I just loved to write. It was fun in those days. But what I didn’t know was that writing would soon become a lifeline for me going forward, the first step in a process of discovering myself, absorbing pain, and moving beyond this pain to a state of healthy mental awareness or spiritual wholeness. I just poured out my heart on a page.

 

Writing—a Lifeline for Me

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I wrote about pain for nearly 15 years after my husband died from Hodgkins Disease. I had pages and pages of hurt in a journal. When I couldn’t sleep at night, I sat at my desk and wrote. I cried on a page when tears wouldn’t come, shouted at God and everyone else, expressed my fear of nothing at all, and apologized over and over again for being alive. Sometimes, words came out in a stream of consciousness form--one long continuous flow of thoughts and emotions. And sometimes, they came out in poetry form. There was a rhythm of sorts and maybe a rhyme. And sometimes, it was a little of both. It really didn't matter to me. I just let the pain I felt inside come out, so I could get up every day and walk through life. I was a wreck, and spilling out words on a page helped me breathe for a while. Life was hard, I said to myself every day. Too hard, sometimes. It was all I could do to survive.

 

And that’s how it was until one day, I saw almost the very same words I said every day on somebody else’s written page and paused. “Life is difficult,” I read out loud. Three simple words, and everything slowly began to change for me after that--partly because I knew I wasn’t alone anymore, and partly because there was more for me to know. Somebody else had poured out their heart on a page like me. Somebody else was living with grief. Gosh, I started to read some more. Maybe there is some hope for me.  And the more I read, the more I wanted to read. I had an insatiable thirst for knowledge--facts, information, maybe even some skills--something. Something to stop the hurt and get me out of the very deep hole I was wallowing in.

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Reading—a Quest for Knowledge

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I read what seemed like a hundred books or more in my quest for knowledge. Sometimes, I read a book two or three times, and sometimes I read every book that an author wrote. I wanted to understand why I hurt so much, how long it would last, how God played into it all, if there was really a heaven somewhere, and what it meant to be all by myself in the world. My questions went on and on and on. In fact, the more I read, the more insidious questions I had. Questions without any answers that I could own, and questions that left me wanting for more. I read, and scribbled notes as I read all over inside the pages of every book.  And when I finished a book, I transferred my scribbled notes to paper, tried to organize them, and added some more. I was hungry. I wanted to learn. I wanted to hope, and knowledge was helping me reach again for something bigger than me, and something good. 

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At first, I organized all my notes by author, by book and by chapter. It seemed to make sense to do it this way. But then, when I started to see some themes in what I was reading, recurring thoughts and ideas, I reordered my notes by subject matter or theme--subjects like grieving, healing, loneliness, death and dying, and spiritual leanings. Yes, my knowledge was building, and that felt good. But themes wove into themes sometimes, and I found myself trying to see something more, read something more--something that wasn't transparent in the pages and pages of notes I took. I was onto something. But I needed a way to connect the dots between facts, speculations, random thoughts, and all the themes I was seeing. The themes needed to be something more. I was sure of this, and that's when it dawned on me, that maybe some pictures might help. 

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I didn't know at the time, but what I was really looking for were principles, foundational concepts buried within all the notes in front of me. Principles, that would help me adjust the framework I had for seeing the world. Principles, that were a catalyst for change. The knowledge I had was exciting. It was giving me hope, but without any principles, all I had was a notebook full of interesting themes and thoughts. But a picture…I felt my heart pound. A picture might really help! I was using pictures at work to help me digest new concepts in the form of flow diagrams. But I never thought about using pictures to unravel my troubled thoughts and find a way forward in life.

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Imagery—a Search for Principles

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Imagery was an exciting new tool for me, and it took many forms once I went down this path. I used photographs, timelines, flowcharts, tables, and combinations thereof. Sometimes, I used images I found on the web or in a book, but most of the time, I created my own images using information I found in my journal or in my copious notes. The imagery was a way to summarize knowledge I had in a logical manner and refine that knowledge as it continued to grow. It helped me to see a principle or discover a concept, and sometimes, it helped me see the truth about something--a truth that I was afraid to face and let have a space to play. Eventually, it became a visual way to learn and grow, to augment my writing, to see what I might not otherwise see, change my framework, and get out of the muck when I got stuck.

 

Let’s take a look now, at how this visual stuff actually works.

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Photographs

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Sometimes, I put photographs in front of me of people and places. I even arrange pictures chronologically to help me build a story, put me back in a place for a while where I can relive an experience. I did this frequently when I wrote my two longer books, "Pieces of Life" and "Dancing With Death " (DWD). It allowed me to walk through time with my very dear brother, who took his own life, and my first loving husband, who died of cancer. I stared at their pictures, wrote a brief story around them, and before I knew it, I found myself back in time reliving important scenes. Was it painful? Absolutely yes. Was I learning to live again and grow? Yes-yes-yes! It was part of the healing I needed to do.