write&reflect

🤍 ⚓️ 🎟️ let's meet irl -- free and easy

There is nothing that makes my 🤍 skip a beat quite like it. When I offer a writing prompt to my groups and watch the heads go down without hesitation….eeep. Even the most reluctant writer is “in”. The mere suggestion to write, can be enough to get us to the page. I like the energy of doing this is a group setting too. Quietly, together.

I watched a Ted talk long ago, and was mesmerized to hear a doctor speak to the healing in the brain that occurs, when we write by hand. It sends a signal in turn to the body that we are in a state of equanimity. Out of fight or flight. All is well. I am ok.

Wild, right? And it is rare these days that we are not on keyboards or clicking on our phones. This safe and sacred place is — the page. Yours alone. No worry about what you write. How you write it. Be gone grade school grammar rules and spelling errors. There are no marks here or red pens. These notebook meanderings are not to be published or shared (though you may be surprised at what nuggets or ideas are revealed here!) I always say, if you are writing you are a writer.

I am sure you have all heard at one time or another that journaling is “good medicine”. For even the most seasoned writers however, the blank page can be daunting. That is why I have created exercises that you can use to get you into your practice. Perhaps it is a line of poetry. A favorite quote that stirs you. A stand out phrase from a song or book? Prompts are all around when you begin to notice them.

One of the writing check-ins I use in The Memory Circle is: How is my grief today? This is a beautiful grief tending tool. It offers a mental body scan. It asks that you listen in and get curious for a moment. Time to note and notice.

Julia Cameron, famed author and screenwriter, is known for The Artist’s Way practice of Morning Pages. These are three long-hand pages written upon waking. She says we do this at the edge of the subconscious so that we beat the ego to the page. In this “still waking” state - we get to writing before our inner critic. A little judgement free, free writing. Yes, please. I have renamed this “Mourning Pages” for my grief practice. It allows me to set aside time to honor it, be with it, write to it and about it. Sometimes it takes a turn or tangent and I love to see on any given day, just where I meet myself. When what is on the inside is translated to the page, we often observe words and thoughts that may be too difficult to verbalize. It is a beautiful way to sit down next to yourself in a new and reflective way.

Let’s meet and try it together, next Tuesday. I will be hosting a free Write & Reflect hour. All prompt led. Love to have you there. Interested in grief support—I can share more about that too. Bring paper, notebook, pen, pencil — and your curiosity.

See you soon,

x, Barri