"Ah, you're not going to ask me to write about it, are you?" Even my friends aren't certain as to why they should embark on a task so daunting.

Writing. That means finding pen and paper. My grammar stinks. It makes me think I'm back in school.

The nightmare of horrors continues for many when I suggest to them that putting pen to paper is good therapy. Studies have shown that pouring out our feelings onto the blank page lowers blood pressure and heart rates. When you share your innermost fears, doubts and problems, you gain insight. By writing these down in a notebook or journal, you don't have to even let anyone know what they are. A journal doesn't spill your guts for the rest of the office to hear, as a co-worker just might. A journal is safe and cheap therapy.

Until I heard that little voice that nudged me towards my journal. While everyone else in the house slept, I wrote by the light of a melon-scented candle. I wrote about everything that was bothering me, even things I choose not to place here. Then I blew out the candle and slept wonderfully. The next day I was refreshed and relaxed.

I believe we all need times to unwind with our pen and journals. I think that if we did this ritual more frequently we'd have less trouble.

For when you pour your heart and heartaches onto the pages, you find release. You have shared them with the pages and see that they are not so large they cannot be contained. And when viewed, the ones that still bother you can be tackled and the ones that only needed to be jotted down and then don't seem so critical, can be put to rest.

When my four-year-old Daniel lost his battle due to severe cancer treatments, I found refuge in the pages of my journal. The pain was so huge, expanding wider than any sky, and I could not contain it all within me. Through pen and paper I was able to let a little of the sorrow escape each day and that release gave me the sanity to carry on. To quote Alice Walker, "Writing saved me."

My husband of fifteen years admitted the other day that writing in his journal was helping him succeed in life. Of course one would think that being married to a writer, he would naturally have taken to my urges to journal early on in our marriage. Not so. Just recently he read somewhere (and it was not an article I'd written) about the value of writing and decided to try it out. He started jotting down things he'd heard or read that meant something to him. Now he's become an advocate for the respite with pen and paper. I try not to repeat the phrase, "I told you so," too often as he stresses how valuable and self-revealing writing really is.

Under the Expanded Sky

Educating Merna

Crying With My Ancestors

Opening Grief as a Gift

Living Life from the Graveyard

Surviving the Tinsel

Trees of the Ice Storm

Is There Laughter After Death?

Whatever Happened to the Old?

Out of My Comfort Zone

I Am Not Cheese

As The Sixth Year Approaches

The Dirty Green Van

Judging Pain?

Grief Meets the Answering Machine

Closets, Revisited

There is Nothing Wrong with You!

Scared to Death of Dying and Denying Grief

The Night the Christmas Tree Fell

Baking Bereavement Bread

For the Love of Mothers

Bereaved Eyes

A Wealthy Life

The Power of Photographs

Fragrance of Marigolds

It has been several months since my newest book, "Down the Cereal Aisle" - a compilation of anecdotes, grief tips, recipes and remembrances of children who have died, was published. One of the contributor's to this cookbook writes to thank me for using her poem about her son who died from a heart defect. She adds, "It really does help to put things on paper."

The art of writing restores, rejuvenates and releases so that we are able to carry on the many rocky paths we must trod in this life.

So take time to make writing work for you.

Here are some of the tips listed in "Down the Cereal Aisle" (Daniel's House Publications, 2003) on writing through pain:

• * Find a secluded place to write where you can think clearly without distraction.
• * Write, at first, for your eyes only. It doesn't have to be shared with anyone.
• * Write to chart progress for you to read years down the road.
• * Write with the feeling "I will survive this."
• * Write to identify your emotions and feelings.
• * Write to help solve some of the new situations you must now face.
• * Think of your journal as a friend who never judges and who can never hurt you.
• * Write your spiritual struggles.
• * Write to rebuild your self-esteem and your self-confidence.

{Copyright 2003 by Alice J. Wisler}