Writing to Heal Your Readers and Yourself
Because we could all use a little healing right now
The world is a little broken right now. Many of us are living in a state of high anxiety and general emotional dysregulation, and writing can be a way to heal, comfort, and calm some of your readers, and maybe even yourself.
A newsletter I always look forward to is 3-2-1 from James Clear. The words of wisdom that jumped out at me from this week’s offering were these:
It costs little for you to write down the lessons of your life and yet those few minutes spent writing can be life-altering for the right reader. As I once saw it put: "there is someone out there with a wound in the exact shape of your words."
One of my more popular book review articles focused on three books that made me less anxious and depressed about the state of the world. Each took a big problem and focused on the positives, the solutions, and the actions needed to improve things further.
You can do that too. Take a topic you know well and write about it, but focus on the positives. The uplifting statistics, the encouraging trends, what has already been done and what still needs to be done.
Write in a way that inspires action, not despair. Write in a way that will heal people’s wounds, and make them realise that all is not lost. That there are, in fact, actions they can take, today, to start improving the situation.
In a world full of doom scrollers, be the writer who makes people stop scrolling and read something that isn’t full of doom: something that gives people a path to healing on a personal, community, or even worldwide level.
If you write something that fits this week, share in the comments, or tag me. I’d love to read it.
Some thoughts from others I’ve been enjoying this week
How to Avoid Writing Scams and Lift Your Voice for the Greater Good by
How Writers Can Efficiently and Successfully Market Our Books in 2025 by
The stories that fill the holes in our lives by
What else I’ve been up to this week
Reading: How to Make Money With Substack by
(free on Kindle Unlimited)Watching: The Social Network (on Amazon Prime)
Enjoying: The downtime of Twixtmas
Not enjoying: A bad cold that’s kept me from diving into 2025 with unbridled enthusiasm
This week’s Medium post
(Friend link, as always, so you can read for free if you’re not a member. And this week it’s a short one-minute read.)
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I remember using this journaling technique in exam day in which you ask yourself "what if this goes absolutely well" and write possible positive consequences. Usually, we worry about what could go wrong but its exact opposite is truly energising.
Thanks for the shoutout, Karen, glad you love my book, from one Karen to another 😍😍😍