The second part of this exercise is “free writing.” Coined by Natalie Goldberg in 1989, free writing is the practice of stream-of-consciousness writing without stopping to think, or going back to make any edits. Try to keep your hand moving for the entire duration of the exercise.

You will set a timer for 10 minutes, writing about whatever feelings you have uncovered doing the clustering portion of the exercise. Do not worry about grammar, spelling, or punctuation, and do not cross anything out.

Try to fully express any emotions that come up, especially anger, guilt, shame, sadness, and grief.

Complete this free-write by writing three times, “I am relieved to express these feelings.”

Then, set another 10 minute timer, and free write about your understandings you have uncovered from the clustering and previous free-write.

Complete this portion of the free-write by writing three times, “Understanding these issues helps me feel better.”

Here’s the short version of the instructions:

1. Set a timer for 5 minutes and do your clustering now. 

2. Set a timer for 10 minutes and free-write about whatever feelings came up during your clustering. 

3. At the bottom of the page, write, “I am relieved to express these feelings” three times. 

4. Set another 10 minute timer, and free write about whatever understandings you now have uncovered during the clusteing and the previous free-write.

5. At the bottom of the page, write, “understanding these issues helps me feel better” three times. 

6. Now, do one of this week’s meditations.

2. Renegotiate Traumas

This exercise is one that I have done many times myself, and it is my personal adaptation using elements of parts work, inner child work, and trauma renegotiation work (as described by Peter Levine in Waking the Tiger; I highly recommend reading this book).

In the book, Levine demonstrates that hard or scary events are not inherently traumatic, but rather it is how we are able to respond to them that determines if they are held in the body and mind as trauma. When the individual can do something about the event, whether that’s a fight or flight response, though it can be scary and life-changing, generally, trauma is not experienced (Levine, 1977).

The good news is that we can go back to traumatic events in a therapeutic setting, and renegotiate that trauma, to do whatever we needed to be able to do in that moment to protect ourselves, thereby resolving the trauma held in our bodies. 

This renegotiation exercise can be done in writing, in a meditative state, or even on a walk. Years ago, I did this on a walk with my dog, and it shocked me that it ended up being the most therapeutic 20 minutes of my entire life. 

For this exercise, you are going to choose a traumatic event from your past to work on. I recommend you don’t start with some of your deeper and more intense traumas, but instead start with smaller hurts to get used to this kind of work. I also recommend that, when doing these kinds of exercises, you are also working with a mental health professional, or at least have one on call. 

Now, choose what past hurt you’re going to focus on today, and begin to bring yourself back into that moment. Picture the younger version of yourself, and the setting in which the event occurred. Feel into who you were at that time. Notice how old you were, and what your developmental state or maturity level was. Picture the room you were in, trying to remember the layout, the things you could see, the sounds and smells of the space. Picture how you felt in that setting, and at that time in your life. 

Now, begin to remember what happened. Think of the situation that was stressful, or the person that was hurting you. Begin to remember the first few moments of that event. 

Then, step into the scene as your strong, capable, emotionally-regulated adult-self. Have your adult-self stop whatever is happening from continuing. If there is a person or other threat, have your adult-self make that person or thing go away for a few moments. If it is a person, tell them to go away until they can calm down and return to the scene in a healthy, regulated state. 

Go to your younger-self and tell them what they need to hear. Give them a hug if they need that, or hold them in your lap. Maybe they need to hear that they are safe, and that you are going to take care of them. Maybe they need to hear that it is not their fault, that they don’t deserve whatever is happening to them. Let them sit with the things you are hearing, and let them cry, or shake, or just be held. 

You can ask them if there is anything else they need from you - things you can do for them or say to them. Give them whatever they are needing at this moment, remembering that they are a small child or a young adult, and they are not yet capable of fully taking care of themself. But you are a very capable adult, and you can help them meet their needs. 

Now, if there was a person who was hurting them, ask them what they need from that person to feel good, safe, and complete. They may need the person to come back in the room and apologize, tell the younger-self that what they did was not their fault, that they are an adult and that they need to take responsibility for their actions and handle themself better in the future. The younger-self may want to hear the person who hurt them tell them that they are a good person, and that they don’t deserve that treatment. Visualize the person who hurt your younger-self telling them what they need to hear. 

Maybe your younger-self has things they need to tell the person who hurt them. Maybe they need to yell, scream, or call this person names. Let the younger-self get whatever they need to off their chest, and imagine the person who hurt them just sitting and hearing it. Maybe it is helpful to imagine the person who hurt them feeling guilt or shame. That is fine. It is not the younger-self’s job to hold space for the feelings of the person who hurt them. 

Maybe your younger-self will need more than words. Maybe your younger-self will need to actually hurt, immobilize, or even kill the person who hurt them. That is okay if your younger-self needs that. This is a thought exercise, not reality, and a hurt part of you wanting to do that does not mean that you are actually going to hurt anyone in real life, or that you are a bad person. So if your younger-self needs this, imagine them doing it. Let them take it as far as they need to, until all of their rage is released. 

Once the younger-self feels they have said what they needed to say, and done what they needed to do, allow them to come back to you, the adult-self, once more. Give them another hug, or let them sit in your lap. Tell them they are safe now. That that person or situation cannot hurt them any longer. Tell them that they are a good person, that they deserve to be treated with kindness. Tell them that you love them, and that you are going to take care of them. Hold them and breathe with them for a minute more.

When you both are ready, take a few more deep breaths and return to the present moment slowly. 

I highly recommend doing a calming meditation, such as the Body Scan or Loving Kindness Meditation, immediately following this work, and being very gentle to yourself as you transition into whatever comes next in your day.