The first person who ever told me I was a good writer was an old boss of mine a few years back. After I landed the promotion, she told me that my cover letter was well done and that I was a good little writer. I smiled then laughed in disbelief. But she meant it.

I've never considered myself to be a writer, I wrote a bit when I was a kid, just in my diary and at school but aside from that I didn’t write. I just wasn’t interested in it and life got busy and I fell into other habits, some good, some not so good.

But last year I started writing and since then my life has changed dramatically.

Something about getting my thoughts out on paper allowed me to process them in a way I never had before. Reading my thoughts out loud helped me make sense of them. This technique allowed me to view my thoughts from another perspective, like an outsider looking in, analyzing the words, processing them, feeling them, then releasing them and the emotions attached to them over and over again.

I started writing this past year out of pure desperation. I had a lot of sober time on my hands due to an injury and with that came the flood of thoughts, emotions, pent up aggression, stuff I never dealt with in the past.

Usually I avoided my stressful thoughts through vices but this time I couldn’t. Because of my injury I was forced to stop most of my old toxic behavior.

As more time passed these thoughts and feelings grew stronger and stronger until one day, I decided to pick up a pen and write. In that moment I rationalized that getting the words out on paper right in front of me would allow me to better understand them and I was right, it was extremely cathartic. Honestly, it’s been a form of therapy for me, some of the best therapy I have ever had.

Writing has truly changed my life for the better, it helped me solve some of my toughest of problems and I am forever grateful that I started.

I still don’t consider myself to be a writer and I’m not sure I ever will but that’s not the point, the point is that we all have the ability to pick up a pen and write what's in our head, so we can try to make sense of our thoughts.

I waited a very long time to try this technique and I wish I started sooner. But you don’t have to wait, if you're struggling you can start today.