Making Peace With What Haunts Us: A Writing Practice
Find a pen and paper.
Set aside 10 minutes in a quiet space that allows you to focus.
When we consider making peace with what haunts us, it can be helpful to examine where exactly we’re trying to get to. What do we mean by “peace”? The following reflection and writing prompts from Unitarian Universalist Minister Rev. Karen Hering can guide our journey by helping us discern where we’d like to end up.
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We sometimes think of peace as an absence of conflict, but the experience of true peace can have a very strong presence. Answer the questions below in a brainstorming fashion, jotting down whatever comes to you without asking why. If a particular question doesn’t evoke any response, move on to the next. When you get to the end, look over your answers and use as many of them as you like in writing from the prompt provided.
- If peace were a room in your house, what room would it be?
- What object in your home or in your workplace do you associate with peace?
- If peace were a way of moving what would it do (walking, skipping, leaping…)?
- If peace were a food, what would it be and how would it taste?
- Where in your body is most sensitive to feelings of peace? How do you experience peace in your body? (Use as many of your senses as you can in describing this.)
- If peace were a color, what color and quality of color (deep, pale, reflective) would it be?
- If peace were a musical instrument, what would it be and what music would it play?
- If peace were a creature – on land or in sky or sea – what would it be and how would it live and move in the world? What sounds would it make?
- What place in nature, real or imagined, do you associate with peace?
Now, using as many the associations named above as you like, begin with the prompt below and follow wherever it leads:
I found peace…