One woman in her fifties came to a workshop, looking for a way to deal with the grief of losing her gay son to AIDS. She hadn't been as supportive to him as she wished she had and realized too late that her judgemental attitude while he was alive had kept her from reassuring him that he was loved. In time she began volunteering for AIDS support groups, but never felt a personal closure until she took the suggested exercise in our workshop to write her son a letter. When she did this, she found it much easier to say the things she could never quite verbalize out loud to him. The process allowed her to forgive herself and accept the joyful memories of her son, instead of stay in limbo with the "should have" monster.


An older person writing out his life story for his grandchildren started shuffling through photos and jotting down notes as was part of his homework assignment for class. The next time we met he said how much he enjoyed doing it because he remembered a favoirte uncle from when he was a kid who meant a lot to him at the time. As a kid, however, it never occured to him to tell the uncle what an influence that man had been, but now he wished there was a way to him know. I suggested he write those things in a letter to include with the story for his family. He did, and the way he did it became a fun sidebar to the whole family tree saga. What satisfaction to know he'd honored the uncle's memory and given his kids an insight to the joy the uncle had brought to their father.


Being validated is a core need. Many of the writing exercises I suggest deal with realizing your self-worth. One lady whose baby was still born was not allowed to grieve in front of her family. She was expected to cast aside any dismal emotions or dark sadness and "try again." Her friends and family encouraged her to move on. One friend had signed up for my workshop and invited her to come, "to help take her mind off it." She wrote and scribbled and grieved and griped. Before the class had ended in a few weeks she had begun the process of healing and feeling better about herself. Her friend, however, couldn't handle the introspection of the workshop and had dropped out.

DO YOU HAVE JOURNALING SUCCESS STORIES THAT YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE? THIS IS YOUR CHANCE TO HELP SOMEONE BENEFIT FROM YOUR EXPERIENCE AND WISDOM BY WRITING A SHORT ENTRY IN ROBYN'S ONLINE JOURNAL.

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