Poetry is an Amazing Self-Care Healing Tool You Didn’t Know You Needed

Looking for self-care healing tools? Writing poetry is healing, as it gives what you’ve been holding a place to exist outside of yourself.

I wrote my first poem when I was in fifth grade. Summer was ending, and I was experiencing the first day of school jitters early.

My siblings and cousins were outside of my grandparent’s barn red house playing while I was up in the dollhouse room typing.

It was the early 90s, and my grandfather was the only one in the family with a computer. I remember poking the keys and watching my words show up in green font on the black screen.

When I was all finished, my grandfather printed out my masterpiece. My poem alleviated the jitters, as I had alchemized them into this piece of poetry that I was proud of.

I didn’t even put all of that together until this moment right now.

Writing Poetry as a Healing Tool

As time went on, I went on to write more poetry, and my grandmother framed my winning poems and hung them amongst the family photos.

I don’t know that I continued to follow my writing, but my writing followed me. Whenever life got hard, I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. And I made it through.

One of life’s difficult moments was when my brother passed away. I was a junior in college living abroad in Ireland. Having no one to turn to, my writing found me again. I wrote so many healing poems about my brother, telling his story so he would always be remembered.

I had years and years of grief, pain, and other emotions that I had carried and never really processed. It caught up with me just a few years ago, and life overwhelmed me once again. And so, I wrote and wrote.

This time I didn’t write to tell someone else’s story. I wrote to tell mine. It came out, once again, in the form of poetry. I wrote over 350 pages worth of poems- all about different emotions, experiences, and hardships. Then, I wrote about the journey into realigning with who I am meant to be.

When I wrote, I alchemized my pain, just like I did with my first day of school jitters.

Poetry is Self-Care

When we talk about self-care, we talk about a face cream or a shower with the door closed, but none of these things scratch the surface. Writing about things you have held deep inside and releasing them is a beautiful act of self-care.

The beautiful thing about poetry is that you can tell your story in as little or as much detail as you wish. You can use imagery and metaphors, so you aren’t reliving the pain – but instead providing a channel for it to leave.

So many things exist inside of ourselves that we carry and create stories around. Alchemizing your pain into healing poetry gives it a place to exist outside of yourself.

Healing Poetry

This year, I created a book of healing poetry and published it. It is divided into seven chapters:

• Healing Trauma
• Unraveling the Father Wound and the Mother Wound
• Breaking Old Patterns
• Realizing Self-Worth
• Awakening the Divine Feminine
• Stepping into Oneself
• Connecting to Nature and Greater (Divinity)

Even if you aren’t a writer or a poet… even if you never wrote a poem a day in your life, I would love for you to start writing. Even in a journal.

Here are some writing prompts that can get you started!

You never know what will come out, but I imagine that you’ll alchemize something you’ve been carrying, a beautiful act of transformation.

A beautiful act of self-care.