Healing Through Reading Novels
Affirmations for tapping into your creativity
My creativity knows no limits!
Fresh new ideas come to me daily.
I tap into the creative energy around me with great ease.
Everything I touch and see inspires new ideas within me.
I am a talented and successful writer.
I am easily able to come up with fresh, new ideas.
When was the last time you read a book for pure enjoyment? When on the journey to self-discovery I find that we often forget to actually enjoy the process. For me personally, when I started diving deep into self-help and discovery I found myself a little overwhelmed by all of the books I needed to read, the tools I needed to buy, and the meditations I needed to do. Although I was really enjoying the process, I stopped reading the novels I always loved to read, and replaced them with non-fiction. It wasn’t until a few weeks ago I started reading my novels again that I realized, that although I was reading fiction, with made-up people and names, my creativity and mind was wondering, I felt like a kid again, and ultimately in all of this work we are doing, isn’t that the goal? To heal your inner child, and rediscover the world with wide-open eyes.
This realization made me do some research and what I found was really interesting. I found a few benefits I have to share with you.
1. Empathy: Imagining creates understanding
To put yourself in the shoes of others and grow your capacity for empathy, you can hardly do better than reading fiction. Multiple studies have shown that imagining stories helps activate the regions of your brain responsible for better understanding others and seeing the world from a new perspective. According to research, people who read novels are better at reading people’s emotions.
“Psychologists have found that empathy is innate, as even babies show it. And while some people are naturally more empathetic than others, most people become more so with age. Beyond that, some research indicates that if you’re motivated to become more empathetic, you probably can. Although there are many ways to cultivate empathy, they largely involve practicing positive social behaviors, like getting to know others, putting yourself in their shoes, and challenging one’s own biases. And stories — fictional ones in particular — offer another way to step outside of oneself.”
“Fiction has the capacity to transport you into another character’s mind, allowing you to see and feel what they do. This can expose us to life circumstances that are very different from our own. Through fiction, we can experience the world as another gender, ethnicity, culture, sexuality, profession, or age. Words on a page can introduce us to what it’s like to lose a child, be swept up in a war, be born into poverty, or leave home and immigrate to a new country. And taken together, this can influence how we relate to others in the real world.”
2. Creativity: Fictions allow for uncertainty (where creativity thrives!)
In the movies, we often long for a happy ending. Have you noticed that fiction can be much more ambiguous? That’s exactly what makes it the perfect environment for creativity. When you’re watching a movie, the scene is set – visually, and audibly. When reading, you have to form the visuals in your head. For me, this makes you more attached to these characters I make up in my mind.
3. Reduced Stress
There are several ways to make time for yourself when daily stress is taking its toll. But what if there was an easy way to escape somewhere else? Maybe you can’t physically transport to another time or place, but reading fiction can take your mind out of the real world for a short time. Don’t worry if you’re not a voracious reader – it only takes six minutes to immerse yourself in a story and reduce your stress levels. On Monday, start your week off in an entirely different universe before getting into the daily grind!
“Research has shown that reading fiction is more effective at reducing stress than listening to music, sipping tea, and taking a walk. In fact, stress levels were shown to be reduced by 68 percent after reading. While your brain is engaged in the story, your heart rate slows down and muscles relax. Because there is so much work for your brain to do, reading is a very effective way to focus your energy and improve your concentration. Your brain will actually hold on to the story, giving you something to revisit later.”
Here are some of my favorite novels that I have gotten so lost in, and still think back to when I want an escape.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a historical fiction novel by American author Taylor Jenkins Reid. The novel tells the story of the fictional Old Hollywood star Evelyn Hugo, who at the age of 79 decides to give a final interview to an unknown journalist, Monique Grant. I could not put this down, I genuinely felt like I was in this book as I read it.
This is another one that I could not put down, it’s juicy and it completely consumed me. I felt like I was in the 80s. This book made me laugh, and cry. I felt like I was a sibling of this family.
Malibu 1983. Four famous siblings throw an epic party to celebrate the end of the summer. But over the course of one night, each of their lives will be changed forever. Malibu is buzzing with anticipation for Nina Riva’s annual party. Everyone wants to be in the company of the famous Rivas: Nina, the surfer and model; her brothers, Jay and Hud, one a championship surfer, the other his renowned photographer; and Kit, the adored baby of the family. As if that picture-perfect family isn’t enough, their father is Mick Riva, the legendary singer.
By morning, the Riva mansion will have burned to the ground. And no one will know how the fire started. But before that first spark in the early hours before dawn, the alcohol will flow, the music will play and the loves and secret yearnings that shaped this family across generations will all come bubbling to the surface to make for a night no one will ever forget.
Where do you see yourself in five years?
Dannie Kohan lives her life by the numbers.
She is nothing like her lifelong best friend—the wild, whimsical, believes-in-fate Bella. Her meticulous planning seems to have paid off after she nails the most important job interview of her career and accepts her boyfriend’s marriage proposal in one fell swoop, falling asleep completely content.
But when she awakens, she’s suddenly in a different apartment, with a different ring on her finger, and beside a very different man. Dannie spends one hour exactly five years in the future before she wakes again in her own home on the brink of midnight—but it is one hour she cannot shake. In Five Years is an unforgettable love story, but it is not the one you’re expecting.
