Come On In, The Water's Lovely

The other week I dipped my toes into Brighton radio - on the Paul Stones InBrighton on Mondays show for Radio Reverb, Brighton's local station. I felt a bit nervous as I approached the basement entrance of Reverb HQ, off the New Steine, that chilly March Monday. 

Paul opened the door and led the way along a dark corridor to the studio.
Sue Bartlett from Rottingdean Writers group was already there in front of a large microphone. Paul put his headphones on and I sat down next to Sue. We exchanged greetings and chatted politely. I looked through the notes on my lap. I'd made a list of things I wanted to mention - my workshops, the benefits of writing, the link between writing, health and wellbeing, Lapidus - the writing for wellbeing organisation. Just then the door opened and Pete Sanders, from Coastway Hospital Radio arrived and the seductively inviting, intro music was playing. It was 5 O' clock and we were on air! 

Like many things, it wasn't half as gruelling as I thought it would be. Thanks to Paul and Pete for their gentle interviewing technique. And to Sue with her excellent cache of stories. I've just got round to listening to it and after my initial embarrassment realised I'd mentioned most of the things on my list. I didn't realise how many times I'd said Ummm - that was a surprise!

Despite this, the lovely Pete invited us to Coastway the following Sunday. This was a wonderful experience with Pete and Ruth, who host a regular Sunday morning programme for people in hospital, complete with quizzes! 

I even got to read a poem. It's National Poetry Writing Month  and I was inspired by a friend who told me there is a planet made of water. Apparently he'd heard about it on the radio.

Here's the Reverb show and the poem too:  

Thought Bubbles

They've found a planet
made of water,
like a great big bubble
suspended in sky.
I wonder what it would be like 
to land on?
Or bump into - 

like a bouncy castle
or those balls you squish for stress?
Perhaps you'd bounce right off it 
into space,
or fall into it
and it would fold around you,
like a lovely big hug.   

Christine Hollywood, April 2014


 

Research, Writing and Wellbeing

In 1986 Dr James Pennebaker conducted research into expressive writing and health. He asked two groups of uni students to write for 15 minutes a day on four consecutive days. One group were asked to write about superficial things - what they were wearing, the weather etc. The other group were asked to write their deepest thoughts and feelings about a traumatic event they'd experienced (preferably a secret they hadn't revealed before). 

Pennebaker looked at the students' visits to the health centre in the months before and after and found that the group who wrote about a traumatic event went to the doctor half as many times as the students who wrote about superficial things. 

Over the last thirty years research has consistently shown health and wellbeing benefits not only from expressive writing but other types of writing including free writing, creative writing, short stories, song writing, unsent letters and memoirs.  

Currently, Lapidus members Victoria Field and Carol Ross are involved in a study which aims to establish the clinical and cost effectiveness of therapeutic writing for people with long term health conditions. 

James Pennebaker's top tips for expressive writing

• Ask yourself if you need to write. If you find yourself thinking about something too much, dreaming about it or obsessing about it in some way, writing could be beneficial.
• Promise yourself you'll write for a minimum of 15 minutes a day for three or four days.
• Don't worry about spelling.
• Write for yourself, not for an audience: this is not a letter to someone, this is for you.
• Plan on destroying what you've written, though whether or not you actually do doesn't matter.

 

Free Writing and Wendi Deng

I think Wendi Deng was probably free writing when she wrote how much Tony Blair's physique delighted her. Her note ending "and what else and what else and what else..." illustrates a technique that keeps the pen flowing across the page by writing the same thing over again until something else comes up.

For free writing forget about punctuation, spelling and sense. Just let the pen flow. Disengage your mind too. Try not to think what it is you're writing about.

Sometimes after I've been free writing I can barely read back what I've written as the words flow into one long line across the page. You don't need to read it back anyway. It's the process that's useful for freeing up words.

Afterwards you can throw your free-writing away, put it under your pillow or save it to look at for another day. Although, if you do this you might want to make sure no-one else reads it (Wendi take note!)

If you do read it back what you see may surprise you and you may have no memory of writing it. Free writing comes from the unconscious and can lead to insights and material for further writing. Peter Elbow advocates free writing for at least 15 minutes a day to find your voice and to get rid of the inner editor.

At the recent London Lapidus workshops Helen Beale, who specialises in somatic writing, suggested we free write for 5 minutes and then underline all the words and phrases that stood out to us. She then asked us to free write for another 5 minutes incorporating as many of these as we could. We repeated the process a third time. Helen says the first 5 minutes writing is often what she calls 'froth', the next more intense writing and finally the last 5 minutes is about expansion and release.

To finish the process, Helen suggested we make a poem or short piece of writing using the words and phrases we chose from the final free write.

Writing and Growing

WordWell's writing and nature workshops are linked to the seasons, the senses and the relationships between growing, nature, gardens and transformation.

Recently we were invited by Eleanor Sier, the Education Officer at Fulham Palace, to work with children from local schools to produce poems for Apple Day, for the fruit trees in the Walled Garden. 

                                    

Gardens and Writing have a lot in common - a garden grows naturally and easily given the right conditions and words flow onto the page with space and time.

At the Children’s Book Festival in the Walled Garden at Luton Hoo in 2012,  The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett was the inspiration for writing and drawing activities.

   

These are some of the drawings and writing by the children and families who came along.

 

 
 

New Lapidus Board

It was good to see so many Lapidus: The Writing for Wellbeing Organisation members from all over the UK in Bristol on the weekend of the 5th and 6th October 2013. The sun shone all the time and Bristol was beautiful.

The weekend was a great opportunity to catch up with others working in the field of writing for wellbeing, and hear guest speakers Ted Bowman on how to Pack Your Bag with Words and poet Matt Harvey on tennis, conkers and many other things.

                                


Kiran Bangerh delivered a workshop on the therapeutic benefits of Hip Hop for young people who are grieving, Manu Rodriguez on writing another perspective on disability/ability, and Victoria Field on training to become a Poetry Therapist. (This is the first time this training has been offered in the UK and is a great opportunity to train with Victoria).

I'm also excited to have been elected to the new Lapidus Board along with Karen Dempsey and Anna Morvern. I'm looking forward to combining our experience and skills, and with previous Board member, Anne Taylor, taking Lapidus forward and building on the work of the outgoing Board. 

I really enjoyed the whole weekend and look forward to planning the next. If you have ideas about the future role of Lapidus please get in contact via the email on the contact page.