A Continued Review on Rupi Kaur's Healing Through Words

Healing Through Words by Rupi Kaur is less of a workbook with rules and more of a guidebook with suggestions such as only write when you feel comfortable. It suggests not to push yourself but to remain honest. Reflecting on the last poem I wrote in my book last week, I was trying to be honest without being blunt about what had happened and I think she’d suggest doing that so that you aren’t oversharing something unless it’s within your comfort level.

Rupi Kaur also suggests to “let go of perfection” and to free write as you answer the questions, usually with some breathing methods implemented beforehand. She lists to respond to prompts, not pressure, which was what I was talking about when I said make sure you feel prepared at that level of sharing.

Revisit and reflect, and finally she says to write for yourself first.

From last week, I worked up to exercise 2 but I’ve worked to 4 in my book, so I will share my responses to exercise 4 this week as an example of what the writing helps me work through and how it influences me to write for myself and my own healing journey.

Exercise 4 has an outline of a person’s profile holding a candle to keep it from blowing out. It follows with some questions and a free write:

When I first observed the drawing, I thought of early childhood when my mom and dad had a profile drawing made of me and my sister. I assumed that the drawing has her shoulders up because she’s protecting the flame, or surrounding herself in warmth at an attempt to heal or self-sooth. The picture looks like an older child to me, and as the oldest child I experienced my trauma before my younger sister. I remember feeling guilty that I wasn’t as involved in my sisters life because I wasn’t dealing with my trauma appropriately. I feel like I missed out a little bit on relating to my sibling and I could have been there for her when she first experienced trauma, but I wasn’t. Instead, I lashed out towards her for bringing it up. I’ve still been working through trying to forgive myself for being selfish and not being more aware of other people’s feelings. I feel like I let the edge of the flame lick my skin, because it still hurts like a burn. A burn being something that will heat the skin and hurt, but goes away with the intensity of the heat.

Reflecting on the last statement I shouldn’t have compared trauma, it leaves more of an untreated burn for both of us just because of my behavior and actions. Now I’ve learned that trauma doesn’t compare.