For Moms, the Pen Is Good for the Soul

By Robin Finn

After a decade and a half of not writing, I picked up a pen again when I was forty years old with three kids under ten. I signed up for a writing workshop but quit after two classes. I couldn’t handle the feelings of unworthiness that the workshop triggered. Everyone seemed interesting and cool and talented. I felt like a living cliché. I didn’t see any value in my self-expression.

Sadly, I knew I wasn’t alone. Now I am a writer and a writing teacher, and when women show up at my classes, they often tell me, “I am not a real writer,” “I have lost my voice,” or, “No one will care about what I have to say.”

I tell them that a writer is someone who writes. I tell them that creative self-expression is their birthright. I tell them that their stories have value. Too many women believe their lived experience is “too small” or “not enough” to write about. This is not true.

Moms are particularly vulnerable to this misconception because we are often told that being a mom doesn’t have material value, or that a mom should be the invisible force behind the home or the family or the spouse or the kids or the job. When a mom apologizes for wanting to write, it feels to me as if she believes she is taking up too much space by sharing her voice. She is not!

With all of the roles and responsibilities moms manage on a daily basis, it’s easy to see how women can lose connection to their sense of self. That’s when moms report they have “lost their voice.” Writing is a powerful tool to get it back. Writing on a regular basis anchors us to who we really are, what we have to say, and what is important to us in this life.

The first step to writing is to let go of false beliefs. You might think: “What I have to say is not important,” or “I don’t know what to write about,” or “No one wants to hear what I have to say.” None of this is true. Your desire to express yourself is what matters.

My motto is: “Don’t think. Just write.” Ignore the inner critic in your head and that nagging voice that says you are not enough. Just write what is true for you.

Whether you share your work or keep it private, never apologize for wanting to write. For many moms, writing is a path that leads them back to themselves. You do not need to be “a writer” or “know” what you want to write about or take a dozen writing classes. You just need a pen, the willingness to believe in yourself, and an open heart.

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Robin Finn is passionate about helping women find and share their voices in service to living more creative, self-expressed, and joyful lives. She is an award-winning writer, teacher, and coach, and the founder and creator of Heart. Soul. Pen.®, an L.A.-based course blending deep-dive creativity and soul-centered writing for women, and the virtual Women’s Writing Den.

Robin has spent the last two decades in the trenches of parenting ADHD kids, writing, creativity, and finding her voice as a woman and a writer. Her personal essays can be found in: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed, Mamalode, Brain Child, The Huffington Post and many others. In 2017, her first novel, “Restless in L.A.,” was named a Best New Novel by Babble.com. She has Master’s Degrees in Spiritual Psychology from the University of Santa Monica and in Public Health from Columbia University.