Sometimes in order to get to the writing you most want to do, there’s another kind of writing that’s necessary. Many writers keep a process journal to do this kind of writing.
When I teach, I combine creative writing exercises and soul writing practices, to ensure that we’re always making room for the many parts of the self that need to speak.
Part of writing is giving voice to things you’ve never spoken about, and that can open up other parts of you that are scared. They want to keep you safe and don’t see how it’s possible if you start putting things out there, onto the page. It’s too risky!!
If you allow yourself to write to, and from, those parts of you, your writing becomes a bridge between the conscious and the unconscious. You bring more of you into wholeness.
Pay attention to those moments in your life when you’re out of sorts and recognize them as invitations from a part of you longing to have a voice. Our bodies are where the unconscious lives. The unconscious does not yet have language, and so will speak to us in any way it can.
You may feel acutely aware of specific fears, or negative, doubting voices that start screaming loudly when you move toward your writing—or any other dream. Or you just may feel a vague sense of lethargy, drained of all energy and motivation.
All of that is some kind of signal that you’re not centered in the truth of who you are: a sovereign being born to be a creator.
It doesn’t mean you won’t feel vulnerable. Writing is inherently courageous, and often asks us to reveal tremendous vulnerability. But that is different than the doubt and fears that keep you from getting to the page.
If you listen to the part of you that’s afraid, or out of sorts, or full of doubt or empty of all motivation, and offer to give it a voice, you’ll learn something valuable and often surprising. And you’ll start to build a relationship with this “shadowy” part of your self.
This part of you will welcome the opportunity. If you start to write, as a way of inviting it to speak, you tap into a source of energy and creative expression that’s been waiting to connect with you for a long time.
The truth is we have many parts of us inside us. The parts that have been buried in fear won’t always make themselves known until you actually move forward to take a risk.
And then…it may seem as if all you are is terrified.
The truth is, that terror has been safely dormant, and now, it’s arising because in the end it does not want to stay terrified. Its deepest longing is to be free to live and breathe and express itself.
Here’s an example of a poem I wrote, after engaging in the process I just described. I hope it will inspire you to turn inward, and let your writing be a bridge, to cross from one state of awareness to another….and if you’re lucky, to recover a part of you that’s been lost.
Making a Bridge in the Night
A part of me I did not know I had lost
was ready to come back home last night.
How was she to speak to me?
When she got lost, words were not yet
part of her world.
Still, she had something to say.
I awoke—
not knowing it was her, not knowing anything,
except, I wanted to sleep.
Sleep wouldn’t come.
So I practiced what I’ve been learning:
breathing into my core.
Breathing in the light
and love that’s always present.
Receiving that truth into my body,
into my mind,
even when I wanted to be asleep.
Annoyed and restless,
I kept turning my attention to the breath
which is light, which is love
which is always here,
waiting for me to remember.
It took a while.
I kept complaining to my guides—
nothing is shifting, I want to go back to sleep.
They assured me they were with me.
A veil seemed to be between us.
I could almost feel them, almost hear them,
and then,
after waiting forever
which is how it feels in the middle of the night
when you’d rather be asleep
suddenly
this little lost part of me
spoke to me
and she was laughing!
of all things!
Laughing.
I couldn’t help but smile.
She told me she was riding the wave
of light I had formed within my own core
like the trunk of a tree made of light.
It had become something she could hold onto
and she was ready
and come home.
So I am tired this morning.
A little disoriented—
and alive.
Another part of me, restored.
So much of me got lost, long ago,
when fear kept announcing its presence
and no one could hold me and tell me it was safe
because they didn’t see the parts who went into hiding
wanting love, needing love,
but so convinced that love
would never come.
So I am the one now
to hold the space
to wait for them
one at a time
to come out of hiding.
And I know now
that this is not unusual
So many of us have turned away from
lost parts of ourselves,
not knowing we had a choice
to do anything else.
Without a fire circle to come to
in the morning, early, before dawn,
Without a tribe to speak to
of what happened in the night
when the language of dreams
is still fresh—
who are we to tell?
How are we to recognize each other
walking along our solitary paths,
each one of us,
with every breath,
calling ourselves back home?
So the page becomes my dream circle
And this was the dream I had
That a part of me
long silent, came to me
in the middle of the night.
and I turned toward her
and held her
and sang her songs
until she trusted me
and now
she’s asked me
to turn toward you
Because maybe you, too,
lost some part of yourself
long, long ago
And when you wake up
in the middle of the night
and wish you could go back to sleep
you’d like to find
a doorway to open
so you could step into the room
of the one you lost.
It’s always possible
if you remember
that this moment, too,
the one you don’t want to be in,
in also your life.
The voice of a flower
before its petals open
so it can bloom
is a silent whisper
to the breeze.
Your lost heart
the one you’re always looking for
in someone else’s eyes
will speak to you like that.
If you become very still
you might start to hear her
when she begins to sing.
