A Soul’s Ballad: The Blessing of Reflective Writing

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife university students write—a lot. At some point, the word ‘writing’ might elicit an instinctive groan because it just meant finishing that reflection piece for English, that chem lab report, or that [insert energy-sucking work here]. As a result, being entrenched in mid-October, you’ll likely witness your friends partaking in stress-relieving activities, such as dancing, crocheting, binge-watching Orange is the New Black, or in my case, writing. Now, you may ask, how exactly is writing going to relieve you of your stress . . . from writing? Here’s the thing: I’m talking about writing for self-reflection. I’m not penning down an analysis of The Iliad, but personal things, such as academic anxieties, relationship problems, Am I really real and in control of my own body, or am I just a figment of another person’s imagination/imagining I am real but am really not? moments—the usual. Recently, though, I haven’t been writing to de-stress myself. In fact, writing has been the cause of my stress! As such, I decided to go to a program called “Write Now!” where upper-year/graduate students host bi-weekly sessions for reflective writing to try and reconnect with writing for leisure, and boy, not only did it relieve me from my super stress-filled week, but I ended up feeling calmer than I’d felt in a long time. After springing from my class in UC, I came running to the Friday session at 11:30 am and entered a room that emanated stress-free vibes.

The room was small and cozy, which was a nice change after having so many classes where I was surrounded by hundreds of other people. Now, there might be the misconception that everyone in the room was an English major, but that wasn’t the case. In our group, there were students from across all disciplines, including Psychology and Physics. Everyone was welcome, regardless of what they studied. This week’s writing session focused on the theme of time. We were given creative prompts, such as such as interpreting combinations of prepositions with the word ‘time,’ and tasked with writing for an allotted amount of time. It could be a poem, a creative piece, or even a splurge of incoherent musings. Ultimately, the goal was to write without overthinking. We were allowed to write badly because this writing wasn’t going to be labelled with a percentage defining its worth—this writing was for ourselves. My prompt was ‘besides time,’ which I can definitely say yielded to . . . interesting results (I made the strangest comparison between time and a fleeting doe).

Throughout the duration of the workshop, the ball of stress rattling in my chest unraveled. The atmosphere, the quiet moments, the release of words onto the page, and the relaxed discussions that followed left me feeling lighter. Once I tackled my work afterwards, I no longer saw it as Way #28 to punish uni students, but instead, Way #28 to punish uni students, but will, over the long run, be worth it (in non-Tiffany terms: I viewed my work with a clearer, less-stressed and cynical mind). I’m sure that, like me, some of you have put off your personal loves to keep up with schoolwork, but this month, I challenge you to treat yourself to something stress-relieving, and I highly encourage you to drop by one of the writing workshops, since you never know, expressive writing might be your stress-reliever, too! Details about the “Write Now!” program can be found here. They also post their weekly writing themes on their Facebook page here.   Do you write as a stress-reliever, and has this activity every yielded to strange thoughts and/or revelations for you? Let me know in the comments below or through @lifeatuoft on Twitter!