wise enough to seek wellness, and one that can potentially keep us healthy and disease-free without the modern high-tech medical intervention we now rely on”.

This brings us back to words and their healing property. As mentioned before, for me to put something into words, I need to have at least a rough understanding of its nature. So when I get myself in the position of articulating how I feel, my mind is compelled to work double hard. And even if the full comprehension takes quite some time to achieve, I keep sending a favorable signal to my body, “Hey, I may not be there yet, but I’m trying to understand. I’m listening now.” 

And this is where the magic happens.

Neuroscience shows that the simple act of recognizing and labeling our emotions reduces the response of amygdala—the almond-shaped brain structure that regulates our fears—to the negative images in our head.

Practically speaking, we have two wonderful tools at hand. Number one: a good old-fashioned conversation between two human beings. Number two: taking a pen (or a smart pen, keyboard…) in order to channel our thoughts onto a piece of paper (or some sort of screen).

The advantage of the first one is that you’re receiving immediate feedback—both verbal and nonverbal—which naturally drives you to improve both the comprehension and the expression of your thoughts. Clearly, the higher the ability of your listener to remain unbiased and pose well-grounded and meaningful questions, the better for you. However, even a prejudiced, ill-tempered, or impatient opponent offers you plenty of food for chiseling your beliefs.

But you know how it’s with people. They are not always around. And every so often, our energy reserves are drained to the point that talking to another person seems outright painful. Then it’s certainly a good idea to put everything that is happening in our head onto paper. 

Everybody around is recommending journaling as a pathway to your 'abundant self' (yuck). But what does it even mean? Do you really need to sit down and fill some sort of diary with what you’re grateful for, sprinkled with a few fluffy affirmations on top?

Yes, you can, and it can totally help. What I’m trying to say is that you don’t need to follow some established scheme. Just write, and keep writing, until it’s all out. 

What almost always helps to get you going and to empty your mind effortlessly is when you address a specific person or object. You can write to a person you’ve had a conflict with in the past, when it’s uncomfortable or impossible to talk to them in person. You can write to somebody you’ve lost. Likewise, you can write to a fictional character. You can also talk directly to your emotions. Talk to your fear as it was a person. Talk to your sadness, sorrow, or guilt. Like that, you’re expressing yourself in a way that the other gets you for real, which means that you’ve understood yourself, at least partially.

The psychologist James W. Pennebaker has developed a theory that keeping stressful emotions inside you, without sharing them in any form, can influence not only your mental health but also your immune system. He made participants of his study write about their traumatic experiences and found out that the practice relieved their pain, helped them organize their thoughts and brought a better understanding of what had happened to them.

Apart from amplifying the unpleasant emotions by locking them inside, there's another issue. Our consciousness is limited, and our inner reasoning is fragmented. Besides, quite simultaneously, we’re processing an infinite flow of input information from the world around us. So at one moment, the brain is analyzing what’s happening now, what has happened in the past, what will most likely happen in the future, plus finding some meaning around it all. That's just too much to make any sense of only inside our head.

Talking to somebody or writing it all down forces us to create logical connections, develop a coherent narrative and articulate the cause and its effect. The quality of the overall output is dramatically higher. 

I understand myself, I understand the message my emotions have been trying to deliver. And voilà, illness is not needed.