Reading With Intention Can Save Your Life, Here’s How
By Lynne Reeves Griffin
I didn’t always love to read. As a child, I ran, biked, and danced my way through life. Quiet, solitary endeavors were not my style. This inclination only became a problem when, in third grade, I got an A in reading fluency on my report card but a C in comprehension.
I remember my father taking me into the living room where all heart-to-hearts took place in our family. He explained to me that we didn’t read books to finish them but to live inside them. As the third girl in a family of four children, I loved that I had his undivided attention. When he said he could teach me to slow down, to remember what I’d read, I immediately agreed to learn.
Looking back, I can see that my father’s plan to teach me to love literature looked much like a modified book club. I would choose the story and he would pick the time for us to meet back in the living room to discuss it. He’d have the questions and discussion points ready. I prayed I could remember what I’d read. It wasn’t long before I could.
Another seminal moment in my reading journey happened in college, two years after my father died of a cardiac arrest at age 47 and left me heartbroken. My sister told me about a novel in stories called In Another Country by Susan Kenney. She said it eerily captured what our family was dealing with after the sudden death of our beloved father. I remember reading it and feeling for the first time that stories have the power to speak to people across time and space. Kenney wrote a fictional narrative, but it felt like she was writing about me. I was reading my life. I had the feeling of being seen, of being known by a writer I had never met.
From then on, I paid attention to the relationship with the novels, stories, memoirs, and poems I chose to consume. I read as a kind of therapy, without even realizing it.
I learned that therapeutic reading—or bibliotherapy—consists of reading to hone your thoughts, feelings, and actions in order to cope with events or situations that yield distress. The goal is to raise your awareness and gain insight. Trust me, reading with intention can save your life.
Looking back, I can see that my father’s plan to teach me to love literature looked much like a modified book club. I would choose the story and he would pick the time for us to meet back in the living room to discuss it.
There is plenty of research supporting the claims that reading closely strengthens your mind, body, and spirit, honing your powers of observation, too. Good books teeming with social issues and emotional dilemmas nurture your empathy and build your resilience to face similar challenges in real life.
Does reading a memoir give you a sense of clarity about people in your own life struggling with similar challenges? Do you gravitate toward narrative nonfiction because you’re excited to learn more about a particular subject? Or do you read novels to live vicariously, seeing the world without leaving your home?
I’ve read and loved The Count of Monte Cristo, and don’t get me started on the brilliance of Moby Dick, but you need not read the classics or any dense tome to reap the rewards. A beach read is fun, delightful, and an escape. I loved Float Plan by Trish Dollar and The Partner Track by Helen Wan. Any story that brings readers on a deep dive into the fabric of life, the complexities of relationships, and the social issues of our times have the power to change you.
Have I convinced you yet? If so, here are a few ways to start adding more intention to your reading.
Set aside time each day to read. Perhaps, at first, fifteen minutes in the morning with your coffee. Trust me, once a book grabs you, you’ll find the time to finish it.
Read different formats to suit your busy lifestyle. I’ve always got a hardcover or paper book for cozy reading at home. I’ve got an e-book on my iPad so I can read in bed at night without disturbing my husband. And I’ve got an audio book at the ready for when I’m driving, walking, or cooking. Worried you won’t be able to handle reading three different books at the same time? No worries. Consider reading the same book in two different formats so you can keep the story fresh in your mind wherever you are.
Make lists of books you want to read, and join reading sites to keep track of them. Along with Zibby Mag, Goodreads, Litsy, many others will help you find virtual lists to keep you busy. Check out my online shelves here.
Visit the library. Reading for your life can get expensive. Ask my husband! I encourage you to buy books to support authors and to curate your home library. Still, using your community library and mingling with its patrons are an essential part of living a literary life. These are your people.
Read light. Read deep. Read whatever soothes your soul. At first, your goal is to make reading a habit. No rules, save for regularity.
Read closely. Look for patterns in what you’ve read, pencil in hand. Be on the lookout for repetitions, contradictions, similarities. Close reading means asking questions about the patterns you’ve noticed, especially about what the material is telling you explicitly and implicitly. Consider why the writer might want you to ask these questions or notice these patterns.
Finally, if you’ve been moved by a novel or memoir, if the writer has spoken to you from the pages, let her know. Write to the author. I know firsthand that there is nothing better than hearing from readers that what I’ve labored over for years has served its purpose—to show us we are more alike than we are different. To deepen our lives and to connect us.
Happy reading!
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Lynne Reeves Griffin is an internationally recognized family counselor, public speaker, teacher and writer of fiction and non-fiction. Her work has appeared in Cognoscenti, Parents, Psychology Today, Solstice Literary Magazine, Chautauqua Journal, Craft Literary, Fiction Writers Review, Brain Child, and more. She regularly appears as a media guest expert to discuss contemporary family life and preventive mental health. Writing as Lynne Reeves, she is the author of the novels of domestic suspense, The Dangers of an Ordinary Night and Dark Rivers to Cross (Crooked Lane Books). Writing as Lynne Griffin, she is the author of the family-focused novels, Life Without Summer (St. Martin’s Press), Sea Escape (Simon & Schuster), and Girl Sent Away (SixOneSeven Books), and the nonfiction parenting title Negotiation Generation (Penguin).