Spanish specialists explain why writing your memoirs helps to achieve serenity
Longevity
Self-exploration and self-expression are revealed as some of the most accurate paths to achieve serenity and to share personal experiences and stories with future generations
In recent years, there have been tools developed to help seniors in the process of documenting their life legacy in writing
As we reach a certain age, we have all experienced some kind of grievances and mourning throughout life. The traditional advice for overcoming these conflicts and achieving a certain peace was to turn the page and grow older. Now, in an increasingly digital and media-driven world that is constantly evolving, self-exploration and self-expression, necessary processes to capture your memories on the pages, are revealed as some of the most accurate paths to achieve serenity. At the same time, a valuable legacy is created to share personal experiences and stories with future generations.
“I have spent two years remembering and writing my life with all the excitement in the world to leave it to my granddaughter, with the intention that she, who is now 12 years old, knows what life was like in those times,” explains Amelia Capdepón, from Zaragoza, at 80 years old and proudly sporting a blue and purple mane. For Amelia, writing her memoirs has not only allowed her to create a very personal legacy for her granddaughter, but it has also helped her validate her experiences and “accept that I am the result of everything I have lived and I like the person I am now.”
I have spent two years remembering and writing down my life with all the excitement in the world to leave it to my granddaughter”
Capdepón acknowledges that, although reliving the past requires remembering painful experiences, “the process of writing it has a therapeutic effect, as you see things from a distance and it forces you to reflect on what you have lived, freeing you from problems and feelings that you believed to be insurmountable,” she states. “And when I say writing, I mean writing by hand with a pencil, erasing, correcting, and rewriting. My manuscripts in the end look like hieroglyphics,” she points out. “Sometimes, when typing it up on the computer, I am surprised myself by what I have written.”
Neuropsychologist Esther Sierra confirms Amelia's opinion by stating in Guayana Guardian that autobiographical writing has therapeutic effects on those who practice it, emphasizing that these benefits occur not only at a psychological level but also on a neurological level. “When writing, different brain regions are activated that allow the stimulation of cognitive functions such as attention, memory, and executive functions necessary to remember life events, organize and plan ideas, and maintain focus,” she points out.
When writing, different brain regions are activated, which help stimulate cognitive functions”
To make matters worse, Sierra adds that, on a psychological level, writing one's memoirs “helps with emotional management and processing, becoming aware of lived experiences, understanding them, integrating them, and even helping to resolve old conflicts, from a distance and by reframing them.” Writing “from the scar, not from the wound” — paraphrasing the Mexican author María García Zarranz — would summarize Sierra's advice.
It is therefore not surprising that in recent years numerous media have emerged to facilitate and guide older people in the process of leaving their life legacy in writing; from online courses, to private schools of specialized writing or workshops aimed at baby boomers funded with public funds, including volunteers who help older people document their lives to fight against loneliness and validate their life trajectory.
The idea of creating the memoir writing workshop arose as a response to the existing need among older adults”
“The idea of creating the memoir writing workshop Stories of My Life emerged 20 years ago at school, in response to the need among older people to record what they had experienced, to empower their life journey,” says Antonia Molinero, director of the Literary School La Laguna in Tenerife, and teacher of the memoir writing workshop for seniors since its inception. “We were pioneers in creating this project, and for me, who did not have grandparents who could tell me what life was like before, it was also a way to fill that void. Now I have thousands of grandparents.”
The profile of the people who undertake this project, or as Molinero calls them “the influencers of life,” is very diverse, “ranging from housewives to retired professors and educators, not excluding individuals who, due to social circumstances, did not have the opportunity to access academic education when they were young,” stated the director.
Amelia Capdepón, 80 years old from Zaragoza, is writing her memoirs for her granddaughter
The process is not always pretty. Many of our participants have experienced complicated, painful stories”
In these workshops, aspiring authors receive the help and stylistic tools necessary to describe and write the most significant moments of their lives in short stories, in the form of narratives. “The process is sometimes not pretty. Many of our participants have experienced complicated, even painful stories, and they have to relive many difficult experiences; the loss of loved ones; illnesses; post-war periods, among others, but there is no doubt that the act of writing and sharing them has an extraordinary therapeutic component,” certifies the professor.
This project has provided benefits to both the course participants in terms of personal well-being and to the community of La Laguna, “thanks to the very important cultural legacy that the compilation of all these memories represents, where it is shown in a very personal way what the world was like before.” For the past four years, the Department of Social Welfare of the City Council of La Laguna has been funding the courses, which are offered free of charge to all residents of the municipality over 60 years of age.
Olga Pérez Herrero, PhD in Literary Studies and creative writing professor in the Community of Madrid, agrees with her colleague from the Canary Islands in stating that there is a great demand for this type of workshops, as writing one's own memories has positive effects among older individuals. “It forces you to make an analysis, a self-reflection of some experiences that you need to express. When one puts their experiences into writing, they seek to bring out something that has not been properly processed, and that writing helps to process and share.”
Pérez Herrero recounts how she has observed in her workshops that, even among the elderly who have never approached autobiographical writing, “upon retiring or having grown children, they have the time to dedicate themselves to it,” and a need to record their experiences in writing awakens in them. “A need they are not initially aware of, but which emerges and compels them to delve into these experiences.”
Writing your own memories forces you to do an analysis, self-reflection”
From the short story to the autobiographical narrative, and from there to memoirs, are the most common steps that, according to Pérez Herrero, most protagonists follow. Many participants, when writing a narrative, discover themes and issues that they had kept inside and that the writing process itself evokes for them, memories of experiences and objects that prompt them to delve into them. This is precisely why writing workshops have a dual effect on their participants; the first, intimate one occurs when, after a process of reflection and personal investigation, you relive your experiences in writing and choose what you want to share. The second comes when you read and share what you have written with your classmates. The combination of both experiences is very emotional and liberating.
“It is very common that after completing a storytelling workshop, several participants tell me that they want to write their memoirs or their family's story,” explains the professor. Especially, this phenomenon occurs among women around the age of 60, who want to recover their stories and those of their family to leave a testimony to their descendants. “It is an intergenerational act.”
Even among those who do not have their own descendants, the need to write to share their experiences arises. “I do it because I hope that my experiences will help others,” said Coral González, a 68-year-old woman from Aragon, to Guayana Guardian. For her, who has overcome several very serious health problems such as cancer and two heart attacks, writing has been an escape and a valuable tool for self-expression since a very young age. “I was very introverted and I have always written what came to me naturally. Now,” she continues, “I want to do it to help those who are going through the same things I have experienced. Not for fame, but for solidarity.”
For Coral, the challenge of completing her memoirs does not lie in the difficulty of writing, but in the previous process. “I am very disorganized. I write in a disjointed way and always by hand. I have to organize my thoughts to reflect my experiences as accurately as possible. And this requires a self-discipline effort that I make because I want to share my experiences.”