The Story You Need to Tell: Writing to Heal from Trauma, Illness, or Loss

• A veteran nearly drinks himself to death before writing a book that captures the horror of living through a war. The writing helps him turn his life around.

• A young mother who learns she has stage four cancer as she holds her newborn, asks the author to help her write her story before she dies. She starts a blog, she writes her memoir, and she survives.

• A beautiful woman carries twenty years of rage inside until she begins to write and share poems revealing her brutal rape. Her writing transforms her life.

• A now-famous writer hikes the Pacific Crest Trail to recover from the pain of loss and divorce. She tells the author, “My writing gives me the greatest catharsis of my life.” She writes a book that changes both her life and the lives of her readers.

• A father, engulfed in the pain of losing his six-year-old son at Sandy Hook Elementary, explains to the author how writing letters for the Sandy Hook Promise has allowed him to hold on to treasured moments with his son and keep his own sanity.

True stories are the heart of The Story You Need to Tell: Writing to Heal from Trauma, Illness, or Loss. When writing teacher Sandra Marinella faced breast cancer in 2012, she decided to leave teaching and write to heal. And she did. Inspired, she dug out and read twenty-seven of her old journals. Here she learned the power of expressive writing to help her navigate the death of her brother, post-partum depression, her son’s mental illness, an alcoholic boss, a workaholic husband, and her cancer, followed by her son’s cancer.

Although she weaves her personal narrative and insights into The Story You Need to Tell, the focus of the book is on the five stages of writing to heal that anyone facing difficulty can employ to make their lives better. During four years of research Marinella interviewed more than 100 writers—some famous—most not. These unsung heroes share their painful stories and shed light on how writing can change us and redefine the way we live. Integrated with these anecdotes of survival are significant findings culled from more than 200 research studies. These include:

• Expressive writing offers us physical, psychological, and social benefits.
• There are five logical stages to writing and healing.
• Neuroscience proves our brains are wired with stories — and we can choose the stories that will define us and give us meaning.
• We have the capacity to rewrite and edit our personal stories — and change our lives.
• We need to open up, tell our painful stories, piece together our shattered experiences, embrace the positive, find our wisdom—and claim our new stories.

This ground-breaking book is the first to teach the five stages of writing and healing. It provides writing methods and prompts to guide readers through the healing process and toward their new stories. These findings can help, can save, and can even transform the lives of people facing trauma, illness, or loss. It can also help health care professionals, counselors and educators to save troubled lives.