How Journaling and Poetry Can Help You Heal: Writing Tips to Move Toward Wholeness with Dr. Liz DeBetta

Healing is not a linear path even though we want it to be. It can be messy, unpredictable, and sometimes takes us through emotional states we aren’t prepared to experience. 

For many of us, finding ways to connect with our emotions, experience and expel them can be a lifeline—and writing is one powerful tool to help you with the process.

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Liz DeBetta, a fellow adoptee, independent scholar, and artist-activist to talk about the power of healing through writing. Liz shares how journaling, poetry, and even theater helped her navigate some of life’s toughest moments, from childhood trauma to divorce. We dive deep into the healing journey and what it means to move toward wholeness.

What you'll learn:

• How writing can help you process emotions and heal from trauma – even if you're not a "writer."
• Why poetry and free writing can be powerful tools for self-discovery and how they can help you connect to what’s really going on inside you.
• Practical writing prompts you can start using today! 
• The link between creative expression and emotional regulation, and why it matters for your mental and physical well-being.
• What "wholeness" truly means and how you can start moving toward it in your own life.

Liz also opens up about her award-winning one-woman show, UN-M-OTHERED, and how sharing her story on stage became a crucial part of her healing process.

If you're curious about how journaling or creative writing could help you heal from past experiences, this episode is for you!!

So, grab your headphones and journal, and let’s dive in!
Laurie

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Website

About Liz:
Dr. Liz DeBetta, creator of Migrating Toward Wholeness© is an adoptee and independent scholar-artist-activist committed to changing systems and helping people navigate trauma through creative processes. Liz is a proud member of Actor's Equity, SAG-AFTRA. She currently works at the National Center for Institutional Diversity at the University of Michigan. She has an award-winning one woman show called Un-M-Othered, and facilitates trauma informed healing workshops for adoptees and women. 

Connect with Liz:
Website
Liz’s Book 
FB: @Dr.LizDeBetta

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DISCLAIMER: THE COMMENTARY AND OPINIONS AVAILABLE ON THIS PODCAST ARE FOR INFORMATIONAL AND ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND NOT FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING LEGAL, MEDICAL OR PROFESSIONAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED THERAPIST IF YOU ARE EXPERIENCING SUICIDAL THOUGHTS. YOU SHOULD CONTACT AN ATTORNEY IN YOUR STATE TO OBTAIN LEGAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD CONTACT A LICENSED MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL WITH RESPECT TO ANY MEDICAL ISSUE OR PROBLEM.

Transcript

Laurie James  
Hey, there friends and free birds. Before we get started, I wanted to make sure that you knew about the contest that I'm running that you can participate in when you leave me a review in Apple podcast, Spotify, or however you listen to my podcast, if you send me an email in the one way, text link that's down in the show notes of the show that you're listening to today, put your name into a drawing to receive either a $50 Target gift card or $50 towards a coaching session or one of my monthly somatic classes. I'll be drawing the name at the end of October, and I'll be announcing it the first Thursday of November. So make sure you get your review in. It really helps other free birds find our conversation so more of us can spread our wings, and today, I'll be speaking with a fellow adoptee, Dr Liz DeBetta, and we will be discussing how we can heal through writing and journaling. She also shares this really easy prompt that will help you get out of your head so you can move towards more wholeness. So enjoy this enriching conversation, and don't forget to leave that review. 

Laurie James  
Welcome to Confessions of a Freebird podcast. I'm your host. Laurie James, a mother, divorcee, a recovering caregiver, the author of Sandwiched A Memoir of Holding on and Letting go, a therapy junkie, relationship coach, somatic healer and now podcaster, I'm a free spirit, and here to lift you up. On this podcast, I'll share soulful confessions and empowering conversations with influential expert so you can learn to spread your wings and make the most of your second half. So pop in those earbuds, turn up the volume, and let's get inspired, because my mission is to help you create your most joyful, purpose driven life. One confession at a time. 

Laurie James  
Welcome back, free birds. Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with Dr Liz debetta, who is the creator of migrating toward wholeness and the creator of an award winning one woman show called unmothered that we'll get into. Liz is also a fellow adoptee, an independent scholar, artist and activist, Liz is committed to changing systems and helping people navigate trauma through the creative process. She believes our stories are powerful change agents, and when we write them and share them, we connect and heal. That's so true. I can't wait to dive into that Liz and Liz has many accolades. She's a proud member of Actors Equity sag afta, affiliate faculty at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender and part of the diversity scholars network at the National Center for institutional diversity at the University of Michigan, Go Blue. One of my daughters went there. She also facilitates trauma informed healing workshops for adoptees and women. Her book Adult Adoptees and Writing to Heal, migrating toward wholeness, is available where books can be sold, and before I have Liz share a little bit more and introduce her, I have to confess, I didn't ever think of myself as a creative my mom, I felt like she was creative because she was this artist, and just drew and painted these incredible pictures. But it wasn't until I started writing, even just very beginning, before I even thought I was ever going to write a book, where I started to feel like maybe I do have a creative side. So without further ado, welcome Liz and thank you so much for being here.

Liz DeBetta  
Thanks, Laurie, I'm so excited to be here.

Laurie James  
Yes, I'm so this is going to be a rich conversation. I can already feel it. So how about you start by telling us a little bit more about yourself and how you have moved towards wholeness yourself and created this writing program around it, and then maybe also about your one woman show.

Liz DeBetta  
Yeah, so, you know, I was a little kid who was always kind of buried in books, and I think that's true for a lot of adopted people. Like I find this synchronicity and when I hear people's stories, but I found a lot of comfort in books and stories. And as I got older, I started to have really big, overwhelming feelings. And so sometimes I could disappear into books and, like, read about other people's lives and kind of forget about my own problems for a while. And I think that's thing one. And then the next part of that is, as I got older and into my teenage years, I started to have a lot of really big emotions that I didn't know how to contain. And of course, at the time, everybody was just like, oh, you're a teenager. You're a girl. You're just hormonal, right? All those things. 

Laurie James  
You're emotional. 

Liz DeBetta  
That's normal teenage behavior. You're just a normal teenage girl. Nobody was thinking about the fact that I had also been adopted, and then I had this early trauma that had really impacted my nervous system and that impacted my ability to self regulate. And so at about 14 years old, I wanted to do theater. I got really interested in acting and performing. And my parents were theater teachers at the when I was a kid, so I kind of grew up around theater. And I grew up in New York City, so we were going to Broadway all the time and seeing different kinds of theater. And so I was always like, oh, like, that's so cool. And so I started doing community theater when I was about 14 years old, and I found the process of getting to live someone else's life, going to rehearsal every day for a couple of hours, and becoming someone else was one of the things that really helped me manage my big, intense, overwhelming emotion.

Laurie James  
Was it a way for you to escape? 

Liz DeBetta  
Yeah, it was kind of both. It was like I could escape, right? Like, in fact, I think it's written in my book I say that performing was a way for me to live someone else's life and not have to be confused about my own. Of course, that's me articulating it now as an adult, 30, almost 35 years later, right? As a child, I didn't know I just knew that I felt better when I was performing. I also knew that I was good at it, and it gave me a place to put all of those really big, intense emotions, right? Because if I was playing a really dramatic role and my character needed to cry, well, good. I can do that. I'm good at crying. And I think too, it was a really good regulator for my nervous system, because it allowed me to get out some of those emotions that wouldn't have otherwise gone anywhere. So with a healthy outlet, it also gave me a place to feel like I wasn't alone, you know, because they had this group of other like weird theater kid friends.

Laurie James  
Yeah, because, as a fellow adoptee, did you feel alone? Growing up, because I know that that's often a common thread that we experience. I know other non adoptees also feel it if they don't feel like they belong in their family, but I was curious if you also felt that. 

Liz DeBetta  
Yeah, I was the only girl in my family and the middle child and have an older brother who is also adopted, but my younger brother is my parents biological son, and he was born with Down syndrome, and I very much felt like I was left to my own devices, and didn't feel like I quite fit in my family all the time. Like, yes, there were ways that I did fit in, and I think theater was one of those ways, because that was a way for me to identify with my parents, right? They were both theater teachers, and then I'm like, Oh, well, I'm going to do this thing too. So it was a point of connection. But also, many adopted people feel like they don't fit in, or we feel like case like strangers in our own families, just because we don't look like the people that we're being raised with, and we don't have those biological mirrors. And so I think it was easier for me and more comfortable for me to get to live all of these other lives, right? I could really use that ability to be a chameleon in a healthy way.

Laurie James  
Yeah, yeah, I love that. So your program is called, migrated to wholeness, and that's in the title of your book. Tell me about what wholeness means to you, because I know what wholeness means to me, so I'm kind of interested your take on it. 

Liz DeBetta  
Yeah. I mean for me, wholeness means being able to be present. It means to find it feeling a greater sense of healing and connectedness. I think a lot about wholeness as connectedness and integration for me, and that's because I've spent so much time feeling unhole, like there were pieces of me or parts of me that were missing, or parts of me that I didn't understand. And so the whole idea around migrating toward wholeness is that we're constantly moving towards something, right? It's a movement toward a greater sense of connectedness and integration. 

Laurie James  
And it starts with us, the connectedness to ourselves and what's happening on the inside, which is our nervous system, which is our emotions and our relationship with that so that way, then we can also then connect with us. Others on the outside, because if we're disconnected from ourselves, we're also then disconnected because we're not comfortable in our own skin. So how can we be comfortable with other people? Right? And just from my own spiritual journey and my own healing, and tell me if you see it the same way is I feel like we're all born whole. I mean, some of us have a little bit of a deficit when we come out of the womb adopted, but for the most part, we're born whole. And I feel like life experiences kind of pick away at that wholeness. And I feel like when you awaken and you start your healing journey. It's our job to bring ourselves back to wholeness, right?

Liz DeBetta  
Yeah, I think that's true, and you're 100% right about that idea of wholeness being first a deeper connection to ourselves in order to then be able to turn it outward and connect with other people in the world. Like, that's 100% what I say all the time, so like, you're in my brain. But yeah, I think that you're right. Life does kind of pick away at that sense of wholeness, and there's lots of reasons for that, for adopted people, it's the initial trauma of being separated from our mothers at birth, and then how our nervous systems get rewired and our brains get rewired, and we have to first know that the trauma has happened, right, and then recognize the ways that it's showing up. And for some of us, that takes a long time. It took me decades. 

Laurie James  
Yeah, or never. For some people, true, yes, right? And those are the people that have a tendency to affect us in a greater way. It's true that aren't healed, right? 

Liz DeBetta  
Right. Yes. For us as women, there are so many ways that our sense of self and our sense of wholeness can get eroded over time, like I knew you and I shared the experience of divorce, right? And a lot of women can relate and resonate with that, that like and this sort of dismantling of patriarchy, I'm gonna say, right, that we are sort of socially conditioned to believe a particular narrative about what our life should look like, and so many of us really kind of swallow that wholesale and do the whole thing right, like have the wedding and wear the white dress and have the big party and think that, like everything's going to be okay, except then the reality is that sometimes those relationships are shitty. Had a very abusive ex husband, and I did not see that coming. Nobody does right? And so that, on top of my adoption trauma, on top of financial troubles, whatever, all the things are that get layered on top, day after day, week after month, year after year, we have to do that internal work. Yeah, you know.

Laurie James  
Because otherwise, right, it just picks away at us that we have no self worth. And through the process, we've lost ourselves. And so then what do we do?

Liz DeBetta  
Exactly, yeah, I mean, and that's so much like for me, what happened, you know, I how I came into this whole healing journey almost about a decade. 

Laurie James  
Yeah, so can you share a little bit more about how you've written about how the arts have saved you? I know you touched on that a little bit when you were younger, but maybe as your adult self that have gone through these bigger life experiences. 

Liz DeBetta  
Yeah. I mean, like I said, I think the arts and creativity saves a lot of people without us realizing it. So for me, for all of those years as a teenager and young adult, theater was my lifeline. It was the place that I could go to put all the stuff that I didn't understand, right, all that emotional stuff that I was carrying. And I think without having that vehicle or that place to go to put all that stuff. I probably wouldn't be sitting here having this conversation with you, because I've been in some really dark places. My mental health has not always been great, and some really dark depressions and like, it's better off if I not hear moments and- 

Laurie James  
Sorry. 

Liz DeBetta  
Yeah, thank you. And those are sort of like the ebbs and flows and but, you know, there were times in my teens and 20s where those feelings were there and they were real, and if I didn't have even just the responsibility of like, Oh, but I have rehearsal, we open next weekend, and also this built in community of support, right, that the cast that I was part of in the the community theater that I was part of for many years was like another family, and whether or not they knew, like, the deeper inner stuff, they knew enough that, like, I had people who were, like, checking in on me. 

Laurie James  
Yeah, because if somebody's in tune enough, they sense your energy, of like, something feels a little off with Liz, like, Hey, how are you? You look a little bummed or little down, like, what's going on? Like, your close knit circle knows you well enough to be able to check in on you, like that.

Liz DeBetta  
Yeah. And then the other part of how the arts have really been a salvation. And for me is that around the same time that I started doing theater, I had a really smart teacher and coach, George Anthony, who I am still friends with to this day, and I hope he's listening, because I tell this story a lot, but he knew that something was going on, and he's the one who suggested that I start writing, and he suggested that I start writing poetry, and I thought that was the dumbest idea in the world at the time, because I was 14, right? But then he shared a poem of his that he had written and published in in a college literary magazine, and he told me this whole story, and I had this, like, profound paradigm shift in that moment, because I thought, wow, if, if this and this is like, how much the patriarchy was internalized, right? Like, if this man could be vulnerable and write this poem, maybe it's not so stupid, right? Because I thought of poetry as this, like, Barty, flowery, sort of, you know, like dusty, kind of art form, like I didn't. I was like, what book, poetry? Okay, whatever, you know, and I got a little flowered notebook, and it's still on my shelf in the other room, and I started writing. Anytime that I needed to release some stuff, I would grab my notebook, and I would just write until I felt better, and I would I have years worth of these poems that really helped me regulate what was going on in my nervous system and helped me to feel better, because I was what I now know I was creating a container, right? So, like the theater was a container, the poems were the container for the big emotions, and they they were living somewhere outside of my body and my brain, and it made it more manageable. And then, of course, I went back to those poems many years later, when I was working on writing my one woman show, and then working on writing my book, and I realized how much those poems had to say about younger Liz and the pain and confusion that. 

Laurie James  
She was experiencing. Yeah, you writing is very, very powerful. And I'm not quite there yet, but I do want to get back to writing. But, you know, I wrote almost every day for five years, which isn't probably as long. I mean, it sounds like you're much more of a writer, and maybe regularly, and especially since you're teaching these classes about writing to writing to heal and migrating to wholeness. But what are the benefits that you have found from writing, from, you know, like going through your divorce and dealing with some of these bigger adult life issues? Because it's like, even though we have big emotions when we're teenagers. I often say, you know, little kids, little problems, bigger kids, bigger problems, right? Like, and we don't know that until we're an adult. So how has that helped you through some of your darker moments in life, and also, like, struggling through your divorce and such?

Liz DeBetta  
Yeah, I'm so glad you asked me that, because as you were asking that question. I remembered that when the shit hit the fan with my ex husband and I knew that I was gonna need to get out if I was gonna survive. I mean, you know, it was kind of a critical situation. I hadn't been writing like there was a part of myself that had just closed down for a number of years that I didn't have access to which is very telling, right? That I was in a situation where I couldn't even have access to myself, and when things started to get real bad, I lived near the beach in New Jersey at the time, and I would often take walks to get out of the house, and it would sit by the beach and write and just, you know, take a notebook and a pen and just write. And I started writing again. Those poems at that time just helped me gain some clarity on what was going on internally, like, what were the emotions? And it helped me give words to the experiences that I was to the felt sense, and it wasn't like conscious, right? And I talk about this in my book. There's there's this concept of core language, which comes out of, actually, some of Mark Wolins work. He wrote, It didn't start with you, and I have always thought about what he calls core language as sort of unconscious language, where, when we allow ourselves to just put pen to paper, what needs to come out is going to come out, and it's going to have a clue for us about the message we need to receive. And so in terms of a helping process, like, and to this day, like when I'm feeling things really deeply and I need to process through something, I'll sit and I'll write, and sometimes it's a short burst, it's a little tiny poem, and then I'll walk away from it, and I'll come back to it the next day, and I'll look that, and I'll go, oh, okay, this is what's going on. And then I can start to stress. Strategize for myself, like, what are some next steps that I can take, or do I need? Do I need to do some more writing? 

Laurie James  
What's the emotion that's emerging right now, and how can I tend to that emotion? You know, somatically, what we want to do is allow that emotion to emerge. We want to experience it. We want to express it in a way which is the writing process. And so that way we can let go of it or expel it. And so I love that that's such a beautiful way for us to get in touch with our bodies. Because I remember when I was writing my writing coach would often say, Well, what were you feeling when you're writing as you know, and writing a book, and mine was a memoir, so it was like I needed to really get in touch with what was that? What was that clenching of my gut feeling right, or whatever it is, or the openness, and how do I express that in a way that I that might be a little bit different from the other 20 times that I wrote about it in the book? So it is a really great way for you to go inward and really develop that relationship with yourself. I mean, I had a lot of healing that I had to do after I wrote the book, but it was a wonderful way for me to really develop that relationship with myself, for sure. Like, so I was like, I don't know I was sad. Like, I don't know I was angry, right?

Liz DeBetta  
Right? Yeah, and that's the thing about when we start to put pen to paper and assign language to things, particularly poetry. Like I find poetry a really particularly good vehicle because of the the sparseness of the language and the metaphor simulating and, you know, being an imagery. So one of the things that's really helpful for me is being able to go back to not only, you know, guest poems, but also like free writes that I do. Free writing is another great way to unlock some stuff and learn some stuff about where you're at and what you need. But I look for images. I look for repeated words and phrases. Because if I keep saying the same thing, look, if I keep talking about a black hole, then I gotta, like, sit with myself and say, Okay, what's the black hole? About what part of my life does that represent, or what experience does that represent? And that's an image that I'm going to continue to work with, if it keeps showing up. And that's also really a big part of the process in migrating toward wholeness in the writing group. Work that I do is helping people find those things and work with them.

Laurie James  
Right. Or if you're writing a lot about anger, right, that's something, why am I so angry? What's going on in my life that I'm angry, or resentment? What's behind that resentment, all these different emotions. Because our society is often taught us and our parents too, not to feel, you know, stop crying or give you something to cry about, or, you know, like you talked about big emotions. Oh, you're just a teenager, and you brush it off. It's like, No, this is what I'm experiencing right now. Can somebody hold space for me? And if somebody can't, in your family. I wasn't a big writer. I was a little bit of a reader growing up, but not a huge reader. But yeah, like, where do those emotions go? Like, we need to have those big emotions go somewhere, right? Because if we don't, we shove them down. They turn into depression, they turn into anger, they turn into resentment. 

Liz DeBetta  
They turn into disordered eating. It turns into insomnia, it turns into all kinds of negative health outcomes.

Laurie James  
Yeah, and somatically, that unease that you feel the emotions of not processing the emotions turns into dis ease in the body, and then eventually disease of some sort too. 

Liz DeBetta  
Yeah, so 100% and there's a whole lot of research that supports writing as a tool for healing when you're specifically targeting traumatic events or particular events that have caused harm, and there are documented studies that have shown that when people are specifically writing about these difficult experiences over an extended period of time, They have better mental and physical health outcomes, as opposed to just writing about whatever, right? And so there's a couple of things that weren't there, but like, we have to do something with what we're feeling. But yeah, you're right. Like, if we don't learn to identify the feelings, then they just get lumped into one category, right? And it comes out for a lot of people as anger. And I also like that you touched on the disembodiment right of our culture that we're taught not we're just taught to, you know, operate- 

Laurie James  
From the head up. I often talk about that, yeah, because we're taught to think our way through instead of really, like, Okay, what's happening in my body? Why is my body having a reaction? But my body is telling me to do one thing, but my head is telling me to do another. And I think that's where people get really confused. It's like, No, you need to check in with your body, because our body has so much wisdom as you know, right? Our nervous system is telling us something. It's Yes, sometimes it signals us wrongly that there's danger when there isn't necessarily danger. But that is also a signal of, okay, that's something I need to heal. But it's also listening to that gut when you're calm. It's like I'm having this gut feeling of, this isn't right or that decision isn't right, how do I listen to that and start developing that relationship with that of, what is it that I want to do with my life? Or, you know, how do I get through this divorce, or how do I deal with my adoption, or whatever. How do I deal with a change of jobs, whatever it is that somebody listening might be dealing with right at the moment? How do I manage this relationship with my child? You know? 

Liz DeBetta  
Yeah, and that's part of that movement toward wholeness, right? Is that is being able to reconnect and be present in our bodies, right? And know what we're feeling, so that we're able to distinguish between what I call external versus internal directives, right? So like, there is things that come at us from outside, right, those messages that we're constantly bombarded with. And like I said it earlier, lots of us when we're young, we're taught that we're supposed to grow up, get married, have the wedding, and that's the external messaging that that's the thing you should do. But I never learned to question that. I never learned to stop and go, Wait a minute. Number one, think about this, and then how do how do I actually feel about it, right? And so learning to integrate that has been really instrumental for me and my own journey toward a greater sense of wholeness, is being able to be more embodied and more present and more connected to my feelings, even when they're scary, right? Because I have also learned they're not going to kill me.

Laurie James  
They're not going to kill you, yeah, and it is, I mean, it's scary to feel, because I have a lot of people that say, Well, I don't want to have to rehash it. I don't want to have to relive it. You don't necessarily have to relive it. You can write a prompt, a writing prompt, and work through that without reliving that specific experience. Somatically, that's the beauty of working with a somatic practitioner, is we can be present for you and help you work through something without having to relive it. So we focus on the body, we focus on the sensations, we focus on the emotions. But that doesn't mean you have to retell your story. 

Liz DeBetta  
Exactly. Yeah. And that's also, you know, the importance of trauma informed care, right? And that those of us who are doing healing modalities are trauma informed practitioners, who who are not asking people to rip off band aids and then leave them bleeding, bleed out, Right exactly. I think there's so many of us that have our own experiences and histories of trauma that are now being able to hold space for other people because of our experiences.

Laurie James  
Yeah, and being able to have that empathy and understanding of what somebody else is going through absolutely so can you tell our listeners and me a little bit more about your award winning solo play? Unmothered?

Liz DeBetta  
Yeah, so unmothered is is a solo show that I wrote as part of my dissertation work. I had this crazy idea because of my background. My undergraduate degree is in theater, and I have a master's degree in English and writing, and I had this crazy idea that I should write a one woman show, because I was like, I need to do something creative. And my program was very socially justice and creativity oriented, and they were very supportive. And when I brought it to my committee, they were like, Yes, do it. You know, it was kind of inspired by a couple of years prior to that, I had seen the artist, V formerly Eve ensler's solo performance in the body of the world, which is based on their memoir, and it really struck me. And I remember sitting in that audience and thinking, Oh, wow. So if I'm going to keep doing theater or keep performing like this is the kind of work I want to do. And so when I got into my PhD program, had written and performed a smaller solo performance piece. Called me, she, they, our bodies are not the problem. An interdisciplinary award for that. And then again, like I said, when it came time for my dissertation, I thought, Okay, I'm gonna write a solo show and so and because part of my work was also focused on using writing as a tool for healing, it functioned in both ways. It was like, I'm gonna do this piece of writing with these theoretical underpinnings, and know that I'm specifically writing about my internal experience of being adopted, and the intersections with patriarchy, right, and lack of choice and like what? And weaving in the parts of my story that I knew about my first mother and the parts of my story that I didn't know that I rewrote, right? And so I used a lot of writing that I had been doing to fill in the blanks. And so this show is largely poetry. That's the sort of narrative thread, and it's because it's a very emotional way of getting to the internal experience. And then it's linked by chunks of personal narrative, and it's just me and my story. I've done it in conference rooms. I've done it in black box theaters. I've done it in bigger theaters. Sounds powerful, it is. And, you know, people can learn more about it or reach out to me if they want to know more. But, um- 

Speaker 1  
Yeah, and I'll have the link in the show notes on how to to reach you about that. Yeah, that sounds very rich and deep. And there's a lot of through threads, I can tell in that. So if somebody is listening right now and feels like poetry sounds a little intimidating, because poetry is a little intimidating to me, but I love it. But they are interested in, you know, doing something creative or even just starting to journal. Do you have two or three pieces of advice for them that they can use on their own healing journey?

Liz DeBetta  
Yes, absolutely. So totally hear you on the poetry feeling intimidating. You are not the first person who has said that to me. And like I said, when it first came to me, like, write poetry, I was like, What? No. So here's a really gray way of getting into poetry that's not intimidating. It's called acrostic poem, poetry. And what you do is you take a word. So we've been talking about the concept of wholeness. So just for the sake of example, if we were going to take the word wholeness, we take that word and use each letter of the word to start a new line of the poem. And then when you so you get through W, H, O, L, E, N, E, S, S, and then you get through all that, and then you read that back, and you can look at what's the story that comes out of that, right, about what wholeness means to you right now in this moment.

Laurie James  
I love that. 

Liz DeBetta  
a]And it could be any word, right, like, that's just the example. But if someone's going through a particular thing, right, or, like, if they're just angry, right, maybe just take the word anger or angry, and write an acrostic poem for that, you know, for a particular emotion.

Laurie James  
Yeah, that's beautiful. 

Laurie James  
And then the follow up to that is you can write that acrostic poem, and then you can look through it, and there might be a particular line or two that jumps out at you. Is really important, that, like, kind of speaks to you. So then you can take that line and use it to do some free writing. If the line is, why do I feel so lost all the time? I'm going to say, Oh, that's interesting to me. That feels important for me to follow. So I'm going to take, why do I feel so lost at the time? And I'm going to set a timer, right? Maybe I have five minutes. I'm like, Okay, I only have five minutes, but, and I'm going to start with, why do I feel so lost all the time? And I'm just going to keep writing for the five minutes. I'm not going to worry about my spelling, I'm not going to worry about my punctuation. I'm just going to go until the timer runs out, and then I'm going to come back to then I'm going to read that through and see, see what's coming up there.

Laurie James  
See what comes up Yeah, and is it better to free write by hand with like pen and paper versus computer, because I've written most of my stuff on the computer. 

Liz DeBetta  
Yeah, there are some neurological links between handwriting and retaining and processing information differently. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Okay, so I was just having a conversation with somebody about this over the weekend, actually, over the weekend, actually, that I totally understand. There are some times when it's more accessible for you to use keyboards and type, but if we're thinking about using writing as a tool for for healing and moving some of our embodied trauma and stuff, it's really important to take out a pen. And put it to paper, because you're removing yourself from the screen, and you're connecting to your body. You sort of think about the pen on the page. You know your hand is linked to your arm, and then there's a link to that neural pathway in your brain, right? And you're sort of closing that loop, or creating a loop. 

Laurie James  
Right, or opening the pathway or changing the pathway, hopefully. 

Liz DeBetta  
Any of those things right, depending on where you are in the process, which is different than the ways that our brains and our fingers are connected when we're typing, because we're looking at a screen and your brain is thinking about multiple different things. 

Laurie James  
Yeah, yeah, no. Thank you for sharing that. That's such a beautiful way of thinking about it and just not being intimidated. It's a great prompt to create an opportunity to not feel intimidated about the poetry piece. Absolutely so gosh, I can't believe it's time as flown by this conversation as we come to a close. What's one confession that you'd like to share with our listeners about our conversation that maybe we haven't touched on yet? 

Liz DeBetta  
Yeah, so I think one of the things that I would like to confess. And I love that you use that word confession, by the way, it's sort of as somebody who has raised Catholic, sort of a taking back of that language, right, and repurposing it in a way that's empowering and useful, as opposed to intimidating.

Laurie James  
Yes and feeling a sense of guilt, of like, Yes, I am guilty of this sim, so I must confess it, right? 

Liz DeBetta  
Right? Yeah, exactly. It's turning it around and making it a positive. And I love that, so I just wanted to make sure I said that to you. But yeah,

Laurie James  
Thank you. 

Liz DeBetta  
Well, I think my confession is that progress over perfection, right? My journey has not been linear in any sense of the word that's both professional and personally, and also that healing is not linear, right? Like so many of us are on these healing journeys, so many of us are talking about the concept of healing, so many of us need to find ways to heal, and it's not a point A to point B, and it is very different for each of us. So just recognizing that as long as we're making progress and we're moving forward, then we're doing the right thing.

Laurie James  
Right. And if you take a step back, be kind to yourself, or sometimes two steps back, you know, can we be kind to ourselves and not beat ourselves up because, Oh, we didn't see something coming, or we didn't take care of us in the way that we needed to, and we got sick. Or if you have a chronic illness, something flared up, or you dipped into a little depression, or whatever it is, it's like having that self compassion, I think, is my understanding through some of the research I've looked into is such an important piece, and it's like, oh, you know, you know, people brush it off, and I know I did too, but yes, we have to be kind to ourself. And one path isn't necessarily a dead end. Sometimes it's just rerouting you into the right direction.

Liz DeBetta  
That's right. So true. I mean, the idea of giving ourselves grace and being able to hold space for ourselves is really important, but also recognizing that whatever choices we're making on this journey, they're gonna get us somewhere. And it might not be the where that you thought it was gonna be, but it's the where you need to be to get to the next thing. And that has been very much my experience. And you can't always see it while you're in it.

Laurie James  
Or think your way through it, because you think, Well, you know, I want to be here, and then by 25 I want to be here. And when I'm 30 here, and when I'm 50, I want to have all these things. And when I'm 60, whatever it is, it's like I thought that in my 20s too, and I'm like, Oh, my God, my life has turned out so different.

Liz DeBetta  
Yes, 100% Yes. 

Laurie James  
But I'm so much happier than I was back then. I wouldn't have changed any of those experience. Oh, maybe one. There might be one or two, but, and I think you feel the same way. It's like we wouldn't be who we are without those experiences, as awful as some of them might have been, and as painful as some of those might be, that also helps us appreciate what we have now and what we've created for ourselves, right? Yes. So how can people find you if they're interested in learning more about your migrated to wholeness, writing program, your books, any of those things? 

Liz DeBetta  
Real easy.  They can find me@lizdebbeta.com

Laurie James  
And I'll have that link in the show notes. 

Liz DeBetta  
Yep, and it's Dr.Liz.Debetta at Instagram, and also Dr Liz DeBetta on Facebook. 

Laurie James  
Perfect. Well. Liz, thank you so much for being here and sharing your story and your beautiful insights and what's helped you heal. Because I think we all need to take little pieces of what works for us, and I know writing is a beautiful way for so many to heal. So thank you for sharing today.

Liz DeBetta  
Thanks for having me.

Laurie James  
Thank you for listening to this episode of Confessions of a Freebird. I'm grateful to be in your ears and hearts. If you're interested in becoming a free bird, I'd love to support you. Please check out my website at laureejames.com to learn how we can work together, or to sign up for my newsletter so you can receive tips on how to date and relationship differently and ultimately, find more freedom and joy in your life. If you found this podcast helpful, please follow or subscribe, rate and review and share it with friends so they can find more freedom in their second or third act also. Until next time.