Being Present in your writing

Writing to most means sitting in front of the keyboard and typing on a computer screen, much like this blog. That’s a good form of writing. However, I recently discovered a better way for me and I’m sharing this with you.

Every Tuesday, I meet up with a spiritual healer and fellow meditation person. She gives me a grounding exercise to allow me access to all of myself when I write. I love the exercise and it usually gives me a wonderful endorphin rush. I write a lot afterwards and feel powerful. This time however, I felt a calm come over me as I picked up my pen and started to write.

I noticed that my writing was very slow, very methodical. I write whatever I’m feeling or even thoughts that creep into my consciousness. Whatever was there, my hand takes those signals from my brain and writes. It’s a beautiful practice to write that way. However, normally my penmanship is not that good. But this time, it was beautiful as I was slowing down with each pen stroke, watching myself write, dotting the “i” or crossing the “t”. That penmanship was showing quite well.

When I was younger, around 11 or 12 years old, I had a writing contest between my older brother and I. Whoever won, decided by my father I think, the winner got a nickel. I won the contest, as my penmanship was better.

This meditation session and subsequent free form writing was different. I was being slow & purposeful with each stroke. I felt myself getting more and more present. I’ve painted before on a canvas and I lose myself in the work. It was the same, yet I was writing. Slowly and carefully, trying to slow it down to a crawl. When I did that I became more present, my mind stopped and truly focused on the free form exercise that I was doing. It was wonderful and peaceful at the same time. I felt a sense of calm come over me like I’ve never experienced.

Writing via pen and paper is very good for you as it connects the brain’s thoughts to the paper. With a keyboard, mouse and screen there is electronic interference involved. You can see this by the article linked below from Huffington Post. It talks about how the brain connects with the hand when writing manually.

See this link from the Huffington Post.

If you want to try this exercise, let me know. I’ve outlined the steps below on how to do this.

Materials

Pen or Pencil

Paper

Timer or Clock

Exercise

3 or 4 deep breaths to slow down your breathing.

Set a timer for 5 minutes.

I suggest no music, headphones to interfere. I wrote in a crowded place with just background noise.

Write whatever comes to mind. Try your best to not write anything negative. Just free thoughts, but make each pen stroke deliberate, like you were trying to win a penmanship contest. Cursive or print is fine for this exercise.

It will not be about the content of what you write but about slowing your brain down for 5 minutes. This is a good simple exercise that can be done anywhere, in your office, at home, on a plane or at a Starbucks.

I would love to hear from you to see if this works for you.