How to read and write poetry to heal emotions

Octavio Paz, the great Mexican poet and Nobel Prize winner in 1990, assured that “every reader looks for something in the poem. And it is not unusual that he finds it: he already had it inside him”. That is where one of the hidden powers of poetry lies; its ability to reveal truths about ourselves. From this point of view, the verse by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, “poesía eres tú”, acquires a new meaning.

Enclosed between rhymes and syllables there is a treasure within the reach of each one of us. A treasure in two directions. It is as powerful to read poetry as to write it.

Read poetry to connect with feelings

How to let poetry operate all its power? Reaching the depths of us through the path of feelings and emotions, more than with reason and thought. Let’s try.

1. Let’s select a poem at random. Any. Let’s allow the magic of discovery to happen, to find precisely what we need.
2. Let’s think about what concerns us today. Whatever it is. A concern. A dream. A challenge.
3. Let’s read the poem aloud making the text that we have chosen sound in the world so that it can also resonate in us.
4. Let’s connect on an emotional level. As we read, we feel. Without thinking. Without wanting to decipher the “true meaning of the poem”. Let’s not judge what we find along the way. let’s just feel.
5. Let’s learn. Now, and only now, it’s time to analyze. What has the poem told us? What has made us see? What have we changed? We like?
6. Let’s treasure. As we discover verses that are useful to us, that speak to us about those things that we carry inside, let’s gather them, copy them into a notebook and make our own book of daily magic, treasuring poems that impact us. We can return to it whenever we need it.

Write verses to heal our emotions

But, as we have said, this magic is not exhausted by reading. Also writing and being, ourselves, a source of poetry. Let us keep in mind the words of Herman Hesse: “Making bad verses brings more happiness than reading the most beautiful verses.”

Because there is no bad poetry. What does exist is that poetry helps us to simplify the complex. It sharpens our intellect. Expand the limits of language and increase our cognitive abilities. In addition, as if it were yoga for the soul, it gives us mental flexibility, expands our creativity and expands our empathic capacity and connection with others.

So much so that poetry has been introduced into the business world to develop the skills of managers. It is not surprising, since in a changing world and constant challenge, nothing better than the challenges and changes in perspective that poetry offers us to be prepared. And since we are all CEOs of our lives, let’s use this powerful tool:

• Select the theme. Whatever. That which arises from within you. Freely. Without fear.
• Connect with your being and remember that writing is an exercise in absolute freedom. Allow yourself to be. And overturn your emotions without judging them. If it’s love, love If it’s anger, anger. If it is illusion, discovery…
• read it out loud which is the way to be a mirror. To see you. To recognize you To fascinate or scare you. Whatever, because that’s the treasure.
• Discover. Analyze. What possibilities does what you see of yourself now give you? How does it help you? What can you do with that?
• Treasure. Poetry is inexhaustible. The same problem can produce verses and verses, even when written by the same person. Saving them, making an album, will help you return there when you need perspective or advice or a new look that you have already captured on paper.