Write Your Story

I tried to keep a journal. I tried to write about my feelings. I just couldn’t get into it. I wanted to write. I had a lot to say. I found my own story so bizarre and ironic that I just couldn’t believe it or get comfortable with it. Until I was comfortable with my own story, I felt I wouldn’t be able to move forward in my life. I tried writing in leather bound journals, but I spent the time just enjoying the smell of the leather. After many attempts, I decided that writing just wasn’t going to work for me. Then the universe connected me to a person who with a kind and generous heart gave me the tools to heal myself.

This summer I was paging through a magazine and saw a sidebar mention of something called The Cancer Monologues. The Cancer Monologues was a workshop led by two women to help cancer survivors and their loved ones process through their unique stories. At the end of the workshop each survivor presented a 5-minute monologue on stage, to an audience of family, friends and fellow survivors. I wanted to do that. I knew it would be a powerful healing experience. The article included the phone number of one of the authors, Tanya Taylor. I immediately called and spoke with this amazing woman. She told me about the work she and Pamela Thompson were doing with cancer survivors in New Mexico, and that they had written a book based on their experiences. Because there were no workshops scheduled in my area, she suggested I begin on my own. By writing. I told her that I made many attempts to write but it wasn’t working. She suggested I get two books: “Writing Down the Bones” by Natalie Goldberg, and The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.

Once I read “Writing Down the Bones” my view of writing changed. I put the leather bound journal in my “aromatherapy” drawer and bought one 75-page spiral notebook with a pink plaid cover at the supermarket. I took one pen, my favorite medium point black gel pen. And I began to write every morning. A few months later I bought “The Artist’s Way.” I now have at least 12 plaid spiral notebooks (different colors), 900 pages of pure Tammi. No one reads what I’ve written but me. It’s through the practice of writing everyday that allowed me to start living my life, my way. My writing practice is critical to my recovery and healing and creating the life that I love. I’ve felt poems pour out of me when I thought I was writing about sadness. I’ve felt the life force flow through my body when I thought I was just working through the exercises in The Artist’s Way. Because I write I can feel again.

Are you interested in writing and telling your story? If you are and are ready to go, then get yourself a notebook and a pen and fill up 3 pages. Even if you just write the same line over and over and over, fill up three pages. Tomorrow do it again. Get Natalie’s book. When you’re done with that, get Julia’s book. They’re in the library and available through major bookstores.

Write your story because it helps you. Write your story the way you would tell it if no one but you ever read it. Write it the way you experienced it. If you’re in New Mexico, find out when the next Cancer Monologues workshop is and let me know how you felt on stage!