Writing with Abandon:Using Writing to Wade Into Deeper Pools of Insight
Accessing your inner wisdom
It was midday, and there were only a few cars in the park. I stepped onto the trail, and soon the path became overgrown. Plants brushed my ankles. My thoughts flitted, jumped. Chiggers, poison ivy, heat cramps. Does the GPS on my phone work out here?
The bridge over the marsh dipped, and dragonflies floated across the water.
As my mind rattled on through these thoughts, my soul-self waited patiently to settle into a quieter state among the trees.
Some time ago, I spent an afternoon at a nearby state park, a shock of trees in the prairie, connecting to my self and asking for guidance on next steps to something I’d been working with.
Being outside in the vastness was a powerful, symbolic experience, helping me connect more deeply to myself.
But as usual, the real magic happened when I started to write about my experience.
Much like moving past the buzz of the gnats to see the ancient emerald forest at my feet, I have to get the purely annoying and tedious thoughts out before my mind can settle into something deeper. Before I’m able to hear my own inner wisdom.
And writing provides the perfect vehicle for that.
Pouring out misdirected, random thoughts on the page, allowing them to ping around aimlessly, lets a deepening enter into your writing, almost unbidden. You often don’t notice it at first, but after you’ve spilled whatever thoughts there are onto the page, before you know it, you almost always reach a new layer of perspective. Insight comes unexpectedly. Tiny surprises unfold on the page like a phone ringing in an empty house.
Where’d that come from? you might wonder.
Surely it doesn’t feel as if it’s from you. Yet you’re the one sitting there, with the pen, the paper.
As I continued to write that afternoon, more clarity emerged.
And in the end, it was the writing, the pouring out of my thoughts about the experience of being outside, of what I’d been holding inside, that helped me see more clearly what some deeper part of me already knew.
My invitation for you today is to spend a bit of time writing out your thoughts, every one of them, as they come into your head.
I have to remember to buy milk.
The dishes are still in the living room.
I don’t know what I’m doing.
I’m so very tired.
Whatever they are. One by one. Get them down and don’t stop writing. Stick with it for about 20 to 30 minutes and see what you discover.
Ask questions; watch answers emerge.
After about a page and a half or so, see where your writing takes you.
You might be surprised at what appears in front of you.
Where did your writing take you today?
PS – The women in my writing group just had our last session this week and let me tell you it was MAGICAL. ✨ The whole experience has been such a gift. Here’s what one participant just shared with me by email: “These weeks have been amazing for my writing process. Great prompts and reflections (aka feedback) have given me resources for much more writing, and new ways of thinking about how and what I write have opened up. So many barriers within me have been broken or at least flexed and bent and I am feeling all sorts of success.” 🎉🎉🎉
If you’re interested in taking part in one of my writing groups, we start again the week of January 13th, the sign up is open now. Find out much more about them by going here.