Words that Heal
Find strength in meaningful and uplifting writing, as disheartened, and creative, souls have always done
LAST YEAR, I PACKED UP MY London flat to move back to my home town. My anxiety was at an all-time high. Boxing up my belongings without friends or family to help me is not something I would want to do at the best of times but, in those early days of the pandemic, when it felt like the end of the world, my stress levels were rocketing.
When numerous well-meaning friends and acquaintances took it upon themselves to call and inform me that London was going into full military lockdown and I would be trapped in the capital on my own, I had a panic attack so severe that I had to lean my head against the wall in my kitchen, which was a scene of total chaos. To restore a sense of calm, I turned to my favourite poem, Hope Is The Thing With Feathers by Emily Dickinson:
“Hope” is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops - at all And
sweetest - in the Gale - is heard And sore must be the storm That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm I’ve
heard it in the chillest land And on the strangest Sea Yet - never - in Extremity, It asked a crumb - of me.
Repeating the first line of Hope Is The Thing With Feathers out loud was the only thing that brought me peace of mind in those fraught moments. In the end, there were no soldiers on the streets of the city and I made it back to Shropshire the day before the first lockdown began. As the pandemic dragged on, however, I kept returning to Dickinson’s wisdom.
I have always loved words. As a child, I was a bookworm and would bury my head in a Judy Blume book after a bad day at school. As an angst-ridden teenager, I would copy angry song lyrics into my diary and, these days, I have postcards and handwritten quotes on my noticeboard that help me when I’m struggling to motivate myself. I know I am not the only one. But why do words help us so much?
Lifelines in stormy seas
Author and mental health campaigner Matt Haig features quotes he finds helpful in his new book, The Comfort Book, which he wrote during the first lockdown and after the deaths of two friends. It includes bite-sized pieces of wisdom to help people in distress. Words, he says, can act as life rafts during tough times.
After feeling suicidal in his 20s, Haig recovered in his childhood bedroom, with limited reading material. He turned to the selection on his old bookshelf, which included Winnie-the-pooh, and The Collins Dictionary Of Quotations. ‘I remember picking up
Matt Haig
Matt Haig is a No 1 bestselling author who has sold more than three million books in the UK. His work has been translated into more than 40 languages. ‘The Comfort Book’ (Canongate, £16.99) is out now
Norman Rosenthal Norman Rosenthal is a world-renowned psychiatrist, researcher and bestselling author. ‘Poetry Rx: How 50 Inspiring Poems Can Heal And Bring Joy To Your Life’ (G&D Media, £14.99) is out now
The House At Pooh Corner and feeling sincere, deep comfort from those simple, childish lines, and getting great warmth and nourishment from them,’ he says. ‘The Dictionary Of Quotations was amazing because you get compressed pieces of wisdom. Some of them actually got through to me and were incredibly helpful.’
When Haig is dealing with anxiety, he also turns to Dickinson – but the quote that helps him is ‘Forever is composed of nows’ because it encourages him to focus on the present. ‘It reminds me that all we have is the moment in front of us – and that’s all we ever have,’ he says.
Another quote he particularly likes is by Greek philosopher Heraclitus – ‘No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man’.
‘That is so important for me because the thing that made me suicidal was the idea that I would never change, that things were going to be this way forever, which isn’t true. We become different versions of ourselves through the experiences we have,’ says Haig.
He is in good company in this belief. Norman Rosenthal, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Georgetown Medical School, has explored the subject in his book, Poetry Rx: How 50 Inspiring Poems Can Heal And Bring Joy To Your Life.
Around 20 years ago, a grieving friend read him the poem One Art by Elizabeth Bishop and he realised that both their spirits were lifted by the words. This made him wonder about the therapeutic power of poetry and he regularly ‘prescribes’ poems to his patients, including one who was trying to get over a broken heart – until he read the poem When You Are Old by WB Yeats.
From the cradle…
‘It’s the sound of the words, the meaning of the words and the way they’re arranged – the words can charm you, they hypnotise you, they enliven you and they calm you,’ says Rosenthal. ‘I think one of the reasons is that when we are babies, our mothers sing us lullabies and read to us. It’s soothing for babies to hear and this might be why poems and songs are so soothing to us as adults.’
Rosenthal also noticed that the challenges of the pandemic have led many of us to find comfort in words, whether in prose that we have read a hundred times or an inspirational quote we have spotted online.
‘We were secluded and thrown upon our own resources. It’s wonderful to think that at a time when so much was closed off to us, this ancient form of comfort and companionship was still available,’ he says.
Dickinson’s poem is now part of my toolbox of coping strategies when dealing with problems in life. When my father was rushed to hospital with sepsis earlier this year, her words, as ever, comforted me. As well as finding solace in the verses, I believe that they have changed my outlook. Her words remind me that hope will always be there for me, no matter what, which makes me feel more optimistic about the future.
As Haig says: ‘A single line or paragraph of some piece of ancient wisdom can actually make a difference to your life and reframe your perspective. I am a true believer in the power of words.’
matthaig.com; normanrosenthal.com