Sometimes when you sit down to write it can be difficult to begin. If this is the case, responding to writing prompts or selected quotes from writers can be a good starting point.
Just Write! Put pen to paper and write. Write anything. Don’t lift your hand off the paper. If you need to write “just write” over and over, do so. Before too long, your thoughts will emerge and you’ll write them down.
Who gives you comfort and support?
Have family, friends, and/or your community supported you in ways that you couldn’t have imagined before?
What do you do to find some comfort and strength? Examples to consider: write in a journal, walk with a friend, listen to music, go to a movie.
What new activities do you think will help you to cope? Examples might be attending support groups, therapy with pets, reading.
If you could have more support, what would it be?
If you had a few more free hours in a week, what would you do?
Have you grown (emotionally, creatively, spiritually) after your loss? If so, how?
What important life lessons have emerged after your loss?
What was your favorite movie? What was your most memorable trip?
What activities did you like to do in the summer when you were a child? What is your favorite childhood memory?
What is your favorite memory with a grandparent, parent, sibling, teacher, coach or mentor?
Quotes from writers:
“You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” – Christopher Robin, Winnie The Pooh’s Grand Adventure by A.A. Milne
“Here on this island I find I can sit with a friend without talking, sharing the days last sliver of pale green light on the horizon, or the whorls in a small white shell, or the dark scar left in a dazzling night sky by a shooting star.” - Gift From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
Have you ever had an experience like this?
Where were you?
Who were you with?
“You can’t stop the waves but you can learn to surf.” - Wherever You Go There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” - Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
“Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.” - Oscar Wilde
“Only that day dawns to which we are awake.” - Walden by Henry David Thoreau
“Courage is found in unlikely places.” – J.R.R. Tolkien
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes
