Writing for Wellbeing provides an outlet for thoughts and feelings that might otherwise not be expressed. Modern society can make it more difficult to talk things over with a friend, relative or neighbour, and we can become tied up in our day-to-day pretence that everything is 'fine'. What matters to our sense of wellbeing is that we find an opportunity to let those thoughts out - to give them an airing - and sharing them in a small, supportive group helps us see that we are not alone in those thoughts.
But that doesn't mean our writing groups are serious or gloomy ... quite the opposite. Realising that others have felt just the same as you is liberating and allows us to see our problems at arm's length and gain a better perspective on them. 'Writing Your Self' is an opportunity to 'right yourself' by exploring your life experiences, in a gentle and supportive atmosphere, and to find a way of accepting them, in a compassionate way, as part of who we are.
'Writing Your Self' also captures the essence of creative writing, where your life experiences and imagination combine to produce a unique voice with which to tell your story.
Anne Lamott probably summed this up as well as anyone, when a student asked her why writing mattered: “Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored."