Innovation and wellbeing

What is therapeutic writing?

Therapeutic writing is defined as a set of exercises in which a person writes down the thoughts or emotions they cannot express verbally, thus promoting emotional release and internal understanding (Rafael Salas, 2021).

Unlike keeping a conventional diary, that confidant of daily experiences, therapeutic writing invites us to dive deeper: what did I feel when it happened? What really hurt me? What do I need to say and haven't been able to?

What makes it transformative is not the number of words, but the depth to which we allow ourselves to feel while we write. It is not about filling pages, but about letting what we carry inside find its shape without rushing or judging.

A myth to banish

Many people believe that therapeutic writing is only for those who have experienced major traumas. This is not the case. Any emotion that weighs heavily, however small, deserves to be expressed. You don't need a great pain to start. Sometimes, what accumulates the most is the everyday.

Poetry as a refuge

If therapeutic writing is a path, poetry is one of its most beautiful shortcuts.

Poetry allows what everyday language sometimes denies: nuance. In a poem, not everything has to make logical sense. You don't have to be coherent. You just have to be honest, because that is the basis of every human being with themselves.

A poem can be a scream. A whisper. A set of broken images that, when put together, begin to heal. Each one has its structure, its voice and its rhymes (or lack thereof); but each one has its essence.

Therapeutic poetry does not seek aesthetic perfection. It seeks resonance. That phrase that, when read aloud, makes something inside you say: "yes, that is exactly how I feel" and stirs.

Poetry is the language of the wound (Jeanette Winterson, 2011).

Many people find in poetry a foreign language for what everyday words fail to describe. How to put into a normal sentence that feeling of emptiness that arrives on Sunday afternoons? Or that pain that is not sad or sharp, but dull, like an old blow that never completely closed?

Poetry doesn't explain it. It names it. And by naming it, it makes it habitable.

What science (and the brain) says about therapeutic writing

When we put in writing what we feel, something fascinating happens: we activate the prefrontal cortex, the region of the brain responsible for planning, reasoning and emotional regulation. At the same time, we reduce the activity of the amygdala, that alarm center that goes off in the face of danger, whether real or perceived, and that is sometimes so hard to silence.

This process is called affective labeling, and we already explored it in our previous post when we talked about naming emotion as a regulation tool. By doing so, it reduces emotional intensity, like turning down the volume of a radio that was too loud.

But the effects do not just stay in the brain. Psychologist James W. Pennebaker, a pioneer in this field, carried out revealing studies in the 1980s that changed the way we understand the relationship between writing and health. In his experiments, he asked participants to write for several consecutive days, for about twenty minutes a day, about their deepest and most traumatic emotional experiences.

The results were surprising. Those who wrote about their emotions showed:

• Physical health: Lower blood pressure, better liver function and a more robust immune response. Some studies even observed fewer visits to the doctor in the following months (Pennebaker, 1997; Smyth, 1998).
• Mental health: Reduction in symptoms of anxiety and depression, especially when writing focused on finding meaning and not just describing the painful event. It helps to process mourning, breakups, losses and vital transitions.
• Cognitive clarity: The act of writing organizes thought. When emotional chaos is transformed into narrative, we gain perspective. We stop being inside the emotion to be able to observe it from a certain distance.
• Self-knowledge: Over time, written texts become a map of our interior. We can reread them and see patterns: what has always hurt me? What do I need again and again? How have I changed?

It's not magic. It's neurobiology made into verse.

How to start?

You don't have to be a professional. You don't need a pretty notebook. You don't need to look for perfection: you just need to want to try.

Some proposals to start are:

1. Free writing for 10 minutes.
   With a timer, write non-stop, without editing, without judging. Even if you don't know what words to put: write without thinking further, until something emerges. The key is not to lift the pen from the paper until the alarm sounds.
2. Complete the sentence:
   "Today I feel like..." And let the metaphor emerge. A storm? A knot in my chest? A bird trapped in a room? An overflowing river? You don't have to think too much, just let the image come on its own.
3. Write a letter you will never send.
   To whoever hurt you. To whoever you miss. To your past self. To that version of you who would have needed to hear something different. It is not about delivering it, but about letting go of what weighs. You alone will decide its future: keep it, burn it or tear it up, none of that matters: only having written it.

A concrete example, as a guide from which to start

Imagine today has been a complicated day. A pain in your chest pursues you, oppresses you, without knowing well what and why. However, the agitation rises, the knot advances.

In that case, take a seat, take three deep breaths, and write:

"Today I feel like a house with all the lights on but nobody inside. There is noise, there is movement, but something is missing. As if waiting for something that does not arrive. As if I had forgotten to close an important door. I don't know which one. But I know something was left open."

Upon reading it, something moves. Perhaps there is no immediate solution. But now you know there is an open door. And that is already a first step.

A poem to take with you

We want to give you a poem that is part of “Oda a la vida”, the therapeutic poetry book created by Temotiva's main figure, Gabriela Musterova, and published by Talón de Aquiles. It is an invitation to continue exploring what words can do for you.

AUTOESTIMA / SELF-ESTEEM

Original

No recuerdo cuantas veces te perdí,
sí el dolor que ello me provocó,
no recuerdo cuando estabas,
sí que te necesitaba.

Al fin te recuperé,
te encontré,
en el fondo de mi,
de mi ser.

Yo te haré florecer,
fuerte,
segura,
y sincera.

Eres importante para mí,
y quiero que permanezcas,
pues sin ti no sé quién soy
y del abismo salgo hoy.

No serás más una presa,
más bien un ave que vuela, alto,
desde donde lo esencial,
se ve y al fin puede crecer.

English Translation

I don't remember how many times I lost you,
yes the pain that it caused me,
I don't remember when you were there,
yes that I needed you.

I finally got you back,
I found you,
deep inside me,
inside my being.

I will make you bloom,
strong,
confident,
and sincere.

You are important to me,
and I want you to stay,
because without you I don't know who I am
and I come out of the abyss today.

You will no longer be prey,
rather a bird that flies, high,
from where what is essential,
is seen and can finally grow.

If this poem resonated with you, if something in it made you say "yes, this is how I feel", the complete book is available here. Inside you will find more poems, more refuges, more open doors for when your own words have yet to arrive.

It is part of Temotiva because we believe that poetry is not a luxury: it is a tool. And sometimes, the gentlest one.

And now... what?

Writing is an act of bravery that can start today, right now, with a single sentence on a piece of paper. Without judgment, without rushing. Because at Temotiva we know that emotions ask to be named, and sometimes the kindest way to do it is with a pen in hand and the permission not to do it perfectly. In upcoming posts we will continue to explore the emotional world, the one that never leaves us.

To close

Writing is, deep down, a form of emotional self-regulation. It is creating a space between what we feel and what we do with it. It is choosing how to tell our story, instead of letting pain write it for us.

And there is something else: when we write, we become witnesses to ourselves. We read ourselves. We listen to ourselves. We validate ourselves. And that, in a world that sometimes asks us to keep going without looking back, is a profoundly revolutionary act.

— Temotiva | Silvia Garrido