More on Rupi Kaur

On Rupi Kaur, Continued

This morning, I mindfully read Rupi Kaur’s Milk and Honey. It seemed to be a different style or genre than the other two books. I think over the years, her writing has evolved. I’m not going to compare her to any other writers. She’s an excellent writer, and no one deserves to be compared.

In Healing Through Words, Rupi uses a list of suggestions for beginning her prompts on healing. One of the best is that if something doesn’t resonate with you, or you’re experience grief, just come back to it later. She calls the writing poems or pieces, but she doesn’t expect you to set expectations to check if it’s a specific type of poetry writing or if it rhymes or has personification in it.

So, to give an example of where her writing exercise took me and where it could take you on your own path, it says to draw trauma. I drew a panic attack my first time, and a person flexing their muscles and squatting with their knees up. Question number 2 asks you to observe your drawing and come up with a few SIMPLE phrases of words:

stress, angst, loss, holding my breathing

Question three says to jot down or add new words and phrases within 10 minutes, and to list four. I am keeping the first ones. SO now it says to go in chronological order using those four words to form a paragraph for each:

1) Panic attack; all the tension in my body,

I’m holding my breath and tensing up my muscles

I have no control when I release

I just know how the pain is affecting me

2)Stressing over the loss,

wondering what this will emotionally cost for me

3)From my youth I experienced embarrassment, shyness, and trauma

Became an introvert,

but was usually called secretive

4) This loss feels like relief

5) Holding my breath

wondering how long until my brain cells burst

Looking back, panic attacks from trauma made me the worst

So these are my unfinished notes on Rupi Kaur’s exercises for releasing trauma through writing.