Body and Soul

I have begun working with a group called Transcending Cancer, teaching writing as a tool for healing. In fact, I’ll be offering a three-part class called You Are the Author of Your Life starting today (September 2). I look forward to working with these students, though I have not done any research into the healing power of writing, if there have been any studies on it, any papers written about it. I’m taking it rather on faith that what’s good for the heart and soul is good for the body.

Why do I think – or, rather know – that writing is good for the heart and soul? Because of how I feel when I do it. Because of how I feel after I’ve done it. Because of how I feel when I’ve got a new idea that I want to write about. Also because of how I feel when I don’t have an idea to write about, or how I used to feel when I’d try to make myself write something I wasn’t much interested in writing, to say nothing of how I felt when I’d think no one would be interested in what I’d written, or that nothing in my life was changing, or that the publishing world was some great gated community I had to somehow infiltrate.

I’ve never had cancer, but I’ve been sick. There’s a lot I don’t like about being sick, but the first thing I don’t like is how I feel. When I’m sick, the people I love will ask me how I’m feeling and I’ll tell them and they’ll say, “Oh, I’m sorry.” No one wants to feel bad. Ever. No one wants to be depressed and hopeless and no one wants to be sick.

I don’t know how the body heals, and doctors don’t really either. That is, they don’t know why one person takes a treatment and recovers and another doesn’t. That’s okay. Many bodies heal nonetheless. What I do know how to do, however, is feel better. Writing taught me that. I can’t write and feel bad. It’s impossible. The writing only starts once I stop beating myself up and doubting and worrying and despairing. It’s a choice I have to make at the blank page. I choose what I care about, choose the thoughts I want to pursue, the direction I want to travel. I choose these directions based on how it feels to follow them. This is my only dependable guide, and it has never led me astray.

When that guide is leading me somewhere new and interesting, when I’ve gotten up a good head of writing steam and am feeling carried by a story’s momentum, I feel as good as I can possibly feel. When I’m feeling that good, I can’t tell the difference between my heart and soul and my body. When I’m feeling that good, it’s all the same thing, one happily humming integrated whole. That’s life as it was meant to be led, everything from top to bottom, inside and out, come together in service to something I call myself.

If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual coaching and group workshops.

Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt
You can find William at: williamkenower.com