When Words Mend: How Poetry and Prose Help the Heart Recover

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and I can’t think of a better time to lean on language that heals. I have long believed that words are more than ink on paper; they are living companions that sit with us in joy and grief.

When I penned A Swan Song, each stanza felt like a quiet prayer for my wounded heart, and every short story became a mirror reflecting God’s steady hand in and around me. I have spent more evenings than I can count hunched over my journal and computer, letting a poem hold the ache that my voice could not name.

Over time, I learned that poetry and prose do more than entertain. They listen without judgment, reflect pain with honesty, and inch us toward wholeness. If you are walking through loss, anxiety, or plain weariness, I invite you to explore how the careful arrangement of words can become a quiet form of therapy.

1. Gentle Exposure Therapy

Writing about a wound invites us to touch it on our terms. A line of poetry gives a single feeling room to breathe, while a reflective paragraph can circle a memory until its sharp edges dull. It is not magic. Some days, the page will feel indifferent, which is pure honesty. Yet by returning, we practice approaching hard truths without letting them swallow us. Ask yourself: What moment still stings when you replay it? Try capturing just the color, the sound, or one phrase spoken that day. No commentary, only observation. Notice how naming even one detail lowers the internal noise.

2. Reframing the Narrative

Trauma can trap us in a single scene. Prose stretches that scene into a wider story where context and growth appear. When I write, I realize that the events I once considered endings were actually turning points. Sharing a story didn’t change the past, but it clarified things, placing God’s faithfulness front and center where there was once just confusion. Consider your story flow. Where does the chapter feel repetitive? Draft a short paragraph that starts before the crisis and ends after you take a brave step forward. You might notice some progress that you didn’t remember before.

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3. Access to Safe Anger

Connect to your spirituality. The church often celebrates patience and peace, but Scripture records raw lament. Poetry offers a safe place for righteous anger, disappointment, and even doubt. Spilling those feelings on paper is better than burying them where they fester. But peep this: venting without reflection can harden into self‑pity. After writing an angry stanza, add a second one that answers, What do I need right now? Balance rage with request, fury with faith.

4. Shared Humanity

Reading the work of others reminds me I am not new or alone in my struggle. Someone has survived betrayal, illness, or fear, and they left bread crumbs in verse or vignette. Find authors who differ from you in background but echo you in emotion. Their perspective can widen your empathy and tame the temptation to idolize your pain. If you find a poem that stirs you, copy it by hand and underline the line(s) that felt like permission to breathe.

5. Measurable Growth

Healing is easier to see on paper. Keep dated drafts. Open an earlier entry when doubt whispers that nothing inside you has changed. Compare tone, posture, and the verbs you used. Growth often hides in word choice. Celebrate small shifts. They count.

Remember that your notebook can be a quiet room where God meets you with grace. Write the hard stuff, read the brave work of others, and let the rhythm of language steady your mind.

If May’s focus on mental health has stirred questions or exposed fresh wounds, leave a comment below or send me a message. Your feedback guides future articles and reminds us that we heal better together.

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Janette Owens is the founder of Be Inspired For Real and owner of Be Inspired For Real LLC. She loves everything inspirational and has spent most of her life inspiring and motivating others through humor, prose, exhortation, and God's grace. Janette is the author of A Swan Song, an intimate collection of poems and short stories. Janette lives just outside of Memphis, Tennessee.