Expressive Writing for Educators

Our work as educators has a direct connection to our emotions. Working with children, parents, and families is emotional labor. Educators absorb the feelings of others and experience emotions of their own while working in the classroom. Taking time to work through emotional challenges helps us build resiliency and recover from difficulties in life.

One practice for working through challenging emotions is expressive writing. Dr. James W. Pennebaker, Ph.D., developed expressive writing to help people work through past trauma. Joanne Frattaroli, Michael Thomas, and Sonja Lyubomirsky studied how expressive writing "could improve exam performance and psychological health in students taking a graduate school entrance exam."

I believe that expressive writing can help educators work through the everyday emotions that pile upon us as we work with other people. Expressive writing can be cathartic for the educator and help us express feelings that may be trapped inside or pushed down. Expressive writing can help us feel better and be more effective in our work of supporting others.

Expressive writing can help us process an emotional situation and gain a new perspective. As we write down our feelings about an experience or challenge, we become active participants and discover new ways to evaluate the experience. Expressive writing can help us sleep better and reduce stress. Expressive writing helps us slow down our human tendency to replay a challenging situation in our minds by working through our emotions.

Next, I will share an expressive writing practice from the Greater Good in Action website curated by UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center. I will share the highlights; you can read the details on their website.

To begin an expressive writing session, find one experience or challenge you would like to explore. Write about something personal that is important to you. Work on an experience you can handle now. If life is too hectic or the experience was too challenging, come back to it when you are ready to work through the process. Expressive writing is most effective if you work on one experience simultaneously. 

Find paper and something to write with. Connecting our head and hand to paper adds depth to the experience and helps you process your emotions. Write in a continuous pattern for twenty minutes. From Greater Good in Action, "Write down your deepest emotions and thoughts about an emotional challenge that has been affecting your life. In your writing, let go and explore the event and how it has affected you."

Do not worry about spelling or grammar; you only write for yourself. After four days of writing, take a break to reflect on the experience. If you still want to work on the same challenge after four days, try writing about the experience from other people's perspectives. Writing from the perspective of another may help you gain new insight into the experience.

Expressive writing can help educators work through the emotions of our practice in the classroom. This form of professional sharing can help us remain strong and ready to support the families in our care. We all need time to process our feelings. Educators and others in the helping professions experience the emotions of others. We need a way to process our feelings and reflect on the experiences that make up our journey in the learning community. Expressive writing is a tool educators can utilize to be healthy and available to support children and families now and in the future.

Have you tried expressive writing before? Do you have a journaling practice or another way to process the emotions related to your work in the classroom?