Moving into the Mystery
If spiritual practice is a way of seeking wholeness, then writing has long been part of my practice.
Perhaps you’ll be surprised then to learn how much I resist writing. It’s been nearly two decades, and I still haven’t outgrown the resistance. This, despite knowing I’ll feel more centered and contented for entering the trance of writing.
Like many people who experience creative resistance, I gravitate toward movement to bust out of its constriction. Writers often reflect on how exercise, like hiking, running, or swimming, help them loosen the grip of the critical mind, fearful as it is of discomfort and rejection.
Five years ago, I happened upon a lunchtime class at Kripalu Center for Yoga called Let Your Yoga Dance®. There, we moved through the seven chakras or energy centers of the body. Movement ideas were offered as inspiration, not expectation. No movement was a mistake.
The hour-long practice was playful, expressive, intuitive, and structured like a narrative arc—building to a cardiovascular climax and then slowing to denouement. It reminded me less of a dance class since synchronized steps weren’t the goal and more like the freewheeling way I’d played as a child—full of embodied creativity and experimentation. The fizzy exhilaration and open-heartedness afterward was a perfect match to how I felt after having written.
Certainly, any movement can help a writer dampen resistance by stirring up energy and distracting the inner critic. But there is something particular about this way of moving, rich with self-inquiry, that unwittingly sheds my armor of resistance and leaves my mind buzzing with writing ideas.
Perhaps it’s because there are no rules, just permission, moving into deeper conversation with myself. We might move our hand as though it was a leaf caught on an air current, or experiment as if our elbow and knee were connected by an invisible thread, or gather in ideas as though we were plucking them from the sky. All of these things help me slip into the gossamer silks of my imagination and swim in flow state before I ever sit down to write.
Since training as a facilitator of this practice, condensing it and tailoring it to writers, I’ve witnessed creative magic happen, time and again. People get more writing done than usual. They see a project with fresh eyes. They delve into rich material that they didn’t know was waiting to be tapped. They sneak past resistance and quickly enter the meditative mystery that is writing.
September will offer two Embodied Writing practices online—including one on a Saturday morning—where we center, check in, move, and then write before closing out our time together. Many people bring ongoing writing projects or catch up on journaling, but fiction and nonfiction prompts are also offered to writers who want a new springboard for their creativity. I hope you can come out to play.
Yours,
Elizabeth
Upcoming Embodied Writing Groups:
Saturday, September 9, 2023 - 10:30 - 12 PM
Thursday, September 21, 2023 - 10 - 11:30 AM
