Movie studio head, director, philanthropist, and compassionate billionaire Tyler Perry is known for his comedies and dramas. What might be less well known is that he uses journals.
According to Success Magazine (as well as numerous interviews of the director), at a young age, Perry watched the Oprah Winfrey Show wherein the talk show host encouraged everyone to use a journal for catharsis.
Perry’s experiences were enough to break most people. The pain and anger grew inside him like a fire, eating away at him. It wasn’t until he caught an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show championing the therapeutic benefits of writing about your experiences that Perry’s outlook began to change.
Roger Brooks, Success Magazine- February 1, 2023
Finding self-therapy by being able to offload the problems onto the page helped to lighten his load at a young age and encouraged him to continue living.
However, there was another problem – the fear of others reading his private writings.
But even in the private pages of his diary, he couldn’t be truly honest about his tragic upbringing. Fearful others might read his words, he invented characters who revealed his experiences and feelings. In the process, he let the hate and venom flow through his pen. He was still livid, but he had a place to siphon off the bile when it threatened to overwhelm him.
Roger Brooks, Success Magazine- February 1, 2023
Some of characters he created when he couldn’t write about himself in the journal became the basis for characters he would later write into plays and films.
One take away from this story, in addition to the catharsis that sometimes comes with journaling, is that when you do not feel comfortable writing as yourself, you can write as a different character or write as if talking about someone else.
Wherever you are in your journaling journey, I wish you…
Peace,
Deborah