You are invited to my “Writing as a Spiritual Practice” workshop on Sunday, March 30, at Mercy Center in Burlingame, CA. Do come early to enjoy the beautiful walking trails, exquisite labyrinth, and 500-year old oaks. For more info or to register, click WRITING AS A SPIRITUAL PRACTICE.
One way to use writing as a spiritual practice is to write our way out of trouble—to use writing as a clarifying lens, a spiritual life raft, and/or a healing balm.
CLARIFYING LENS
When I feel stymied in a work situation, relationship, or troubled state of mind, when I just can’t figure out what’s going on no matter what I do, I turn to my journal. I state the problem and write down whatever slides into my mind about it. I can rant and rave, dissect and analyze, moan and groan, complain and whine—but I just keep writing. Almost always, and usually in fifteen minutes, I start to see the problem in a whole new light and with a lot more clarity.
The solution may not be comfortable, but it is usually obvious. I may need to alter a point of view, communicate with someone, or get more information—but I understand what is happening and know what I need to do to get some relief.
SPIRITUAL LIFE RAFT
When the problem is deeply emotional, I use the “cry and write” method. I dive into the quagmire, write my heart out about the pain, the betrayal, the unfairness of it all. If I’m not crying yet, I write some even worse stuff about the situation. I write and write. And write.
Often there is no “to do” attached to the solution; I just have cry it out, or write it out, or experience it so far inside me that it starts to dissipate. This is knows as free therapy. In a sense, all writing about deeply felt issues is free therapy. I often say that writing Chasing Grace: A Novel of Odd Redemption saved me tens of thousands of dollars in therapy.
Emotional discharge can also lead to emotional clarity. “Why would he say such a thing?!” Three pages later, I often have a brutal, and then perhaps a more compassionate, understanding of why he might have said such an awful thing—as well as a fairly accurate (if much briefer) analysis of my own part in it.
HEALING BALM
Writing Chasing Grace not only save me a lot of money, but it also brought tremendous relief. Leading Cathy, my protagonist, through thirty years of looking for grace, forgiveness, love, and wholeness in all the wrong places was exhausting, but it was also extraordinarily healing.
Sometimes I wake up with my monkey mind going a mile a minute. I have to do this, and this, and this. And I should do that. And what about the other thing? My thoughts are on a hamster wheel, spinning around and around, preventing me from being either happy or productive.
When this happens, I just start writing. I spin that hamster wheel energy onto the page. I write down every anxious, mean, and venal thought until a little peace starts to descend. Once all those thoughts are down on paper, or safely ensconced in a Word file, they are somehow outside of me. When I’ve “said them out loud,” they lose their power over me.
WHY WE DO IT
We seek relief because we crave the peace, love, and inspiration—the Presence—that descends when our minds are quiet. That is our natural state. When we write our way out of trouble, we become more open vulnerable. Spirit washes in, and we can just lean back and let it fill us.