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Writing for Resilience – a conversation with Jennifer Wright
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When things are getting a bit too much, the process of writing your thoughts down on paper can help build resilience and create a real way forward.
Jennifer Wright is an executive coach and book architect. She helps people to use writing to deal with challenges or, craft books that aid their careers.
In this episode of Fit For My Age, Jennifer and host Michael Millward discuss the process of writing, the challenges involved and the value of the outcomes.
No matter how difficult the situation Jennifer believes that writing provides a way of structuring thoughts and emotions in a way that can provide both clarity and perspective.
They discuss the value of writing regularly as a
- Part of mental health management,
- Method of processing trauma
- Way to structure reflection and gain perspective
- Learning experience
- Resilience building strategy
Listening to this episode will provide you with an insight into a straightforward and productive way of managing your thoughts and experiences. You will build resilience and understand how you can better deal with all sorts of challenges.
Find out more about Jennifer Wright and Michael Millward at Abeceder.co.uk.
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Transcript
Introduction to Zencastr and Fit for My Age
00:00:05
Speaker
Made on Zencastr. Because Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform that really does make every stage of the podcast production process so easy.
00:00:16
Speaker
Use the link in the description. It has a built-in discount. Hello and welcome to Fit for My Age, the health and well-being podcast from Abysida.
00:00:28
Speaker
I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abysida. Today i am finding out about how writing can improve both our mental health and our physical performance from Jennifer Wright who is an author and author coach.
The Benefits of Ultimate Travel Club
00:00:44
Speaker
Jennifer is based in Alabama. I have never been to Alabama but if I ever do get the chance to go I will make my travel arrangements at the Ultimate Travel Club because as a member of the Ultimate Travel Club I travel at trade prices on flights, hotels, trains and so many more travel related purchases.
Purpose of Fit for My Age Podcast
00:01:07
Speaker
You can as well use the link in the description. It has a membership discount. Now that I have paid some bills, it is time to make an episode of Fit For My Age that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to. One that will also be worth telling your friends, family and work colleagues about.
00:01:30
Speaker
Very importantly on Fit For My Age, we do not tell you what to think, but we do hope to make you think.
Jennifer Wright's Journey to Author Coaching
00:01:37
Speaker
Hello, Jennifer. Hi there. How are you doing today?
00:01:41
Speaker
am doing very well. Thank you. How are you? I am brilliant. Thank you very much. Could we start, please, by you explaining about your career, how you became an author and an author coach?
00:01:51
Speaker
I have spent most of my career in corporate. However, i have been a writer, it seems like all my life. I started writing really from the time that I could write.
00:02:06
Speaker
and always, i wrote stories. I wrote lots of, you know, essay stories, poems when I was younger. and then as i got older,
00:02:20
Speaker
You know, career started kind of taking over and it became more of a hobby. But I always felt like there was something that I needed to do with it.
00:02:32
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So several years ago, I became a freelance copywriter. hmm. And i enjoyed that until, you know, the corporate pulled me back in But it was always something that I kept doing.
00:02:45
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And then a friend of mine approached me about 10 years ago and asked me to help her write a book. I didn't know how to write a book. And she didn't either. But we worked on it together. and We figured it out. And we got her book written. And we got it published. nice About five years ago, she approached me again and asked me to help her write her second book.
00:03:07
Speaker
And then after that, other people just started showing up and I thought, you know, I think there might be something
The Cognitive Benefits of Writing
00:03:12
Speaker
to this. I think this this might be something I can help people do. So I just spent the last five or six years really learning about the publishing industry and learning about how to put books together and how to create them and how to create the content.
00:03:32
Speaker
It has been just a very joyful thing to do and very joyful in helping others really figure out how to share their voices. It sounds like you turned a hobby in into an income. I have, yeah. And I'm really loving it. I can tell. We are going to be talking about this idea of how writing can improve your mental health and your physical performance. And I thought, what's the basis of the science that means that that happens?
00:04:06
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Where this really kind of started for me was I have always known that for myself, I do better in writing when I'm writing pen to paper.
00:04:19
Speaker
Even though i have created a lot of things, you know, writing on the keyboard, there's something that happens differently in my brain when I'm writing pen to paper. I can be more creative I agree with you. There is something that is very different because I write a lot as well. And when you sit there in probably not the right position for writing or sitting in all sorts of different places, but there there's something different about yes putting the ink on the paper that is different to pressing a keyboard.
00:04:53
Speaker
Exactly. But I didn't really know what it was. I got very interested in the idea of using writing as meditation, a calming tool, as something to help you process feelings and emotions. I had the opportunity to do some talks with some mental health groups. And I really started digging into what was kind of behind that.
00:05:23
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And i just, what I've discovered has been fascinating. And I know there's a ton more that I haven't uncovered yet. There have been a number of studies over the years that have shown how writing really kind of lights up the brain. So there was a study a few years ago where they took subjects and they did brain scans on them while they were writing, pen to paper writing, and the entire brain lit up.
00:05:55
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Like every single part of the brain lit up in these brain scans while they were writing. They've discovered that it helps writing, physical writing helps memory.
Writing as a Tool for Problem Solving
00:06:10
Speaker
It helps cognition. It helps um even things like helps you to spell better and helps you to not only... and We've always heard that the more you read, the more you understand what you read. Writing can actually help you understand what you read as well because it's creating those neural pathways that help you learn more.
00:06:35
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It's just become... Fascinating to uncover all the different things that we can see happening when we're actually physically writing.
00:06:49
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When you talk about these neuro pathways, I suppose what you mean is that the brain is learning yes as a result of the writing.
00:06:59
Speaker
In order to write, you have to think about what you're going to write and then write it. But because you write, you read, you get better at it the more that you do it. But that's because...
00:07:10
Speaker
If I'm understanding you correctly, your brain is learning the science, the process of structuring thoughts in the written form. Right. And it it also helps. And I know specifically for me, when I'm trying to solve a problem or when I'm trying to be innovative, you know, come up with with something new, I use...
00:07:36
Speaker
These big pads of paper. In the US s size, it's 11 by 17 inch paper. it's It's big pieces of paper. In Europe, we would call that a three Okay.
00:07:48
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I use those big pieces of paper and I write and draw my thoughts out. And I have found that when I'm doing that, I make bullet lists and I make lists and write down ideas and and do process maps and different pieces of information. And when I do that, I actually can come to a solution much quicker. And I would even say probably even a better solution when I take that approach.
00:08:21
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So there's so many different ways that you can use this. pen to paper to help you, whether you're brainstorming or solutioning or coming up with new ideas. I do it when I'm, when I'm working with clients and they're working on ideas for their book or for myself, when I'm coming up with ideas for, for writing, you know, putting the, writing them out actually helps my brain create
00:08:55
Speaker
more and better stuff. It's the process of writing it down that helps you to structure what it is that you want to say. If you're planning it, then you're you're developing that logical order to the story, which must also have an impact on your own thought processes. So You start off at the beginning, you know how you want it to end, and you're planning out all the different ways that it could end. Then you're training your brain to think things through in a logical order as well, which it's when the logic is removed from your internal conversations. It's one of those things where the emotion and the lack of logic um can make tiny issues seem so much more important than they actually are. And it's when you apply the logic to them that things start to be put put back into proportion again.
00:09:50
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And that's a great point because, or a couple of studies that I was reading looked at writing and trauma and PTSD. They are finding that for people who have experienced trauma, and let's face it, we have all experienced trauma in our lives in some way or another,
00:10:13
Speaker
ah for But for people who have experienced trauma, physical writing can actually help them to process the trauma. Yes. Without wrapping so much of the emotion around it that they might do if they're trying to talk about it.
00:10:30
Speaker
So you can actually sort of separate the emotion from it. In a lot of cases, not ah not all the time, but in a lot of cases, you can separate the emotion from it when you're actually writing about it as opposed to speaking about it.
00:10:46
Speaker
Yes, I can see what you mean with that, because I think if you have had a traumatic experience and you are trying to talk to someone about it, then part of you almost is probably thinking, how do I say this? What tone of voice do I have to have in order to make sure that the person gets the right message?
00:11:11
Speaker
Right. And yet when you when you write it down, <unk>s it's on the page. You don't need to worry about those sort of nuances in your voice that might create the impression that, well, the trauma wasn't really anything at all.
00:11:28
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they're not their reaction isn't what I would expect someone who's been through that to actually have. So it's a colder type of thing. Although the process of writing about something that is traumatic is very emotional, the actual finished item can be quite cold as well.
00:11:48
Speaker
Yes. Because I know that very often being an ah HR ah professional and talking to people who are like really annoyed about something at work And you'd say, they'll be saying, you know, when he comes in, I'm going to tell him when he comes in, I'm going to tell him. And you say, please don't calm down. Let's just write down all the things that have annoyed you about this situation.
00:12:10
Speaker
And then once they've written it down, The thing is like something and nothing, isn't it? Let's just have a conversation about it. And the list gets torn up and is is in the bin because they've written it down. They've released the emotion.
00:12:25
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That process seems to put everything into perspective and they're ready to move on again.
Emotional and Mental Health Through Writing
00:12:32
Speaker
You know, I've used a similar approach before in coaching people. And I ask them to write an email, but not send it. Yes.
00:12:43
Speaker
Like sit on it for a night or a weekend. And then when you come back into the office and read it again. Yeah. and see you know where you are at that at that point. And once you kind of separate yourself from the emotion of it, then it's much easier to then deal with yes once you've given it a little bit of time. But when you're in the moment, you gi can get it out.
00:13:12
Speaker
You're just not acting on it with the other person yet. Yes. We often talk about you need to address these types of things in a logical way.
00:13:23
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If you forget about the logic, the only thing that is left is the emotion. Right. And when you deal with the situation emotionally, you can say the wrong thing in the wrong way, the right thing in the wrong way.
00:13:36
Speaker
There's so many things that can go wrong. It's not worth thinking about really, but so many things that can go wrong. Getting the emotion out of the way then means that you have given yourself the space and the time to think about things in a more constructive way. And I like what you say about write it and leave it in your drafts box overnight.
00:14:01
Speaker
That means you've you've got rid of that emotion before you go home and you can get on with home life rather than still be worried about what's happening at work.
00:14:13
Speaker
Right. Yeah. it's ah and And yet it's so simple, isn't it? It's such a simple strategy to adopt. Right. That why don't more people do it?
00:14:25
Speaker
Well, I do. We're emotional beings. You know, I think we do get wrapped up in the emotion sometimes and we act on them. You know, then we look back and we think, I should have said that differently or should have done that, you know, taken a different approach.
00:14:42
Speaker
Yes. you know, just giving yourself time to process it can be helpful. Yes, it's almost, I get the the feeling that many people who've followed your idea, like write the email, put it in the draft, sleep on it, have walked back into the office, looked at the email and gone, I'm so glad I didn't send that. Right? Right.
00:15:04
Speaker
So glad I didn't say that. But I do like the idea as well that actually journaling, i think is the the way it's described nowadays. Journaling about your day helps you to understand what it is you have done, what you have learned about the good things and the bad things and what it is that you you don't want to be doing again or even help you identify how you could do things better. I think that's one of the underrated aspects of of writing as well.
00:15:37
Speaker
I agree. And I also believe that for anyone who wants to become a better writer, that is one of the very best ways to do it. Having a regular practice of writing, it doesn't even matter what you're writing about.
00:15:54
Speaker
just a regular practice of writing. So you can be journaling about your day. You can be writing stories. You can be writing poems. Whatever it is that that comes to you actually can can help you create a, become a better writer.
00:16:15
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But to your point, the ability to process what has happened And it's almost like what we were saying before, you you can separate your thought processes from your emotions of what's happening.
00:16:31
Speaker
And I think it's a great way to problem solve and brainstorm and just create ideas. Yeah. The creation of ideas i think is is one of the outputs of the writing process um if someone is new to this sort of idea how would you to advise them to get started i think one of the best ways to do it is through writing prompts what's a writing prompt
00:17:04
Speaker
What happens when people sit down to write if they're not if they don't have a practice of
Overcoming Writing Challenges
00:17:10
Speaker
doing it? They sit down and they say, I don't know what to write about.
00:17:16
Speaker
And then they it intimidates them and they may not do it anymore. Or they may not try anymore. Writing prompts actually give you something to write about.
00:17:28
Speaker
You can go out on the internet and you can search for writing prompts and you can find thousands of writing prompts. There are books out there. I actually have a book of writing prompts. It can be anything as simple as write about your first job.
00:17:43
Speaker
Write about the color red. That's an interesting question. Yeah. Or... Write about something that you have a lot of difficulty doing or something that you absolutely love doing.
00:18:00
Speaker
So you you just find all of these different, they're they're just idea starters. They're usually one sentence. idea starters that just get you started. The other thing that I do, and this is what I've done in my book. So, so my book is a, it's a writing journal. It's a 90 day writing journal.
00:18:20
Speaker
And each day you have a writing prompt, you have a word of the day and all of the words are high vibration words, like very positive words. right And you have a gratitude.
00:18:35
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And you have a choice on that day to write about any of those three things or anything else that comes to you. But it gives you three things that you can choose to write about in case you're sitting down to write and you're not sure what to write about.
00:18:50
Speaker
You get these ideas. And there are some there are some writers out there. So one of my very favorite writers is Natalie Goldberg. She writes about the act of writing.
00:19:01
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She'll say things like, use a word to help get you started. Like, I don't like, and then finish it.
00:19:12
Speaker
Or, i find this difficult, and then finish it. So it's just something to get you started. So if you've never done it before and you're uncomfortable with it, writing prompts can be a great way to get started.
00:19:25
Speaker
It sounds like a way out of writer's block. and Yes. I suppose there's an irony in sitting down to write for the first time and realizing that you've got writer's block on the first attempt. But it can be very intimidating because a lot of us are perfectionists and we're afraid someone's going to read what we wrote and we want it to be really good when they do. One of the things that you see in auctions sometimes is the original manuscript of some section of a famous book.
00:20:00
Speaker
And the original manuscript has got spelling mistakes and bits crossed out and then put back in again. There is this assumption, I suppose, that yes we have to be perfect.
00:20:12
Speaker
And yet no writer ever is. And also one of the things that you mentioned there, which made me realize, ah, the assumption that because we've written it, yes it's going to be read by someone else.
00:20:26
Speaker
You're not writing for publication. You're writing for your for yourself. It takes a little bit, I think, sometimes for people to get themselves into that headspace. Because that's at that when I'm talking to...
00:20:44
Speaker
People who say they want to write and I'm asking them why they don't. That's one of the things that they say is they're, you know, they're afraid of being judged. They're afraid of telling their story because someone's going to have something to say about it.
00:21:00
Speaker
And I think a little bit of that goes to social media now because everyone has comments on, you know, people comment on things that we put out in the world.
00:21:11
Speaker
And i think there's a little bit of intimidation around that. if i If I share my story, if I share my voice, someone may not like it.
00:21:22
Speaker
I suppose so. And I think and people say it's the anti-social media or ranting and all these sorts of things. I think you almost have to rise above that type of activity and just remember that you're the one that chooses to to write, to put out whatever it is that you want to put out.
00:21:44
Speaker
You don't need to have your first editor via social media. Right. There are people like you after all, aren't there? Right, right. And I think the act of doing it over and over The act of having a daily practice or a weekly practice, you start to build your confidence.
00:22:05
Speaker
You see that you can do this without having to worry about kind of those external things. As you kind of build your skill, you build your confidence. and That is
Role of AI and Personal Voice in Writing
00:22:18
Speaker
true. The more you do it, the more you want to do it. When you said the more you do it, the more you want to do it. I'm wondering about the rise of what is called artificial intelligence. Do you find authors coming to you with books that they have written using artificial intelligence? Or do you think artificial intelligence will change the way in which people write?
00:22:40
Speaker
My recommendations, usually when someone wants to wants to do some writing with artificial intelligence, is it's it can be a good tool for idea generation or helping you to maybe get out of some writer's block. I caution...
00:23:00
Speaker
Because most of the time when you're using artificial intelligence, you don't you may not know where the information is coming from. And you run a risk of copyright infringement.
00:23:12
Speaker
I do caution people when they do want to use AI for writing. Because you know we've got tools that can bring us all this information. we ah There are also tools out there that...
00:23:25
Speaker
can find when you have used someone else's phrase or someone else's quote or someone else's content.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:23:33
Speaker
I think we just have to be careful with that.
00:23:36
Speaker
But I also think there is, is a lot of beauty and a lot of really great benefits to yourself just by sitting down and doing the writing that I hate for, for people who want to do that to actually miss that experience. Right.
00:23:58
Speaker
I get, I get what you mean entirely. And I think that that brings us full circle almost to this idea that the writing, the pen, the pencil on paper is the way of connecting with the words as you write them down and getting,
00:24:18
Speaker
using the writing process to release the emotions to lift the lid on the emotional box get them out onto paper is a way of freeing your mind from those stresses and strains and yeah And we'll put some links in the description as to where people can get more information from you about about writing. But for today, Jennifer, it has been fascinating. I really do appreciate your time and very grateful. Thank you very much. Thank you. i really enjoyed it. Thank you. So did I. I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abusida. And in this episode of Fit for My Age, I have been having a conversation with Jennifer Wright, an author and author coach who helps professionals raise their profile through writing and publishing.
00:25:13
Speaker
You can find out more about both of us by using the links in the description. At Fit for My Age, our aim is proactive positive aging. Knowing the risks early is an important part of maintaining good health.
00:25:26
Speaker
That is why we recommend the health tests available from York Test, especially their annual health test. The annual health test from York Test provides an assessment of 39 different health markers, including cholesterol levels, diabetes risk, various vitamin levels and organ functions. The annual health test is conducted by an experienced phlebotomist who will complete a full blood draw at your home or workplace. Hospital standard tests are carried out in a yeah UKAS accredited and CQC compliant laboratory and similar accredited facilities in other countries.
00:26:04
Speaker
You can access your easy to understand results and guidance to help you make effective lifestyle changes anytime by your secure personal wellness hub account. There is a link and as you would expect a discount code for your test in the description.
00:26:21
Speaker
I'm sure that you will have enjoyed listening to this episode of Fit for My Age as much as Jennifer and I have enjoyed making it. So please give it a like and download it so you can listen anytime, anywhere. To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. And also remember, tell your friends, family and work colleagues about Fit for My Age as well.
00:26:43
Speaker
Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think. Until the next episode of Fit for My Age, thank you for listening and goodbye.