Writing poetry to help you heal…

Writing poetry to help you heal…

I will connect with how I feel right now sometimes, at the start especially, they are words of hurt, anger, blame, bitterness. I read a lot of others poems and often they stay in that place and don’t move forwards. They become aware of how much they are hurt but not why it’s wrong to stay there or why it’s good to move forwards from that or how they can.

So someone asked me how to move forwards when writing poems and my answer is. Let yourself vent but end the poem in a question like “do I want to stay here?” Then write a poem about letting it go and how that might feel. What does this anger do to myself and others?(or blame etc) write about that.

If I want to move forward I ask myself a question that stretches beyond the issue and although I am not there yet it opens me up to seeing what could be beyond it. You have to take a brave step in dissecting it further. Or a brave step into the beyond you can’t see yet but looking at it, know it’s probably true.

So my answer is you keep asking yourself self reflective questions based off the last poem you wrote. And then poem that out. That’s how I become more aware and in touch with my feelings and can keep going forwards. Of course poems themselves don’t heal you, they make you aware and help you accept what you are feeling now (you still have to feel the issues) and where you might go next. Hopes this helps.

Laura Berry

Gift yourself something this Christmas

I spend a lot of time writing up my poems from online text into physical book records and before that they were scribbled in messier books. So by the time they reach the physical book records I have written that poem out at least 3 times.

But the act of writing them out over and over helps me connect with it’s content, and how I feel as well as keeping physical records of all my work in case technology fails one day.

I have realized my poems are precious, not necessarily to anyone else but to me they are a record of my life. What I have learned and what I need to learn, where I could go and where I have been, what I have accepted and what I haven’t. So I see these archives as a gift to myself.

What gift are you giving yourself this Christmas?

Hope you all have a good Christmas and if you don´t celebrate it a good end of year. All the best, Laura Berry

Gratitude Poems

I have always been an optimistic person for others but a pessimistic person towards myself. Finding all the things to complain about, berating myself as not good enough rather than celebrating any small achievements I make. It has been a long journey but gratitude and learning how to be grateful (yes I had to learn) has been such a changer here. And poetry has really helped me get there.

A good friend once said to me “for once I would like to hear you say , I did this project and it kinda failed but at least I tried! Rather than berate yourself all the time.” I was very addicted to feeling pessimistic. And I think it is an emotional addiction.

But then I decided to start writing gratitude poems, being grateful for a leaf, a smile etc. And slowly I started to feel happier about myself too. I still do it sometimes (go on a downer) but when I can, i pull out a pen and write a gratitude poem. It gets me back to the right place, to face and walk forward with some gratitude rather than avoid the discomfort of stepping Forward by choosing hopelessness and self abuse.

It also adds a bigger love for the earth and all on it, including ourselves. The cup is empty but look at all that space for good to fill it. Then start filling it. For me with one poem at a time. Hope this helps someone.

Laura Berry

How to Donate

Firstly no one has to donate or feel obliged to,

But, Someone asked me how to donate to my work, as the donate button only takes you to paypal, where you have to manually sign in and then make a donation manually. I sadly am not rich enough yet, to have a professional wordpress site that would allow me to have an easier donation option.

I also am not tech savvy enough to add widgets very well, but i tried! 🙂

So if you would like to, anything is appreciated (no matter how small)

But the way you do it is to do it manually sending money to an email address (in the donations tab) through paypal. Not through an easy button at the moment.

Thank you all so much for supporting my work by visiting this site and reading the poems. Especially as i am still a work in progress, All the best, Laura

ps. New poems soon, but until then i think i have over 200 here now to read 🙂

How can poetry help us?

As I research and reflect and draft my new book on how poetry can help us, I have realized how much poetry has to offer. It is a tool for (and not limited to)…

. The Ability to dissect the minute and describe it

. The development of humility, getting real and raw about ourselves and the world

. The realization of what we deny and bringing it forward to our awareness

. The Ability to ask ourselves questions that promote our growth

. The Ability to listen to answers

. The learning of gratitude

. The development of seeing beauty in the mundane and the meaning in everything around us

. The quality of reaching out to God or loving spirits for guidance as we try to construct a loving poem or understand one

. The refinement of communicating an idea in as few words as possible

. The reconnection of feeling and emotion

. The acceptance of who we are right now (flaws and all)

. The expression of the self using ones voice

. The development of a desire for change to move beyond

And so on…

I believe all of our passions and interests can do these things above if we use them as a tool for self growth and reaching a more loving place, rather than for other means.

Laura Berry

Not Being Good Enough to do our Projects

I am not good enough to write this book. I am not healed enough to write this book. I am not a good enough example to write this book. All these thoughts go through my head all the time. And my guides gently nudge me to do it anyway. I have realized we don’t have to be perfect to write books on self growth topics, we just have to be honest. I realized self growth is a long journey and I can wait to share what I learn at the end or share now what I have learned and where I think it might go. And potentially help others as well now rather than in 30 or more years time.

How often we put off doing what calls us because we are not perfect enough yet in that field. But if we go into it to learn as we go and bring others with us to start their own journeys then we don’t have to know everything first. ( I am not an authority on a topic but a traveler and observer of its roads and that is what i am sharing) We have to be honest with where we are at and anything beyond is a theory or feeling or opinion about what’s next.

Realizing this has really helped me step forward again writing a book I have been wanting to write but not felt good enough to do so. I hope it helps you too to start your projects.

It’s ok to do it and reflect, feel and learn along the way. If everyone had waited to be perfect first nothing would have been published or created. It all helps humanity go up the rungs of love, as long as we are open to honesty and growth too when we create it.

So am off to start typing up the book. Hope this helps someone as well.

Laura Berry

Rip Open Your Heart With Poetry

What i also love about poetry is how it encourages me to really rip open my heart and connect with what is going on inside it. Most of us walk our lives protecting it, wrapping it in protective layers. But we just seal in the pain.

The best way i have found to start healing myself of this emotional and physical pain, is to unwrap the protective layers, go in there and touch the pain. Feel it and express it. Pain is just unexpressed feelings that we ignore, avoid, or suppress for one reason or another.

Writing poetry helps me rip it all open and walk around inside. It can be a very good tool in helping us face and heal what is going on inside us. And poetry is like a friend that says, ´take my hand, let´s go and look, it´s ok.´

Some of us do tentatively walk in from time to time, but we don´t dive in. Just tip toe in, and if the water is cold, come back out again. Poetry encourages me to sit in there for a while and bathe, experience and face it, to pull it apart and understand it. The release is another choice, the choice, to feel it through and transcend the pain. Poetry can help us stay open, rather than closing down to it. A great tool in our self healing toolbox.

I have realised it is good to rip open our messy hearts, and go for a swim. And from that, healing and growth and new truth always emerges, that moulds us into more loving beings. I have never grown in my life without experiencing the pain i have been carrying. It is the only way to turn our stone hearts into gold.

Laura Berry

A New Poetry Self Help Book

“Awareness is the first step in healing.” – Dean Ornish

One of the main reasons poetry has been really helping me. When you sit down with yourself and write a poem from your soul you start to see yourself unfiltered. “Wow, this is what is going on inside me” I have said many times. Only when we see it do we have the desire build to change it.

This year my goal is to type up a self help book on how poetry can connect us and help us move through our healing. It’s still in rough draft in a notebook. What i have been learning is the power of poetry to open my soul and make me aware of what is in it to heal and also shine. It´s something i am getting quite passionate about.

Is anyone interested in this method of healing? If so what questions would you like answered? It’s still in progress so I can add anything in. What would you like help with? (can be emotions you are stuck on, or structure related to the poem itself etc.)

All the best, Laura

Little Moments

There are little moments that stand out in our days, that draw us to them. A few words said, a fallen feather on our path, the sound of rain on our windowpanes, someone´s smile in a sombre room. These are all lovely starting points for poems. If you can record these little moments in a notebook or with drawings and photographs you will have a nice little collection of moments to dip into for your poetry.

A feather that greeted me in the garden

What I also love or have learned to love about doing this is that I have become much more aware of not just the little moments around me but of their messages delivered to my heart. That the feather didn´t fall by accident in front of me, nor did I notice it randomly, but I was feeling something that drew it to me or me to it. Nor did my feet end up in a drole room to greet the smile in the darkness by chance. My soul was aching for healing or answers and these little moments were waiting perfectly to help me become aware of what I was missing or avoiding.

They weren´t just random but doorways into self-reflection and are always what I need in that moment. Big moments do this too, big accidents, illness or world events, but I have realized as time has gone on that the big moments are more of a slap in the face for ignoring all the little ones that have been laid on my path much more often. Writing poetry has not just helped me see these little moments but driven me to go seeking them, to open up my awareness to them a lot more. To be excited to listen to what they have to say, because if I listen and feel it´s message in my heart there will be no need for the bigger moments to happen or to grab my attention.

You can help others plant forests all over the world (and this is also good) or you can plant a little tree in your own back garden and watch it grow, nurture it, protect it and learn firsthand the beauty and love in a tree. The latter will change your soul and the world the most profoundly as you take responsibility for the problem created by you and bring the lessons of love much more closely into your heart and give it back out to the world.

Recording these little moments that happen to us every day isn´t just a great way to gather inspiration for our poems, but to start to take responsibility for our souls and the personal messages that come to us for our loving growth. And poetry is a beautiful way to take these moments further and explore them with an open heart.

Laura Berry

The Little Book of Surrender

This is a collection of 42 poems and can also be read for free in the PDF´s Page on this blog.

What i loved about writing this book and reading it over the last few days is it has a soft feel to it, i felt more open to life and experiences and emotions after reading through it.

Often i write books to help myself as well and write what i need to hear to get better. I feel this is my best book so far as it did do what i intended it to do.

If anyone does read the book i would love to know your experiences with the poems, how you felt and thought after.

The paperback will only be available at lulu, so that i can bring the cost down for all of you. (Global distribution means putting the price up way too high for everyone.)

https://www.lulu.com/shop/laura-berry/the-little-book-of-surrender/paperback/product-vz9p56.html?q=&page=1&pageSize=4

The original Cover

As always if you want to support me, i have a donations page where you can get details and also you can purchase the book as well. Thank you to those that have donated this year! I have had a couple and you know who you are! Thank you for believing in me.