Abstract:
The transformative power of expressive writing is well known. It is also clear that contemplative practices transform human consciousness. Less is known, however, about writing approaches that use contemplation to awaken the transpersonal self and engage in transcendent insight. To reduce this lacuna, I created a therapeutic writing course called Writing Your Way Home (WYWH) and a transformational writing process (HOMING). I used organic inquiry, which views research as a sacred endeavour, to describe, explore, and map the experiences of 11 people who participated in the WYWH course. Furthermore, I examined the transformative moments and psycho-spiritual changes that occurred for the participants and all who engaged in this study. The participants' pieces of writing for each of the six modules of the course were used to signify transformative moments. Pre-and post-course questionnaires, the Spiritual Health and Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM), and the Quiet Ego Scale served as reflective tools and contributed to the in-depth semi-structured interviews. The data from the questionnaires, writings, and interviews were shaped into narratives, which the interviewees reviewed. Four sympathetic resonators responded to the stories, identified key descriptors, and discussed the stories' collective meaning. The findings of this study suggest that combining writing with psychological and spiritual input, contemplative practices, and therapeutic support, maximises its transformative power and therapeutic effect. The contemplative exercises of the HOMING process moved the writers beyond their egoic minds into unconscious and numinous realms where higher levels of consciousness were accessed. This led to new insights and more spiritual, holistic, intuitive, compassionate, creative, non-dualistic, and unitive ways of thinking. The self-giving love experienced in the intersubjective spaces between the writer and the Divine, and the writer and the therapist, contributed notably to the participants' transformation. Their stories revealed transformative changes in perceptions, spiritual consciousness, character structures, emotional spheres, relational approaches, vocational aspirations, and foundational identity. This research combines these findings and introduces an innovative writing and/or counselling approach called ONEING that therapists may desire to incorporate into their clinical interactions. The ONEING process emphasises the sacred, transformative, and relational dimensions of life and views contemplative practices as the path towards transformation.