COMPASSION 212 Summer 2022

Summer 2022 - Compassion | www.tcf.org.uk 18 Hi, I know I am not alone in expressing my thoughts, feelings and emotions in writing as a vehicle for processing life and all its wondrous and not so wondrous happenings. I recently heard author Michael Rosen talking about his book, Many Different Kinds of Love, written following the long period of severe illness he endured when he was struck down by coronavirus in 2020. He nearly died. Of writing being healing he said, “There is relief and release as the words go onto the page”. The catharsis of writing is well documented and recently I have been reflecting on how far I have progressed along the ‘writing as a tool for processing grief’ path since losing James in 2005. I have also considered how the content and form of my writing has evolved over the intervening years. Back in 2005, in the first ghastly weeks and months after James died, my tear-stained journal reflected an outpouring of loss and acute pain. Most of the writing was too personal to share, certainly during the first year, and I ultimately binned it. But I began to write for the Drowning Support Network and The Compassionate Friends ( tcf. org.uk ) and in both places, I found an audience that empathised and understood the raw pain of those early days. The encouragement I received from those who expressed that my writing helped them as well, spurred me on to write more regularly. Having to step back into a more dispassionate viewpoint to put the words on the page somehow helped me begin to process the darkest times of loss. In 2011, I joined a creative writing group as a form of light relief from grief writing. A term turned into several years of belonging to the group! Here I found a huge unforeseen raft of help with structuring my writing. At the time I had begun to work on my first book, Into the Mourning Light, and some of the concepts in the book were shared with the writing group. Their invaluable feedback and kind critique enabled me to tweak the early drafts and I incorporated dialogue, which I would probably not have thought of doing had I been left to my own devices. When the book was published in 2014, I decided to continue regular writing in the form of this blog, which has become an electronic journal of sorts. To date, I have published 171 posts on the blog and the subject matter spans topics from grief and loss to the RNLI to my books; also the publishing process and tributes to the loss of family and friends. The Role of Writing in Healing Grief