I used a simple technique to write my way through a very difficult year and into new possibilities.
I started my spiral writing practice as a way of soothing myself, shortly after my Dad died, very suddenly, at the end of September 2022.
It was difficult to find words for everything that I was feeling and so I began by making a dot in the middle of the page. Instinctively, I began to draw around this dot in a spiral shape. It was comforting to let my hand move with my breath and to listen to the sound of the pen on the paper.
Gradually, I began to add words.
As waves of grief moved through my body, they found their way onto the page. There was safety in the simple shape of the spiral, the way I needed to turn the page as I wrote, the gentle rhythm of my pen across the paper.
What began to emerge was a sense of thankfulness for all the memories of my Dad. Loss and shock alternated with a desire to give thanks for how precious my own life is. Perhaps the ‘thank you’ that I began to write, over and over, was also a way of talking to Dad, of saying the things I hadn't had a chance to say. He had left so suddenly. There had been no time to say goodbye but now I could do it here, in the held space of the spiral.
I began to purposefully begin each practice by writing the word ‘thank you’ in the middle of the page. My writing became a process of noticing, of paying attention, of remembering. It was a kind of prayer.
As I wrote, I kept talking to Dad inside my mind. I remembered moments that we’d shared, often when I was very small. I found myself noticing things he’d loved, and telling him about them through my writing.
At some point, I began painting circles with watercolours. This was a very soothing process in itself.
I found it hypnotic to place a colour on the paper and then swirl my brush, noticing how the paint moved, the places where the blue or yellow or green made bright spots, and where it ebbed away. I was painting what I’d been holding inside my body.
I cut out the circles and stuck them in the centre of my page. And then I wrote around them: Thank you, thank you. Writing, breathing, noticing, remembering.
Later, I began to use other images, and sometimes even objects – a petal, a pebble, a scrap of writing, a stamp.
Gradually, my spirals began to open out. I followed my pen and let them wander across the page.
The shapes on the page became looser. I felt myself expand into the spaces between the words. I still took comfort in the feeling of my hand moving, but I felt myself begin to let go a little, and to invite in new ways of sensing my way forward.
I’m still writing spirals and shapes. Sometimes, I still write to Dad. But more often these days, I write to a part of myself. (Perhaps that’s what I was always doing?)
Sometimes, the words explode.
I’d love to know what happens for you when you write to your own rhythm. What shapes and forms do your feelings find on the page?
If you're interested in finding our more about processing difficult feelings through writing or developing a sustaining writing practice, you might like to check out WRITE! Club.
