Writing as Excavation
There comes a point — often after a loss — when the usual ways of coping stop working. Talking goes in circles. Advice slides off. You can sense there’s something underneath that needs looking at, but you can’t quite reach it in conversation.
That’s what excavation is for. Not talking about the past. Going down into it, on the page, and bringing back what’s actually there.
You don’t “get over” a loss. You don’t reach a tidy end and close the file.
What you can do is learn to carry what’s gone in a way you can live alongside — not by forgetting it, not by pretending it’s finished, but by governing your relationship with it. A treaty, not a false peace.
That’s what my book Treaties with the Dead is about. It’s what this work is about too. You are not here to be cured of your history. You are here to negotiate better terms with it.
And a treaty is not a victory. The loss doesn’t leave. What you’re building is closer to a ceasefire — a peace you maintain rather than a war you win. The memory of what happened stays with you, but over time it stops being a wound and becomes something quieter: the reminder of why the peace is worth keeping. That is not a failure to move on. It’s how you learn to live alongside what you’ve lost, for good.
Some people think most clearly on the page. If that’s you — if conversation moves too fast, or you only find out what you actually mean once you’ve written it down — then this method fits the way your mind already works.
Writing is slower than talking, and that’s the point. It lets you reach what speech skids straight past. You can be honest on paper in a way that’s hard to manage out loud, even with yourself. And unlike a conversation, the page keeps what you found — you can go back and read what you really said.
This is why, when we work together, the writing comes first. You don’t book a call to start talking. You do the dig, on the page, and then we talk about what came up. Action before conversation. The entry is the ticket.
You can start on your own, at your own pace. Most people do.
A guided seven-day dig. A structured way in, with guidance rather than a blank page staring back at you. $15.
Get the Starter Kit →Twelve questions drawn from both books, two at a time over six weeks, your answers saved as you go. Complete all six and you earn fifteen minutes with me. $27.
Start the six-week dig →For those who want to do this alongside someone who has spent a career in the territory of loss and conflict, I take on a small number of people for ongoing, one-to-one excavation. It isn’t grief coaching in the usual sense. You won’t be talking in circles. It’s structured writing, week by week, with me reading and responding to what you unearth. You dig; I help you read what you found.
The way in is the work itself. Do the six-week dig first — then, when you’ve unearthed something and want to talk it through, there are two ways to do that.
When you’re ready to talk
One thing, looked at properly. A single knot, a live decision, a check-in to keep the momentum going. Short and contained — not a lesser version of the longer call, just the right size for one thing.
Book fifteen minutesWhen it’s more than one thing. Room for the heavier material — the private crisis, the grief, the thing you can’t say to anyone who needs something from you — at a slower, deeper pace. It asks more of both of us.
Book the conversationNot sure which fits? Start with fifteen minutes. If what surfaces needs more room, we’ll take the longer conversation from there. Or write to me first, in confidence: info@drmarcusanthony.com
You already have the answers. Most people do — they’re just buried under everything that’s happened since. My job isn’t to hand you new ones. It’s to help you dig down to the ones already there.
A note on the word. When I talk about excavation, I don’t mean it in the Freudian sense — sifting the unconscious for what’s been repressed. My version comes from a different field: peacebuilding and mediation. There, to excavate is to bring a buried conflict up into the open, where it can finally be faced and negotiated — not analysed, but settled on terms you can live with. That’s the tradition this work belongs to.