The Essential of Writing as Mean of Self Expression
Written by: Anike Fitriani & Bunga Cindra Ghassani
Writing as a means of self expression is the means to explain ourselves and others, while preserving our personal experience and our memories. Gillie Bolton stated that writing is a kind of comparatively gentle way of facing whatever is there to be faced (Bolton, 1999, p. 12). Among many kinds of writing that were taught in school such as essays with its introductions, logical texts, analytical conclusions, short stories, and poems with its set of forms, one thing to note is that writing can be used as a means of self expression. Kim and Ko (Ko H. S., 2007, p. 326) stated that self-expression can be defined as expressing one’s thoughts and feelings, and these expressions can be accomplished through words, choices or actions. Therefore, we can consider writing as a form of self-expression. It expresses things from deep within us, this kind of expressive and explorative writing can be deeply healing.
Writing can be deeply healing when somebody has allowed their hands to write whatever is in their mind. When they decide to do this, they can not write the wrong thing. Because, anything that is released comes from their subconsciousness. Writing has some vital starting points, one of them is the attitude of mind when writing. It basically means to write down what is thought and felt. As a beginning to write this kind of writing, it is important to remember that the most important rule is that there are no rules (Bolton, 1999, p. 16). The importance of writing is just as important as reading and speaking, because through writing we can not only reflect what we have learnt but also reflect the emotion within us.
But the problem is that many people hate to write because they think writing is hard and not as important as reading and speaking. People think that they must get everything perfect on the first draft. They think they have to follow the rules of grammar, syntax, spelling, or even have to reach a specific number of words. Also, the insufficient groundwork that some people have, creates insecurity and frustration, it ends up making them stop writing or even unwilling to start at all, simply because they think they are not good enough. All of the above will create unconfident within themselves, and being unconfident is one of the reasons someone stops doing something, in this case is writing.
All those problems should not prevent people from writing. Therefore, all we need is to try to write something. We can start by writing a diary that we can keep for ourselves. We can also try to write some poetry or some articles about our feelings or our interests. Start from a simple type of writing before turning it into something more complex. Or maybe, writing on a blog on the internet about something that we are into can be counted as a great first step to start writing. And then, a problem that might appear is other people’s opinion towards our writing. People’s opinions about our writing might be painful and create insecurity, but their critics or advice can improve our writing. Therefore, instead of taking those hates and all bad comments about our writing, try to consider that as something that can improve us. Turn those negative comments into something that can strengthen us. Instead of feeling down and wanting to give up, use those comments as a motivation to keep writing. Sometimes, when the writing feels good enough, and we start to feel confident to finally share it with others, we need someone else’s opinion towards it. So then, we can keep improving our writing.
Furthermore, writing everyday can help us to build up the discipline and commitment to write whatever is in our thoughts. It can be a dream, a memory from a long time ago, or anything else that occurs to us. It does not have to be in proper English because at first, the writing is made for us until we decide, it is time to share our writing with others. People should try to write something everyday, we just need to keep writing and do not stop thinking even if all we do with the finished piece is tear it out and throw it away. According to Jeff Goins (Goins, 2014) ,there are some steps to start writing, some of the steps are:
(1) Be honest. We need to write honestly because it means that we tell the truth to ourselves and write from the heart.
(2) Concentrate on passion filled topics. When we write something that we are passionate about, we can easily write from the heart. Therefore, we need to find a topic that we are interested in and start writing from the heart.
(3) Write when full of emotion. It feels a lot easier to write when we are feeling emotional. Just write everything down and let the words flow. Writing can be a great way to release negative emotions.
(4) Do not be scared to make mistakes. There are no rules in writing, it does not have to be perfect. You just need to keep writing.
(5) Do not think about the outcome. Many people are still concerned about the outcome (like, comment, share) that they will get. Those factors should not determine the purpose of writing.
Spoken word, poetry, prose, and creative writing are all ways to express ourself and what we experience. Writing down and performing thoughts can serve to transform the intangibility of the emotions and experiences into something more. It serves as a way to make our feelings tangible and real. Therefore, writing as a mean of self expression has some essential benefits.
For mental health, the three of benefits are; 1) Individuals become easier in express their emotions appropriately; 2) individual will be able to separate problems of self and finally, 3) the individual will be able to reduce the appearance of negative symptoms due to problem arises (Rohmah & Pratikto, 2019).
Another benefit of using writing as a means of self expression is as a form of pleasure. Cremin (2014) states:
‘At the core of reading for pleasure is the reader’s volition, their agency and desire to read, their anticipation of the satisfaction gained through the experience and/or afterwards in interaction with others’(as cited in Young, 2018:1).
Just like reading, the specific sources of enjoyment and satisfactions in and of writing must be many and varied, and will be different for individual writers in different contexts. We can categorize, there are two types of pleasure in writing. Those are writing as pleasure (enjoyment) and writing for pleasure (satisfaction) (Young, 2018:1). Writing as pleasure is gained from the process of writing. It could be when they generate the ideas, gate the words down, revise their work, or when they publish their writing.
While, writing for pleasure is the pleasure after finishing the writing. It could be a feeling when they share something through their writing (knowledge, feeling, experience), a feeling when they read again their own writing, a feeling when they achieve what the reader wants to feel through their writing, or even a feeling when they get responses that fulfill their expectations.
For finals, there are goals of writing. According to Pennebaker and Chung (2017), the goals of writing as a mean of self-expression are; (1) increasing the understanding for oneself and others in the form of writing and other kinds of literature; (2) increasing creativity, self-expression and self-esteem; (3) Strengthen communication and interpersonal skills; (4) Expressing excessive emotions (catharsis) and reducing tension; (5) Improve the individual’s ability to deal with problems and adapting (as cited in Rohmah & Pratikto, 2019:27).
So we can say that writing is actually not as hard as many people mostly thought. It is discovered that something which mostly stops people from writing are: being afraid of the lack of grammar, thinking that the first draft should already be perfect, and reaching a certain amount of words while writing. Those are the causes of feeling unconfident and insecure. As a result writing will never be happening. Whereas, writing is a great way to be used as a means of self expression, we just have to know and understand that it is time to start writing. Some of the steps to start writing are: be honest with what is felt and thought, concentrate, and make sure emotions are involved. If those are successfully applied, we can consider the outcome of the writing as a perfect writing. Do not worry about getting someone else’s criticism because the writing is not made for them but for our own self. Other than being used as a means of self expression, writing is indeed as important as reading and speaking. Many people think that writing is not important, while the fact is writing has a lot of benefits for us, especially in terms of self expression. Writing is good for mental health and gives us pleasure. To conclude everything, it can be noted that writing can be a form for our self expression to preserve our stories, thoughts, and point of view to people. It can be through poetry, short stories, essays, or even journals.
REFERENCES:
Bolton, G. (1999). The Therapeutic Potential of Creative Writing. London, UK: Jessica Kingsley Publisher. Available at: https://books.google.co.id/books?id=xI4BAAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=creative%20writing&lr&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=creative%20writing&f=false. Acccesed on 4 July 2021.
Ko, H. S. (2007). Culture and Self Expression. Available at: https://books.google.co.id/books?id=oRVuj0QZlecC&lpg=PA325&ots=8TZXzCWRXS&dq=%E2%80%9CWe%20define%20self-expression%20as%20expressing%20one%E2%80%99s%20thoughts%20and%20feelings%2C%20and%20these%20expressions%20can%20be%20accomplished%20through%20words%2C%20choices%20or%20actions.%E2%80%9D%20%20.&lr&pg=PA325#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9CWe%20define%20self-expression%20as%20expressing%20one%E2%80%99s%20thoughts%20and%20feelings,%20and%20these%20expressions%20can%20be%20accomplished%20through%20words,%20choices%20or%20actions.%E2%80%9D%20%20.&f=false. Accesed on 4 July 2021.
Rohmah, L. F., & Pratikto, H. (2019). Expressive Writing Therapy Sebagai Media Untuk Meningkatkan Kemampuan Pengungkapan Diri (Self Disclosure) Pada Pasien Skizofrenia Hebefrenik. Psibernetika, 12(1), 20–28. https://doi.org/10.30813/psibernetika.v12i1.1584. Accesed on 5 July 2021
Young, R. (2018). A Writing for Pleasure Manifesto. 2013. https://literacyforpleasure.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/a-writing-for-pleasure-manifesto.pdf. Accesed on 5 Jully 2021.
Goins, J. (2014, 8 18). From Medium.com: https://medium.com/@jeffgoins/3-reasons-why-writing-every-day-will-make-you-a-better-person-2ee46902f794. Accesed on 6 July 2021.
