Hay House Podcast Bright New Voices Host

Jennifer Morris with Dr. Sunita Merriman

the story behind

Of the poetry that translates the language and spirit of the unconscious.

On the surface I actually believed I was doing great, and my outward life proved that. I was happily married. I had two awesome daughters. I was a successful dentist with a dream practice I had started from scratch. And I was a productive member of society.

But there was a constant unease, an unexplainable fog of fear and anxiety that plagued me. I had learned how to manage it. Or, so I thought when looking at my life then in hindsight. Certain circumstances brought the storm inside me to a head. I had no choice at that point but to seek help because I knew that my low grade, functional depression and anxiety was something I could not live with on a long-term basis.

I went into therapy. As my therapist and I began the work together, I experienced intense emotions. I started to ‘receive’ words. Thoughts would come to me. Images and messages would show up in my sleep. I began to jot them all down. As I started to write, words became sentences, and sentences started to look like poems.

Ultimately, I ventured into the underground world of my unconscious, where I encountered locked doors, secret passages and hidden rooms. Until my poems started to come to me, I believed I did not have the keys to the mysterious secrets that lay deep inside me

My words were the lighthouse to the workings of my inner world. They guided me towards my buried past. They refused to give up on me when I felt I could no longer fight through the unbearable loneliness and pain of my repressed memories.

They cheered for me every time I had a breakthrough and gained insight. Sometimes they came to me in a torrent— yet at other times they made me anxiously wait to reveal themselves. But whenever they appeared, they brought me my truth.

My poems taught me that there is no truth without honesty. And that honesty does not exist where there is no courage. And that for me to be courageous, I would have to turn my back on shame. And strip. . .