“Writing practice brings us back to the uniqueness of our own minds and an acceptance of it. We all have wild dreams, fantasies, and ordinary thoughts. Let us to feel the texture of them and not be afraid of them.Writing is still the wildest thing I know.”
Natalie Goldberg
Even as someone who has written and written and written and written for years and years and years, there are times like the ones I am swimming in right now I could easily see my writing practice - and output - go away completely if I am not mindful.
What happens when my writing goes away like this?
Life doesn’t work as well. I get grouchy and ornery. My eyes start to sag and my spirit loses her luster.
I don’t have many photos of myself from my mid-thirties. I wasn’t comfortable with my outer appearance in those days. What I know now is I wasn’t comfortable with my inner appearance in those days, either. I was dreadfully uncomfortable in most aspects of my life. I had a job I didn’t like doing tasks that were out of alignment with my beliefs, I was lonely even when surrounded by groups of people.
I received compliments for my artful writing of legal briefs and business letters, but I wasn’t writing anything that held any real meaning for me.
I occasionally wrote poetry, primarily about grief because that was something I felt I was “allowed” to write about: it was expected.
It took a strange sort of writing prompt: the movie, Jerry Maguire, to get my words flowing again.
It wasn’t “show me the money” that did it, it was Jerry’s fervent desire to communicate his beliefs with the others, his passionate connection with what was most important to him.
Here's how it went: he wrote his personal manifesto and delivered it to all his peers and bosses. In doing so he sent his life in an out of control spiral that changed his entire world.
I was hooked. I knew I needed to write again.
I attended a women’s workshop several weeks later about goal setting and I wrote one hundred life goals. In a matter of weeks I was writing again.
Within a year I would leave my job as a county drone and like Jerry Maguire, my life would completely change - some for the better and some just for the different.
Now my life is fairly stable, but if I don’t write - my life stops working as well.
I also discovered it isn’t my writing that leaves me, it is me that leaves my writing.
This makes me curious about your creative life.
Do you have a writing practice? An artful practice?
I am back to writing my daily morning pages which are three pages of hand written stream of consciousness style writing. This morning I felt somewhat blocked so I just wrote “love love love love love love” across the lines when nothing else wanted to be written.
It was meditative, it was movement, I was writing.
From that simple exercise, my day turned out for the better.
Like Natalie Goldberg says, “Writing practice brings us back.”
Writing practice gives us the power to change our lives. Why aren't you doing it?
Julie Jordan Scott inspires people who want to write to experience creative rebirth. She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people's creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in Spring, 2015 and beyond.
To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.
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