Writing as Therapy Journal

Our un-thought thoughts contain clues as to our needs and our longer-term direction. Writing them out is key. Through writing, we recognize patterns to observe and, perhaps, outgrow. We can strategize – a remarkably neglected task. We can ask ourselves why we make the choices we do. We can question faulty narratives and create new ones. We can consider ideas before we commit to them, and reinforce good ideas we already know.

Every good life should be rich in projects: new approaches to how to get things done. Our projects might be for novels, businesses, film scripts, children, trips, home decoration schemes or political ambitions. What unites all projects is that they need a safe initial place to germinate, somewhere with a lot of space and calm, where no one will laugh or ask the wrong sort of questions, and where first thoughts can be carefully built up into the robust proposals that the world will one day require of us.

Writing helps – as do diagrams, charts, lists, under-linings, spidery connecting arrows and pages of liberating crossings out. Our minds get in the mood at surprising moments. Our projects are a chance to externalise what’s good inside us: things like creativity, rigour, wit, elegance – things developing in us that not everyone can see yet. A project is a statement of faith in the possibilities of our own growth.