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WRITE!
By Margo Zwald
Dancing with a pen
Reaching with a fine line
Stretched to awe
Passionate possibilities
Pushed off the edge of the paper
Journaling is a release and flowing freedom. Writing inspires surprising reflections and sparks of creativity. Writing is an account of acknowledgments and blessings. Writing is about seeing, tasting and touching the seen and unseen. Writing is honesty and authenticity. Writing is an awesome joyous pouring of faith, doubt, challenge, woe and wonder. Writing is about you and who you really are. Writing connects your body, mind and soul. Writing is about creativity merging into moments of loving connection to your higher Self.
Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way encourages everyone to write three free flowing pages every morning. There are many other books and magazines which urge you to journal daily either in a free flowing style or directed to a particular method. Diarists are urged to record everything and anything or are directed to specific subjects. There is journaling for emotional and spiritual purposes as well as discovering your creativity. Both methods work; the point is to write and release.
Last year, I led three classes which used The Artist’s Way as a teaching tool for finding individual creativity and authenticity. I developed some simple tips on writing to assist the students. These are the tips I devised. I suggest that you circle one or two to start with as a “kick start” and then later consider some others which may be helpful.
- Start with a quick prayer or thought to set your intention to write. Try ending your writing with a note of gratitude. Most of my pages end with “Thank you God for this time‰”or just “Thank you, God”.
- There is no grade for quality or quantity, sentence structure, spelling and grammar or handwriting. No one is marking your paper. WRITE
- Use #$%&* - expletive expressions if you need to. Blame if you need to. Do NOT judge yourself on your emotions; it is normal to be angry, sad, bitchy and blue. Write to be authentic and heard. Be honest. WRITE.
- Avoid the pop psychological if possible. However if you need to analyze the words, do so. That is what you need to be writing today. WRITE.
- The process creates the direction. If you will feel an urge to write unrelated thoughts, or describe events that you originally did not intend to write, go with the urge. Insightful thoughts may come out of this. WRITE.
- If you find yourself writing about dull, tedious activities or making a “to do” list that is normal. The “to do” list is what you are thinking about today. I write about the laundry, dishes and paying the bills. The task list inspires me to write about my frustrations about that list. WRITE.
- If you get stuck, Julia Cameron recommends writing “I am stuck” until you get unstuck. Another way to get unstuck is to write a letter to Stuck and tell it how it makes you feel to be stuck. Then let Stuck “write” you back. WRITE.
- Writing a letter to anyone or anything is a marvelous exercise to gain insight. Write out how angry you are or write how much you love the person or object. I have written to “Art” the dragon or arthritis. I then allowed Art to write me back. Consider writing to the new car that you just bought or the new sweater. WRITE.
- Allow yourself to write poetry. You do not have to be Robert Frost to create poetry. I have created some very strong poems right in the middle of my journaling. WRITE.
- Find a regular time and place to write. Julia Cameron insists on writing in the morning, but what is your morning? Personally I would rather have you write when you can rather than insisting that you do it in the morning. I find it more important to find a time when I can be fairly certain that I will not be distracted. WRITE.
- Write as much as you can. Julia suggests three full large notebook pages. Stretch yourself a bit and write with the intention that you are going to fill three pages or more. Force yourself at first and see what that is like. Then make a decision of what you can do everyday.
- Sketch if you are an artist or like to doodle. Who says that writing is done only with letters of the alphabet? Words are just symbols and a picture is sometimes really worth a thousand words.
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If you prefer a directed method of writing rather than free flowing, start with the directed method. There are many excellent books available on gratitude journaling, self-discovery and soul journaling. Find a method that satisfies you. WRITE.
Finally, find a private place to put your journal away from prying eyes. Enjoy the process. The more you write, the more you can express yourself. If you stop for a while, go back when you can. WRITE and WRITE some more. Dance with a pen and push yourself off the edge of the paper.
Margo Zwald speaks to organizations on how we use flower and animal symbolism for communication. Her website, Dandylines.biz, focuses on pausing for reflection. |
