---
title: "Journaling Power: Facing, Forgiving and Freeing The Past"
description: How to use your Journaling Power to make peace with the past permanently.
image: https://www.createwritenow.com/hubfs/Book/Journaling_Power_Book_Cover_with_Best_Seller_Badge.png
---

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# Journaling Power: Facing, Forgiving and Freeing The Past

Tag - [Journaling Therapy](https://www.createwritenow.com/journal-writing-blog/topic/journaling-therapy), [Self Growth](https://www.createwritenow.com/journal-writing-blog/topic/self-growth), [Creative Journaling](https://www.createwritenow.com/journal-writing-blog/topic/creative-journaling)

Author - [Mari L. McCarthy](https://www.createwritenow.com/journal-writing-blog/author/mari-l-mccarthy)

Published - November 2, 2016

![Journaling Power: Facing, Forgiving and Freeing The Past](https://www.createwritenow.com/hubfs/Book/Journaling_Power_Book_Cover_with_Best_Seller_Badge.png)

***This post originally ran at [http://krpooler.com/blog](http://krpooler.com/blog) as part of my WOW Journaling Power Blog Tour  
***

![Journaling_Power_Book_Cover_with_Best_Seller_Badge.png](https://www.createwritenow.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Book/Journaling_Power_Book_Cover_with_Best_Seller_Badge.png?width=276&height=484&name=Journaling_Power_Book_Cover_with_Best_Seller_Badge.png)Are you “stuck” in the past, ruminating about and reprocessing all the things that your caregivers didn’t do for you as a child?

That was me for many years until I discovered the transformational power of writing therapy. It seemed like a chance discovery at the time, but it turned my life around.

I’d been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) and had been desperately running from one specialist to another, hoping for a medical breakthrough which somehow never arrived. No matter how many new drugs I tried, my MS symptoms got worse until finally I had to sell my successful management consulting business.

I experimented with daily journaling as a physical therapy, hoping it would enable me to write with my left hand (I’d lost most of the function in the right side of my body).

But ***something incredible happened when I started writing.*** Not only did my MS symptoms improve, but I began to reconnect to my body and spiritual self. Memories began flooding in. I used my journal to start figuring out who I was. Here and Now.

I recalled an incident when the nuns at St. Bernard’s School yelled at me for being two minutes late to pick up my ill younger brother’s homework. I remembered how shy and afraid the incident had made me feel. I noticed that I was still carrying those feelings with me. Connecting with my feelings scared me to begin with. It was a shock to realize that the frightened child of my past was still living inside my body, and that the emotions I had repressed as a young girl still pained me.

But ***I found expressing my feelings on paper catharti***c. I kept writing away––and eighteen years later I am still penning several pages a day and reaping the holistic health benefits. I have regained 70% of the function in my right side, I no longer take prescription drugs or over-the-counter drugs. I’ve made peace with family members and friends before and after they’ve passed on.

Medical science is backing up what I have personally experienced. Evidence from 300 scientifically controlled studies carried out in the past 30 years shows conclusively that ***expressive writing helps many people to heal, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.***

James Pennebaker, the pioneer of this research, said: “Writing may make you sad for a brief time, but the long-term effects are far more positive. Across multiple studies, people who engage in expressive writing report feeling happier and less negative than they felt before writing”

***Journaling has given me a sense of perspective on my past that has brought me inner peace***. There is no doubt I was deprived of affection as a child, but I have allowed myself to feel this deprivation consciously and move on to the point of forgiveness. I have learned how to put my past where it belongs–behind me and I’m creating the happy, healthy life I’m now free to live.

Journaling Power Prompt:

Who Am I…Today?

***

You can learn all about putting the past where it belongs in my international best-selling self-help book, ***Journaling Power*****: How To Create The Happy, Healthy Life* You* Want To Live ** now on sale at **[Amazon ](https://www.amazon.com/Journaling-Power-Create-Happy-Healthy/dp/1988071216/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1474322073&sr=1-1&keywords=journaling+power+by+mari+mccarthy)**in ebook and paperback versions. #WriteON!

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