How a simple spiral writing practice helped me to feel better

I used a simple technique to write my way through a very difficult year and into new possibilities.

I started to draw spirals with coloured markers as a way of soothing myself, shortly after my Dad died, very suddenly, at the end of September 2022.

Then I began to write around the spirals. It was comforting to let my hand move with my breath and to allow the words to emerge.

As waves of despair, rage, sorrow 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.

Then there was a sense of thankfulness. The loss and shock I was feeling alternated with a desire to give thanks for how precious my own life is. Perhaps my ‘thank you’ was also a way of talking to Dad, of saying the things I never had a chance to say. He left so suddenly. There was no time to say goodbye.

I began to write the words ‘thank you’ in the middle of my spirals. 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.

And then I began to experiment with collaged images.

Gradually, my spirals began to open out. I followed my pen and let them wander across the page.

At the same time, I felt myself opening a little. My body had been curled tightly around my grief, but now it began to soften.

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?)

Some days, the words explode.

On other days, they are round and smooth, like pebbles. I want to slip them into my pocket.

Over the last year, I have learned so much from this simple practice of following my hand and my feelings, of letting the words emerge.

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?

With love,
Sophie x

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