You have heard of the magic wand, but have you ever heard of a “healing pen”?
Yes, writing and journaling can help one heal their emotional wounds.
“Healing Pens” is a 10-session workshop series designed for the Center for Wellness and Health Promotion at Harvard University for undergraduate students to explore life writing as a means to both inspire creative self-expression and to heal. The workshop series uses the Healing Centered Engagement approach that emphasizes strength and re-centers culture and identity as central features in wellbeing. Participants will get familiar with the genre of life writing through reading excellent pieces of autobiography, memoir, and short real-life stories, will experiment with mindful journaling and creative non-fiction writing, and ultimately will produce either two short pieces (at least 5 pages each) or a longer piece (at least 10 pages) of their true life stories.
It takes courage to tell your own stories with honesty and integrity, and the process of writing is active engagement with reflection and contemplation, and it activates your creativity. This is a safe space for you to connect to yourself and to the world in a deep and meaningful way. Explore the healing power of writing, storytelling, and self-expression.
Through the process of designing and developing this workshop from zero to one, I witnessed the evolution of my ideas (from originally a school-based, student-run storytelling podcast to a life writing workshop series for college students), and realized that the learning designer’s personal interest and passion for their design work is essential to producing a good design. In designing this workshop series and curriculum, I educated myself on topics of wellbeing and the HCE approach, and applied techniques of design thinking, such as “empathy mapping,” and utilized the backward design method.
