Summary

The author discovers the calming effect of writing haiku as a method of emotional self-regulation during a stressful situation.

Abstract

After locking herself out of her house, the author turns to writing haiku as a means of managing her emotions. Despite her background as an essayist and limited knowledge of poetry, she finds that the structured form of haiku, which focuses on present-moment observation and sensory experience, helps her to process and regulate her feelings. The process involves engaging both the mind and the body, which is a technique she also applies in her work as a trauma-informed personal trainer. Through writing haiku, she transforms her frustration into a humorous and reflective experience, ultimately finding a sense of calm and a story to share.

Opinions

The author believes that writing haiku can be an effective tool for self-regulation, even for those with little poetry experience.
She suggests that the combination of mindfulness and wordplay in haiku writing can be enjoyable and beneficial for both the mind and body.
The author values the ability to find humor and appreciation in challenging situations, which she feels contributes to emotional resilience.
She implies that engaging in a creative and structured activity like haiku can be as effective as physical exercise in managing one's emotional state.
The author sees the haiku as more than just a poetic form; it's a way to explore deeper personal insights and emotions.

Write Haiku to Find Calm

How I regulated my emotions in a tough moment through engaging with wordplay and my senses

I locked myself out of my new-to-me house this morning and that is when I learned through firsthand experience how writing haiku can help with emotional self-regulation. Maybe this could work for you, too.

I want to be very clear here, I know very little about haiku or writing poetry in general. I am an essayist and it generally takes me 1200 words to get my point across which is a far cry from the seventeen syllables you are granted in the basic haiku form I (and the kid next door) know about. This post is more of a musing or maybe a jumping off point for research rather than my usual researched recommendations on self-care.

While I’d known about haiku for a while, I only recently began to explore them this spring when I took Writing and Mindfulness through Stanford’s online continuing education program. We worked with the basic form taught in elementary school: 3 lines — five syllables, seven syllables, and then five syllables. And we paired this structure with mindfulness practices in which we took the time to carefully observe something in the present moment.

My first haiku was about my breath, my second about a misplaced pencil, and my third about my dinner delivery that never arrived. But like a good personal essay, each was also about something else. The haiku about my breath was about how long I had been on a healing path. The poem about the misplaced pencil was about how writing had become a spiritual practice. And the last last one about the missing delivery was funny while also being about about desire and disappointment.

Each seventeen-syllable poem demanded that I examine something — an object or feeling— through my senses and then choose my words carefully to describe what I had observed. It was a puzzle that I enjoyed that used both my brain (wordplay) and my body (my senses.)

In my work as a trauma informed personal trainer, I teach people that by engaging with an enjoyable challenge that uses your thinking brain and your body, you can self-regulate when your feelings hijack your body as they were doing to me this morning. In the gym this generally looks like playing with balance, but for the essayist perhaps it looks more like trying your hand at poetry.

Which brings me to 6:30 this morning, when I was locked out of my house. (In case you were wondering, I have no doorbell, and my family members had turned off their phones, presumably to sleep in. And in case you wanted to advise me, please know that I am going to ask my landlord for a doorbell and my husband to now use “Do Not Disturb” as opposed to airplane mode.)

Standing in my pjs on my porch, I could feel the heat in my face as my blood pressure rose, the tension of my jaw as it clenched, and my quickening pulse as it pounded in my ears. My anger was making me physically uncomfortable.

Despite all the feelings, I was self-aware enough to realize that no amount of hostile texting to my husband’s turned off phone was going to help me either feel better or get into the house, and that I would be better off finding a way to self-regulate and get comfortable. “It could be worse,” I thought, “I could be naked.” As I sat down on my porch chair, I chuckled at that thought. Desperate to find appreciation in the beauty of my surroundings (which is why I went outside in the first place) and to create the space to enjoy the humor of the situation, I closed the messaging app on my phone and opened Google docs and thought, “Let’s try to write haiku.”

I wrote four:

City Girl Moves To The Suburbs

(I) I am locked outside. The alluring birdsong is now annoying.

(II) Even in a fit My nervous system buzzes less leaving that to bees.

(III) Many different chirps and warbles and songs and just as many feels.

(IV) I am hungry. My stomach rumbles loudly but not enough to wake you.

It worked.

Two hours later, when my husband let me in, I was happy. I wrote, I acknowledged the many feelings I was having, appreciated the environment, and made space to chuckle. My nervous system was feeling pretty chill, and I had a funny story to tell.

Do you self-regulate through writing poetry? Do you have a good haiku for a beginners resource? If yes to either, please let me know about your practice in the responses.