The Power of Healing Fiction: How Writing Helped Me Reclaim Myself
By Megan Walrod
What if fiction could be a form of healing—not just for the reader, but for the writer too?
Over a decade ago, I woke up with a dream image of a woman watering a lemon tree, along with a first line of text. I felt compelled to sit down and start typing. As I did, more words came.
Each morning, another scene. I was intrigued. Who was Sabina? Why was she sharing her story with me?
At the time, I was crawling out of the emotional wreckage of a divorce, followed closely by a broken engagement. I didn’t know it then, but writing Sabina’s story was helping me rewrite my story.
What is healing fiction?
Most people talk about healing fiction in terms of what it gives readers—how the right story, at the right time, can help us feel seen, soothed, inspired. I’ve experienced this many times, as I imagine you have too.
But what I’ve lived is something just as powerful: how writing fiction can be a deeply healing act. An opportunity to heal and express parts of our own selves and stories that we haven’t been able to anywhere else.
Writing as a portal to healing
Writing my debut novel, It’s Always Been Me, was a collaboration between me and something greater. Just like the Big Magic Elizabeth Gilbert writes about in her book by the same name, I felt like an idea had knocked on my door and was asking me to help it come into form. The words didn’t just come from me—they moved through me. And as they did, they changed me.
And then there was Sabina, the protagonist, named after an alter ego of mine. She felt familiar, like a future version of me who was braver, bolder, freer.
Through her, I said things I hadn’t dared say. I processed betrayal. I expressed rage and grief. I experienced what it could look like to reclaim my power after betrayal.
The “pregnant” pause
Then, the Big Magic went quiet. I tried to push words onto the page, but it felt hard. I knew it was time to trust the pause and stopped writing.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that the Big Magic was waiting for me to grow into the woman I needed to become to complete the book.
The writing process as a mirror
Years later, I returned to the manuscript after falling off a horse and fracturing a couple of vertebrae. In that healing season, it became clear: it was time.
That’s when the deeper healing began, and my writing process became a mirror.
I got to see when, where, and how I was showing up for myself and where I wasn’t. Was I saying no to distractions like late-night Netflix and self-doubt so I could say yes to early morning writing sessions and believing in my inevitable success?
Each time I did, I strengthened my self-trust and belief that not only could I do this, I was doing this: completing my novel. Writing this story helped me put an end to the self-abandonment I’d done in my marriage and engagement, and come home to myself.
Not your mother’s happily-ever-after
Because I’d done the inner work required, and unhooked from the patriarchy’s version of the typical “happily ever after,” I could now write a more empowering ending for Sabina. I’d been taught love meant being chosen. Sabina dared me to ask: What if it’s about choosing ourselves?
Finishing the book became a reclamation of my self-worth and creative power. And like many women who write, I found what the data shows: creative self-expression, especially narrative, is deeply linked to resilience, confidence, and mental well-being. It’s a tool we as women use, not just to tell stories, but to rewrite our own.
Healing fiction for the reader
It’s one thing to know what healing fiction is capable of, and to experience it myself as a writer and a reader…
It’s another thing entirely to begin to hear from early readers the impact Sabina’s story is having on them.
One early reader shared:
“I found parts of myself mirrored in these pages… I’m affirmed in my choices as a young woman who navigated divorce and found solace in returning to my art, my expression, myself.”
Another said:
“I so resonated, and your words felt like it was me and gave me the words I felt and could never articulate.”
This is the power of healing fiction. We lose ourselves in a story and find ourselves, too. We see our pain reflected and held. We watch characters choose themselves, and it awakens something in us that longs to do the same.
A quiet revolution
In a world that teaches women to shrink, defer, and doubt, choosing our stories matters. Choosing our voices matters.
Whether you write fiction or memoir, poetry or screenplays, writing can become a quiet revolution. One that starts inside—but doesn’t stay there.
We write not just to make art, but to heal. To make sense of what we’ve lived. To offer something real.
This is what healing fiction is to me. Not a genre, but a practice. A way of saying: I choose me. I believe in my voice. I trust what’s moving through me. And I’m willing to share it, even when I’m still being shaped by my own book.
Because stories can change lives.
Starting with our own.
About the book: It’s Always Been Me
After Sabina watches her rock star husband walk out on their marriage, a phone call reveals that her beloved grandmother is in the ICU in Santa Cruz, CA. So Sabina hits the road with a tear-stained face, a duffel bag of clothes, and no plan for her future.
In her grandmother’s seaside world, Sabina reconnects with several old passions: ocean swimming, process painting, and a long-lost summer love named Graham—all of which force her to confront the artistic dream she abandoned to support her husband. Meanwhile, a mysterious voice calls to her. Sabina wonders if it’s a Selkie, one of the mythical shape-shifting seal folk from her grandmother’s stories.
As both her marriage and her grandmother’s health deteriorate, Sabina wrestles with the choices she’s made. Is it too late to reclaim her dream? Must she choose between art and love? And is the voice she’s hearing a sign she’s lost it—or a key to unlocking her true self?
Megan Walrod is a writer, women’s empowerment coach, and founder of Live Your Yes, LLC. Over the past sixteen years, she’s supported thousands of women to break free from their “good girl” training and create fun, fulfilling lives, unapologetically owning their true selves. Megan brings a playful yet powerful approach to personal transformation and has a thing for mermaids, cupcakes, and skinny dipping. It’s Always Been Me is her first novel, and will be available on June 10th. Learn more here: https://www.meganwalrod.com/book
Connect with Megan:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/megan.walrod
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meganwalrod/
Substack: https://meganwalrod.substack.com/
Category: How To and Tips
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