Unstuck: How to Find Your Words
Spiritual Practices
Discover how writing can nurture emotional well-being, release raw feelings, and cultivate inner clarity through free-flowing, unedited expression.
I was recently asked why I write. The answer seemed clear and simultaneously stuck inside of me. Usually verbose, I sat in front of my laptop with nothing to say.
My writing group had been assigned the prompt “Why do you write?” To help us, our group leader suggested cracking open Anne Lamott‘s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, now in its 25th edition. With a generous dose of snark, I thought, “I already read that book in its first edition. Surely if I just sit here in front of my laptop, the words will come out of me.” But they didn’t. What I needed was fresh inspiration. So, I relented and opened the book.
In the introduction, Lamott reflects, “I grew up around a father and mother who read every chance they got; who took us to the library every Thursday night to load up on books for the coming week.”
I chuckled, replying to the author aloud, “We went on weekends.” An image appeared of a library from my youth: a tall concrete building, likely built in the 1960s or 1970s, with stacks and stacks of books inside. With slight annoyance, I remember often being angry at the librarian because there was a limit to how many books she would let me take at any given time.
As the image appeared, I closed my eyes and placed myself in the library. Eight or 9 years old, staring up at the tall stacks. Seeing the chart with my name on it, a gold star for every book I read that particular summer. And I began to type.
I write because I am my father’s daughter. (Thank you, Anne Lamott.) I write because there are so many words in my head, and if I don’t get them out, I will scream. Or I might drink. And I haven’t done the latter in 6,881 days. It’s quite possible that if I do, I will ruin the beautiful, sober life I’ve painstakingly built. I write because, as Pearl Cleage wrote in Deals with the Devil: And Other Reasons to Riot, “I am writing to understand” and to “allow myself to feel the anger.” Yes, I write because people around me don’t understand what I am angry about.
But the pen and the paper do. So does my laptop computer, especially its E, S, C, N, and M keys. They have been struck so many times—and with so much force—that they no longer identify themselves. The paint is gone.
More specifically, I write because this work is my vocation; a sacred offering to the world, uplifting the legitimacy of relationships that change lives—human and more-than-human. And I write for the future, for the cessation of situations that sometimes reduce me to an emotional blob who doesn’t want to get out of bed.
I recently returned to that childhood library whose stacks I had not graced for more than 40 years. I sat in a chair in front of my laptop, my mind flowing with memories—some joyous, some tear-inducing. And I wrote.
How Writing Can Increase Well-Being
A growing stack of research suggests that writing can nurture emotional and psychological health. For one example, in a 2022 study in Frontiers in Communication, linguist David I. Hanauer explored how different forms of creative writing influence well-being. By comparing poetic autoethnography and freewriting, Hanauer identified two distinct processes: “Knowledge Constituting” and “Knowledge Transforming.” He described constituting as the spontaneous, unfiltered act of translating raw experience into words. In contrast, transforming is a more deliberate process of revising and refining text.
Study participants who engaged in the first mode—the freer, less edited style of knowledge constituting—reported significantly greater insight and emotional clarity after writing. Heavy editing and control sometimes reduced these benefits. So, the study suggests that the act of letting words flow without judgment may help us better process emotions, deepen self-understanding, and move toward psychological relief.
In other words, writing can be a form of self-care for body, mind, and spirit.
Four Ways to Get Unstuck
Start early. Try writing before you check your phone, emails, or news each day. You may be surprised by the honesty and originality that emerges when your rational mind is not fully awake. Similarly, late-night writing sessions allow you to access the subconscious layers of thought that are often edited out during the day.
Use a sensory doorway. Begin with something you can see, hear, taste, or feel right now—be it “the squirrels running in the yard“ or “the weight of my coffee mug.” Describing sensory details anchors you in the present moment and often opens unexpected emotional or creative pathways.
Read a page or two from a book on writing or inspiration. Consider Anne Lammott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Pearl Cleage’s essay collection Deals with the Devil: And Other Reasons to Riot, a nature poetry collection, or any book lying around your house. Then start freewriting whatever emerges from you.
Visit your childhood library. There’s something profoundly grounding about returning to the place where your imagination first took flight. Wander the aisles, open a favorite book, and let the familiar scent of paper and ink remind you that curiosity—not perfection—is what probably started you writing in the first place.
Go on a literary pilgrimage. Seek inspiration in libraries that awaken wonder. The George Peabody Library in Baltimore is often called the “cathedral of books” due to its five tiers of cast-iron balconies and shiny gold detailing. In contrast, the Stuttgart City Library in Germany offers a minimalist cube of glowing white light—perhaps an ideal space for clearing mental clutter before writing.
However you become inspired, invite yourself to see your writing as a form of self-care and healing. What do you need to say? What words have been unspoken but need to be expressed? Let them find their way onto the page—messy, imperfect, alive. Don’t insist on having everything figured out. Just show up with honesty and curiosity. In doing so, you may find the act of writing itself becomes a helpful companion—a way to release what weighs you down, rediscover what brings you joy, and remember that your voice, in all its evolving forms, is worth hearing.
by Sarah Bowen
