# Notes for The Power of Writing It Down ![rw-book-cover](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81xvRNQw2YL._SY160.jpg) ## Metadata - Author: [[Allison Fallon]] - Full Title: The Power of Writing It Down - Category: #books ## Highlights - You’re a disciplined person with a good work ethic. And you have people counting on you. You can’t let them down. But at the end of every day, and even at the beginning, you have this strange and looming sense that something is not right. Let’s call that feeling The Hang-Up. ([Location 274](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B085XN2WR4&location=274)) - What if The Hang-Up doesn’t have anything to do with a bad attitude? What if it isn’t a problem, and what if it doesn’t mean something is wrong with you? What if The Hang-Up is more like a message trying to get your attention? What if it is begging for you to put words to it, to give it a name? What if it wants to have a voice? ([Location 283](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B085XN2WR4&location=283)) - We all have infinite strategies to keep us from hearing our own voices. ([Location 289](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B085XN2WR4&location=289)) - So instead of listening, we try to outrun The Hang-Up altogether. We fill our lives with endless things that are fun and exciting and that look good on Instagram and that get us plenty of praise and attention. ([Location 297](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B085XN2WR4&location=297)) - I’m going to teach you a simple, easily accessible, and totally free tool you can use that is proven to help you find your voice. In doing so, you just might reclaim your life. ([Location 305](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B085XN2WR4&location=305)) - you feel the same deep dread. You wish it could be different. ([Location 328](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B085XN2WR4&location=328)) - The word I hear people use the most often is stuck. I’m stuck in a rut, stuck in a toxic relationship, stuck in a self-destructive pattern, stuck in a job that makes me feel miserable, stuck in a city I hate, stuck in a world that tells me I’m worthless and I don’t matter. Stuck. Stuck. Stuck. ([Location 344](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B085XN2WR4&location=344)) - In fact, now that I’ve read the research I’m about to show you, I can tell you with surefire confidence that the reason we get stuck in negative patterns has nothing to do with willpower, discipline, goodwill, or our work ethic. It has everything to do with our brains.1 ([Location 349](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B085XN2WR4&location=349)) - The path this message takes is called a neural pathway. The more times that path is traveled, the more well-worn it becomes. So when that little “messenger” has traveled the path 100 times or 1000 times or 10,000 times, it becomes well-worn enough that your brain doesn’t even have to stop to think before you take out the trash or judge your mother-in-law. It just does it. ([Location 356](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B085XN2WR4&location=356)) - Your brain has automated this behavior. ([Location 360](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B085XN2WR4&location=360)) - But from the perspective of someone who is trying to change, grow, or evolve past the mistakes of their past, their family, or their ancestors, this is why we often feel ourselves bumping up against the “rut” of an old habit or pattern. Not because we’re lazy or undisciplined people, but because we are, quite literally, fighting against the deep pathways that were carved in our brains a long time ago. You might be trying to change your path in earnest. But that little messenger in your brain says, No thanks! I know the way to go. ([Location 363](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B085XN2WR4&location=363)) - In this book, I’m going to show you not only why writing is the tool to help you do this but also how writing can teach you to break old habits, reroute old pathways, and find a new way forward. ([Location 370](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B085XN2WR4&location=370)) - Writing is not some elite activity reserved for the uniquely gifted. Writing is communication, self-discovery, creativity, spirituality, and self-expression. Writing is the essential tool we use to find and practice our sense of voice. Writing is a distinctly human impulse. ([Location 384](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B085XN2WR4&location=384)) - research shows that writing for as little as twenty minutes a day for four days in a row can measurably improve your mood. ([Location 390](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B085XN2WR4&location=390)) - What if twenty minutes spent doing something like writing down your deepest thoughts and feelings might make everything else you do easier? ([Location 396](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B085XN2WR4&location=396)) - What Writing Can Help Us Do: Name our experience so we can more fully understand it. Give language to the future we want to create so it stops feeling vague and begins to seem achievable. Build a bridge (neural pathways) between the now we’re experiencing and the future we’d like to create. Heal and engineer our own resilience from past experience. Find perspective for life’s challenges, large and small. ([Location 413](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B085XN2WR4&location=413)) - Invent brand-new solutions for age-old problems. Build our confidence. Increase our working memory and overall cognitive power. Cultivate more gratitude and contentment. Provide clarity for our decisions. Increase satisfaction in our romantic partnerships. Level up our immune system, help us sleep better, etc. Combat and curb anxiety, stress, and depression. Tune out the well-meaning and critical voices around us so we can finally understand what we think. ([Location 416](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B085XN2WR4&location=416)) - There are infinite resources to help you on this journey. Research shows that mediums like yoga, dance, breathwork, spirituality, prayer, music, writing, energy work, therapy, brain spotting, trauma work of all kinds, and body work are all deeply effective. But here’s why I decided to focus on the tool of writing. ([Location 428](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B085XN2WR4&location=428)) - What if there is no one else on the planet who can express the thing that’s trying to be expressed through you? What if this is your one shot, and you don’t have much time left? The thing in you that wants to be expressed can never be expressed through anyone else. ([Location 481](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B085XN2WR4&location=481)) - Pennebaker’s research shows that writing for as little as twenty minutes a day for as little as four days in a row can cause a measurable improvement in your mood. ([Location 523](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B085XN2WR4&location=523))