Writing Through the Dark
How Poetry and Journalling Can Anchor Us on the Journeys We Never Wanted to Make
There are some seasons of life we would never have chosen, such as the diagnosis, the loss or when the relationship ends. Sometimes, our dreams do not come to pass, and in those moments, the usual coping tools can often feel inadequate.
So, what do you do when words feel too small for what you're carrying?
For Julia D McGuinness, the answer has always been to reach for the page and to trust that writing has a way of finding what we cannot say – yet.
Julia is an author of six books, a poet, an ex-teacher, and a workshop facilitator who guides people through the transformative power of poetry, journalling, and creative writing. Her latest book, Writing the Journeys We Never Wanted to Make, grew from her own lived experience, years as a trained therapeutic counsellor, and the many people she has sat with as they navigated their own difficult passages. In Episode 72 of the Writing with Purpose podcast, we spent an hour in conversation about what writing can hold, where poetry goes when prose cannot follow, and how anyone can begin.
When the Only Thing That Would Do Was a Poem
Julia traces her earliest understanding of writing as a lifeline back to her teenage years. As a sixth-former, she attended an inspiring morning of early music at the Royal Festival Hall, led by a young and brilliantly energetic conductor called David Monroe. A few months later, she heard that he had died by suicide at the age of 33.
"I went and wrote a poem about it," she says. "Trying to put into words what really felt like beyond words, and holding together all those feelings of feeling powerless. Finding that only poetry would do to try and express that."
That instinct, to reach for poetry when an emotion or feeling is too large for ordinary language, is something Julia has heard echoed again and again in her workshops. One person she spoke to described poetry as "a way of helping me arrange my feelings." Another said they turned to it simply to find out whether anyone else had ever felt the way they did. Poetry, Julia explains, is a different language. It works through image and truth rather than fact and analysis. As Carol Ann Duffy has described it, it is "the music of being human."
This is why Julia built her book around poems, as well as, writing prompts to act as a starting place or companion for the territory.
The Eight Rs: Giving Shape to the Shapeless
One of the most distinctive things about Writing the Journeys We Never Wanted to Make is its framework. Rather than offering a loose collection of exercises, Julia developed nine processes to help readers locate where they are in a difficult journey. Each one begins with R: reacting, resisting, reckoning, reorienting, resourcing, re-energising, resolving, reconstituting, and relapsing.
"They've become processes," she explains, "in that we don't often always go in a linear, nice, neat route through. Sometimes things are a little bit messier."
The reorienting process is one Julia feels particularly strongly about, and one she hadn't seen named elsewhere. It describes that pause between reckoning and moving forward. It’s the moment when you know you can't keep fighting what's happened, but you're not yet ready to rebuild. "I'm going to have to see this differently now," she says. "And maybe there are aspects of this I didn't see before."
Crucially, the book is a practical learning resource. Each chapter includes a case study, journalling guidance, and both journalling and poetry-based exercises designed for that specific stage. There is no prescribed order, and readers are invited to find their own place in the map and begin there.
Writing Through, Not Down Into
One of the most useful distinctions Julia makes in our conversation is the difference between writing that helps you process and writing that pulls you deeper into difficulty.
"We can end up," she says, "writing ourselves into this abyss. Maybe [set] a time limit or a page limit, but ensure that you do read back over what you've written, maybe not immediately, but that you do, and see what you can pull from that so that it's taking you somewhere. So, you're writing through something rather than writing down into the pit. It's a big difference."
This is a significant reframe for anyone who has ever emerged from a long journalling session feeling worse rather than better. The writing itself is not the whole practice. Reading back, noticing what surfaces, and writing a brief note to yourself about what you want to take away, those steps complete the loop and make the writing genuinely useful rather than simply cathartic.
Julia also speaks gently to the inner critic that can make starting feel impossible. Her courses are what she calls ‘NTP’ courses, a.k.a. nothing to prove. "You're writing primarily in journalling for yourself," she says. "Your eyes may be the only eyes that ever see that piece of writing. So as long as it's working for you, that's all that matters."
The Heart of the Day: A Place to Begin
For anyone who feels overwhelmed by the blank page, Julia offers one of the simplest and most grounding entry points in this conversation: writing into the heart of the day.
"Just think about… today, what's the one thing that's been a standout moment for me? A journal is what I want it to be, and it can be… a really short entry. Maybe somebody said something kind that you want to make note of. Maybe you just want to jot down something that you feel grateful for today. Maybe something really wound you up today. Maybe you saw a beautiful sunset."
The exercise asks for only a few sentences and builds naturally into a weekly ‘taking stock’. Over time, patterns emerge, and things resolve. The writing becomes a way of tracking your own movement through a season, even when that movement feels unremarkable.
This thread of gentleness runs through everything Julia shares. She suggests starting small and “Write as you can, not as you can't” or changing location when you feel stuck. Writing with the finger or your other hand bypasses the inner critic. “Let the page be yours.”
Nature also plays a part in our conversation, and through the book itself, even without a dedicated section. Julia suggests people go out on an attentive walk, notice what catches their eye, and then let that image lead them into writing. "We're more in tune with that than the machines," she says simply. A tree chosen from a photograph or a feather falling in a poem.
Your Turn: A Writing Practice Drawn from This Conversation
This conversation is full of permission, and many of the examples Julia introduces offer a wonderful starting place for a journalling practice. She speaks about reaching for what is beyond words, about the images and sensations that carry more than language can hold directly. The prompts below draw on that, inviting you to begin not with your thoughts, but with something you have seen, felt, or been drawn to.
Choose one of these to begin or move through them slowly over several days.
An image from the natural world
Go outside or bring a photograph of a natural scene to mind. Notice what catches your attention. It might be a particular tree, a patch of light, a stone, a bird. Don't question why it draws you. Begin writing by describing it simply, what you see, what you sense. Then let the image speak: if this tree, this stone, this patch of light could say something to you right now, what would it say?
Writing into the heart of the day
At the end of any day this week, ask yourself, ‘What was the one moment that stayed with me?’ It doesn't need to be a significant event. Write a few sentences about it and notice what emotion sits underneath it.
Writing through, not down
If there is something you have been writing around but not into, give yourself ten minutes and a page limit. Write, then stop, then reread. Ask, ‘What do I notice?’ Write one sentence in response to yourself, ‘What do I want to take from this?’
You don't need to complete all three activities, just start with what feels alive.
Want to explore this further?
Listen to the full conversation with Julia D McGuinness on Episode 72 of the Writing with Purpose podcast.