The Power of Sharing Personal Experiences for Mental Health and Emotional Well-Being

Expressing yourself can be both satisfying and challenging, especially for someone who has never done it before. It may be seen as strange, self-centered or even pointless for someone who may not see themselves as important enough to require sharing their stories. One thing to always keep in mind is that everyone is inherently important enough to have their voices heard, and their stories told. For personal well-being, and the impact story telling can have on you emotionally and psychologically.

Emotional Benefits of Sharing Personal Experiences

Sharing our personal experiences benefits social standing and our ability to communicate.

• Connection and Belonging

Forming deep mutual relationships with others is a key factor in feeling like you belong, and are surrounded by people who share similar interests. Using social media sites like Facebook or Reddit and getting involved in apps like Bumble BFF or Hobbytwin to find people or even one person who shares a similar hobby to you can help you find extra encouragement to keep going.

• Learning and Growth

  The act of sharing or even simply writing your stories down helps you to grow and to better understand yourself. Sometimes, we do not know the way we feel about something until we can look at it from a different perspective.

• Validation

  By forming bonds with people through shared experiences, you learn how many people may be going through similar issues. You’ll feel less alone and your sympathy/empathy for others will grow as well.

• Culture and Community

  Communities can be built through the stories people tell. This is accomplished by getting the right people together through support groups, online forums or local meetings, and giving them the opportunity to share their experiences. We can create more empathetic, mobilized, and powerful communities online or in your local community through authentic engagement. 

Like any other positive change, sharing personal experiences can have a positive impact on not only the person sharing, but the people listening. One person has the potential to make more of a difference than they think. 

Mental Health Benefits of Sharing Personal Experiences

Sharing experiences can benefit you on a deeper personal level. You may not notice these effects while sharing or listening to others.

Sharing experiences can benefit you on a deeper personal level. You may not notice these effects while sharing or listening to others.

• Improves Listening Skills and Imagination

  When focusing on others with all of your senses, you become a better and more active listener.

• Increases Empathy and Memory Retention

  While connecting with people’s stories your brain releases oxytocin, which creates feelings of empathy and helps strengthen relationships. Furthermore, Jennifer Aaker, a marketing professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, says that people remember information when it is weaved into stories “up to 22 times more than facts alone”.

• Increases Positive Emotions

  How we tell our stories can impact how we feel about them and ourselves. A study conducted with hospitalized children found that after one storytelling session there was an increase in oxytocin, and a decrease in cortisol and pain levels.

• Helps Us Build From Success and Failure

  Looking at your experiences in positive and negative lights can provide positive effects. Viewing from a successful viewpoint allows people to gain perspective on how goals were achieved. A negative viewpoint allows you to look at your attempts from another angle, seeing the benefits in making your way through challenging situations, increasing self-confidence.

Creativity, Writing and Mental Health

Creative expression can be helpful in terms of bettering your mental health. Writing has been distinctly recognized for its positive impact and therapeutic benefits. Writing can have valuable healing effects, serving as a tool to help people process their thoughts and emotions. This helps develop a deeper insight into personal experiences, and find a stronger sense of self-identity and empowerment.

Writing in any capacity, can also help people deal with larger issues. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a study was conducted by David Haosen Xiang and Alisha Moon Yi, using poetry as a healing tool. Through creative writing, individuals found solace, meaning and connection, during a time when those things were increasingly difficult to come across. Poetry acted as a form of self-expression, and built a more sympathetic and resilient community. However, all modes of creative writing can be beneficial including; journaling, blogging, and posting on social media.

How To Start Telling Personal Experiences

Reaching like-minded people can be difficult. Even more so when you feel like no one will find value or connection with your experiences. Taking the first step in writing your personal story can feel like a huge one, but with the help of Deliverance Charities Guide to Personal Experiences, you’ll be one inch closer to taking the first step. A great place to start is by defining your goal and story starters. 

Goal Setting

Your goal can be large or small in ambition, as well as short term or long term. Your writing does not have to be award worthy to accomplish your goal. 

Your goal can be large or small in ambition, as well as short term or long term. Your writing does not have to be award worthy to accomplish your goal. 

Goals could include:

• Motivating a team

• Giving people hope for the future

• Guiding behavior and actions in a certain direction

• Getting people to think differently

• Breaking down walls and showing that you are all one in the same

Goal setting is an important aspect to consider when sharing your personal experiences. Telling your story, making others feel comfortable or giving them a safe place to speak their mind are all examples of goals that can help likeminded people come together.

Story Starters

Story starters are a great way to brainstorm ideas and provide a springboard for writing prompts. Especially, if you don’t have any clue where to begin, or need a helping hand in guiding you towards the experiences you’d like to explore. 

Some helpful ones include:

• What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced and how did you overcome it?

• What’s the best lesson you learned from a teacher, mentor or other influential person?

• Who are your personal heroes and why?

• What is it about your work or life that gives you the greatest satisfaction?

• Was there a moment you knew this was the right job for you?

• How do you feel you’re making a difference in the world in any way: large or small?

• What did you want to be when you were growing up, and how does that compare with what you’re doing now?

• If you have children, what do they think you do?

You do not have to follow these in order to successfully tell your story but they can be a good place to start if the idea of sharing your personal experiences seems daunting and insurmountable.

Next Steps Toward Sharing Your Personal Experiences

Everybody deserves to have their voice be heard and their stories be told. Even if you may think you have nothing of value to say or no impact to make on the world, by simply sitting down and getting your experiences out in front of you, you have the ability to better yourself and better your community.

Deliverance Charities is dedicated to creating and fostering these types of communities. By bringing people together who may need a helping hand, or by rallying together a group of people who wish to accomplish a similar goal; Deliverance Charities strives to create a world full of happier and healthier people.

What personal stories would you be comfortable sharing with others?

Let us know, we would love to hear about the adversities you’ve overcome in the comments below. And if you would rather keep your adversities private, you can email questions@delivercharity.org or read free stories that may help you feel less alone and more confident