Writing From the Body: Jump Start Your Practice

Thank you so much for coming to Writing From the Body: Jump Start Your Practice. I hope you found the approach helpful. As promised, here is a short course you can use to consolidate the ideas we covered and develop them further.

Send me an email to let me know how the mini-course went for you and if you have any questions.

Find Your Poised Center

The core of the practice is bringing yourself to a place of relaxed alertness from which creative inspiration can flow, what I think of as your poised center. There are four simple steps to bringing yourself to that state:

1. Find Comfort
2. Balance Your Awareness
3. Listen
4. Return to Center

In the workshop we focused on the first step: finding comfort to create ease in your body and to calm your nervous system. In the practices that follow, you will have an opportunity to explore what that means to you and how you can incorporate it into your writing process.

Begin By Relaxing

I recommend doing the opening meditations lying down somewhere comfortable where you feel safe. If lying down isn’t possible, be sure to sit in a comfortable chair or couch where you can let your body go. Physical relaxation is a powerful way to free up your creative self.

Each practice includes a meditation and a writing prompt. Take each meditation for as long as you like. I recommend at least five minutes to let your body start the process of relaxing, but you could take fifteen to twenty minutes or more if that feels good to you.

Practice 1: Arrive and Observe

This first practice is about showing up and being present.

Meditation

In your relaxation period remain alert and observe what you feel:

• Physically: where are you relaxed, where are you tight or held?
• Energetically: are you energized, calm, or fatigued?
• Mentally: are you alert, focused, scattered?
• Emotionally: what underlying emotions are you feeling?

Take a mental snapshot of your state when you first lie down. Your mind will inevitably wander, because that’s the nature of the mind, but bring it back occasionally to yourself to check in again and notice if how you feel has changed.

Writing Prompt

What does the present feel like?

Practice 2: Let Yourself Be Supported

In this practice you will begin to explore how what you think affects you.

Meditation

Once again, take a brief assessment of how you feel. It need be no more than a quick general impression, just enough to give you a baseline.

Observe the feeling of weight and how your body settles into what’s beneath it. Observe how what you’re resting on supports you. Let yourself be supported: notice the ways in which you resist that support and the ways that you help it, and do less.

At the end of your meditation, check in with yourself and notice how you feel as a result of the practice.

Writing Prompt

Thought and emotion shape my body.

Practice 3: Free Your Neck

Your neck is a strong indicator of the state of your nervous system, especially the top of your spine where your head and neck come together. Freeing your neck will help calm anxiety and general tension in your body. This meditation will be most effective lying down with your head supported, though much good can be done sitting comfortably upright as well.

Meditation

Start with a brief assessment of how you feel.

• Spend some time settling into your support.

Turn your attention to your neck. Think of the whole space between your head and shoulders softening and expanding. Think of softening at the base of your skull in the back where it meets your neck. Think of softening your jaw,  tongue, and the back of your throat. Return to that idea of softening periodically during your rest period, and check in at the end to see how the thought has affected you.

Writing Prompt

I have all the time I need.

Practice 4: Soften Your Breath

Your breath is another pathway to calming your nervous system. Sometimes turning your attention to your breath creates anxiety. If you find that happening, stay with the meditation while thinking about freeing your neck so that you can get used to the experience and dispel the anxiety.

Meditation

Take a brief snapshot of how you feel.

• Spend time releasing into your support.
• Spend time letting your neck be free.

Turn your attention to the movements of your breath. Notice what moves when you inhale and when you exhale. Notice if there is any resistance to that movement and let it go. Notice if there is any forcing of the movement and let that go. Let your exhalations be easy and unhurried.

At the end of your meditation period, check in and notice how you feel.

Writing Prompt

Flowing freely.

Practice 5: Return to Self

Take this meditation seated and ready to write.

Meditation

Take a brief snapshot of how you feel.

• Spend time releasing into your support
• Spend time letting your neck be free.
• Spend time softening your breath.

Writing Prompt

For this practice, select whatever writing prompt you would like. As you write, pause every few minutes to return to your meditation for thirty seconds or so before continuing on with your writing.

At the end of the practice, check in with yourself and notice how you feel.