Coming Home to Joy: Writing for Healing

Recently while waiting at the bus stop, I watched my four-year-old grandson walking back and forth across the snow between two sign poles. He walked to one pole, swung himself around it, then walked to the other pole and did the same. He repeated this over and over. I finally had to ask him, “What are you doing?” “I’m making footprints,” he said, flashing a big grin. I notice the pure pleasure he takes in what his body can do:  jump, turn upside down, leap, stretch, climb, run, kick a ball, somersault. I remember, too, when I learned to dance, how the joy of moving my body was irrepressible. Uninhibited joy was rare once my heart was broken, after youthful idealism faced the world’s reality of poverty, injustice, violence, and hypocrisy, and I experienced personal rejection, loneliness and disillusionment.

My path to joy would be years in coming, after death painted me into a corner. My grandson’s joy was as tangible as the sunshine after days of clouds and cold, a magnification of my own inner glow.

When the phone call came of my son’s death, it seared me in a way that is permanent. There were days when I didn’t think I could go on. I could only put one foot in front of the other, day by day. I had tremendous love from friends and family and support from colleagues and counseling and yet, I was in such a state of shock that I was operating on instincts, not rational, not able to foresee any future at all. 

I had been visiting my sons in Minneapolis when Sam died, but living in Santa Fe. After the summer, it was time to return home.

My instincts told me to go back to work, that it was better than the agony of my turbulent guilt. I also created a number of rituals, gathering friends around me. We lit white candles in a circle within hours of hearing of Sam’s death. Almost a hundred people came to his celebration of life a week later, where we shared photos and stories and memories. I took my portion of his ashes to the Rio Chama in New Mexico where I had camped when he was in my womb, joined by an intimate circle of friends who knew him as a small child. A friend hosted a gathering of my personal friends who didn’t even know Sam in her back yard where we drummed, chanted, and fell silent in one huge circle. It felt sacred and profound.

At first anger strangled my voice. I was angry at myself, at Sam, and at God. Writing had been my lifeline through many life challenges and now I could no longer write. But one day I decided to return to my writing groups. They were my friends, this had been my routine, and it was better to be with people than alone with my mind whirling in self-recrimination. At least I could show up. Once I had the pen in hand, however, it was automatic to put it to paper. I began to write again.

A year later the wheel of fortune took me to Mexico. They say not to make sudden changes after experiencing a traumatic death but I was operating on pure instincts. I needed to be somewhere that would divert my attention for a while.

One day I found a flyer advertising Spanish classes at El Instituto Cultural in Oaxaca. I had lived in Oaxaca before and I thought the vivid colorfulness and sensuality of Mexican culture might snap me back to life. I had been moved profoundly by the Mexican tradition of Día de los Muertos, honoring ancestors; altars created in each home covered with flora, fruits, and the deceased’s favorite foods; dancing skeletons and candy skulls; folk dancing in the street. If anyone could understand me, acknowledge the walk along the tightrope of faith and surrender, it was someone in Mexico.

The two weeks I spent in Oaxaca were difficult. It was a pleasure to revisit places I loved: the reverence at La Basilica de la Soledad; the meal at Las Campanas, a beautiful open-aired restaurant where the waiters helped me with my homework; meandering through the Mercado. But we had arrived during the teachers’ strike and the zocálo was covered in tents of protesting teachers. One night I awakened to phones ringing and doors slamming. It reawakened my trauma of receiving that horrific phone call telling me of Sam’s death.

Happiness is not an individual but a collective phenomenon, according to a study published in the 2008 British Medical Journal. Happiness is limitless as it spreads from one person to another. It can spread between siblings and spouses, to next–door neighbors, and on down the street, from one person to the next until there is no longer a direct connection to the original instigator. Just think of that the next time you wave hello or say thank you to a neighbor or bus driver or cashier.

Social relationships are the best predictor of human happiness: family and friends, support systems, spiritual community, others who share the same passion for social justice, for the arts and crafts, for physical exercise. I think the endorphins in the air after yoga class is part of the reason it feels more uplifting to go to the Y instead of pulling out my yoga mat at home.

Some studies indicate that certain gene pools might incline us towards happiness, others that circumstances might tilt us towards or away from happiness. Silent meditation, mindfulness practice and yoga increase our ability to settle into a space that feels happy or at least peaceful or contented. Studies seem to agree that relationships, not money or possessions, make human beings happy. We feel happy when we are loved and love and acts of kindness make us feel happy. If you want to experience how easy it is to uplift your mood, attend a laughter yoga session. Laughter is started purposefully and soon everyone is shaking with glee.

Oliver’s happiness had rubbed off on me. Would it now rub off on the passengers on the bus?

From Oaxaca, I flew to Puerto Vallarta. I reconnected with a man who had been a big part of my life before he returned to Mexico. Alejandro emailed me that he had rented an apartment with a balcony overlooking the Rio Cuale in Puerto Vallarta, “a perfect place to write,” he coaxed me. I was more than ready to leave Oaxaca and join him. I’ll figure out what to do next after the summer, I reasoned. 

Puerto Vallarta is a tropical paradise surrounded by jungle. The town curves around a gorgeous aquamarine bay where whales and dolphins frolic. The pace of life is languid, yet there is plenty to do, including a writers’ group and a library. 

Alejandro and I opened an art gallery together, since Puerto Vallarta is also renowned for its art market. Mexico with its warm heart, its sense of fatalism and yet determination to survive, its passionate enjoyment of life and humble poverty, its noisy living out loud and mañana attitude was a balm for me and yet, I was always conscious of being an outsider.

I kept busy but I was longing for something more. I was longing to feel happy.

Poetry performances during Día de los Muertos where I shared my anguish, poetry performances where I told the story were part of my healing. I realized that death is part of the cycle of life. I can choose the way I mourn, publicly and privately. Not only writing poetry but reading poetry was solace to my spirit. Happiness eluded me and I began to think it might never be possible.

Alejandro and I also had plenty of disagreements, mostly about money. These would eventually be too draining, and not worth the beauty of living in Mexico.

I left Puerto Vallarta at Christmas time to visit my family. Coming to Minneapolis was another turn of the wheel of fortune.

Happiness and joy are subjective states. Although our bodies show how we feel by our body language, the sparkle in our eyes, the bounce in our steps, the zest in our voices, I doubt if anyone watching me enthusiastically making a sale in the gallery would realize that underneath was a well of sorrow. 

Is it possible to pursue joy?  I yearned for it.

I had to create a life in this northern city and I was willing to search for places where I could be authentic and welcomed. My son requested help with child-care, so I stayed. Despite my profound grief, I continued to look for ways to activate my life-force. I attended a workshop and had a revelation: I could transform my story and give it meaning. The idea of writing circles came to me soon after that. How could I integrate my passion for words with the desire to be of service? I had experienced traumatic grief, I had facilitated writing workshops for years, and I had been trained as a hospice volunteer. How could I honor Sam? How could I make meaning out of his death? Here was a dream to propel me out of the depths of grief into something I could offer. I could facilitate writing groups for people who have suffered or are suffering. I could help people access their deepest thoughts, fears, and hopes. I have been through it all. I was still on the quest for answers and I found them everywhere, even in the heart of a stranger as we leaned closer in empathy. Everyone has a story, I soon discovered. Everyone has grief somewhere in their family story and finds courage to go on, keeping their raft afloat on the sea of life. 

I studied writing as a tool for healing and found out that it is not enough to just tell or write your story. Writing that describes a traumatic or distressing event in detail, then pinpoints our feelings at the time and follows with how we feel about it now, is the only kind of writing that has clinically been proven to improve health. Writing can help us understand the past and coach ourselves toward the future but when we access deeper insight, immune function as well as emotional and physical health improves, and behavioral changes occur. Further experiments have demonstrated that months later, better life choices are made and productivity at work or school increased after this method of writing with reflection on the meaning of the distressing event. Chemicals are released in the brain such as dopamine and serotonin, similar to those released during meditation and yoga, giving relief from discomfort and a heightened sense of well-being.

I trained myself to not only write in the circle with the group but to deliberately follow the branch to how did my experience make me who I am, what did I learn, and who am I now. As the leader of the group, I always ended my won writing on an upbeat note. As time went on, I also incorporated mindful breathing practices to calm our nervous systems. 

As I heard other people’s stories, I found they, too, suffered loss and grief, betrayal, homelessness, and illness. We are not alone; we are never alone.

In 2014, nine years after my son’s death, I reached a turning point. If you had told me that I would feel joy, astounding joy that permeates my entire being, I would have been astonished. But joy was gifted me.

Was it the result of the pendulum swing towards the opposite state? Was it a release of chemicals in my brain? Was it grace or is it our natural state, usually hidden under shoulds and unsettled desires and expectations? Was it the result of hours of leading others in writing workshops where I wrote alongside them and again and again reminded myself that grief is part of the human condition? 

I know that joy is within me and emerges when I stop and pay attention. By paying attention to my grandson’s delight in his footprints in the snow, it awakens. In listening to profoundly moving words, it soars. Whenever grief or disappointment or frustration or longing knock me off-kilter, I know it is here, waiting for me, invincible, mine.

About

I am the creator of Writing Circles for Healing, and facilitate writing workshops in community spaces such as libraries, healing and spiritual centers, state prisons, and human service and arts organizations. I lead a monthly contemplative grief circle called Being Present with Grief. I also present annually to the Downtown Coalition for Grief Support on the topic of writing for healing. I am a member of the Writing to Wholeness collective, writing workshops for survivors of personal violence. I have experienced a number of losses (almost all of my family, a partner, a husband and many close friends and mentors) including my son's suicide. I have used writing in my own healing journey and know that sharing our stories is transformative. I am also a published author and poet, and my work appears in numerous literary journals and anthologies as well as I have several poetry collections and a guidebook for facilitation of writing workshops called Heart on the Page: A Portable Writing workshop. www.wendybrownbaez.com