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Holistic Rituals for the Writer: 5 ½ Supportive Practices
Recently, one of the professors in my clinical mental health program repeated three words attributed to many esteemed minds (David McCullough and William Zinsser, to name two), and they landed with the swish of happenstance in my being.
“Writing is thinking.”
So simple, and so very, very complex. Swish. Akin to the taking off and gliding down of a paper airplane.
If this writing is thinking, and thinking is one form of processing, and processing causes us to remember/contemplate, and this contemplating instigates a spectrum of raw emotions as we transform our more abstract experiences into words … well, no wonder writing can be an emotional or energetically draining/recharging experience!
Simply put: “Writing is thinking,” and thinking awakens parts of us that we may or may not know well.
There may be a tentative welcoming of parts we might identify as nostalgia or regret, as they may feel like slippery slopes towards other parts like shame, grief, or responsibility. Other parts may arrive that can feel like they invite balance, like self-reliance, groundedness, and our present-moment self. When we name that we feel creatively sparked, it could be because parts like inquisitiveness, confidence, and courageousness have announced themselves.
My love for duality and multiplicity compels me to share this thought:
Reminder: We are not “mono” in nature. We very often experience more than one part, thought, or emotion at a time.
Thanks to this, for better or worse a little less akin to wonderful, writing can be chaotic.
So, how might we choose to allow space for all of these parts that arrive at our writing sessions? Well, dear writers, here are some resources that have the potential to be rituals of support for your writerly lives. May you visit them with parts open to receiving and/or with the autonomy to place these offerings in a back pocket until otherwise needed.
How Can We Support Writing/Thinking/Processing/Feeling? (An Introduction)
1. Prepare to meet your writer self (a.k.a. your thinking self)
- Internally ask, or verbally ask your internal self: How are we right now? How many miles per hour is our brain going at this moment in a speed limit zone of 100 mph? Get a sense of how you are arriving at the ritual of writing.
- Consider integrating any number of pre-writing routines, such as taking time to prepare a favorite grounding beverage, taking a walk or moving in some way to inspire creative energy, listening to music, viewing something beautiful that sparks you, like artwork, or even spending a few breaths focusing on a beloved singular, elevating thought.
1.5 Visit the option to meet your non-thinking self
- Consider asking your non-logical brain, the body, what it might be craving right now. Does it want to sit in stillness before writing? Take some free-flowing movement? Light a candle? Take some deep inhales and loud or quiet, fast or slow exhales? Can it feel accessible to be curious about the body’s needs before investing in writing in a given moment? (Spoiler alert: There is no right or wrong answer!)
2. Visit, or revisit, the writing space
- Based on what you find in your curiosity-induced state, is your traditional writing space bringing the essence you want/need for today’s session? Is it bright enough? Is it quiet enough? Is it feeling energized? If not, what shift, small or large, can be made? Might you write outside today? Might you change the vibe by introducing an open or closed window? Would it feel more aligned to enter the writing space in a different outfit … more conducive to the kind of writing you will meet today?
3. Take intentional breaks
- Consider building in structured breaks during what may be anticipated as a more emotionally draining writing session; perhaps the Pomodoro method (25 minutes of focused attention, 5 minutes of unstructured break) is a good fit.
- Invite grace as an established feature of your writing culture. Writing something that surprises you with its intensity? Ask yourself if a burst of intense movement would feel good and spend 30 seconds meeting that emotion (stomping, marching, clenching, etc.). The same can be said for a pleasant emotion! We can meet our emotions by laughing with them, sighing with them, singing with them, etc.).
4. Meet your basic physiological needs while in your craft
- As a creative, it can be easy to get beautifully lost in the energy of the craft, AND it can make our process more difficult when our system perceives that our most basic needs aren’t being met (helloooo Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs). Ensure you have means of hydration, sustenance, and physical comforts for needs that you can anticipate. (Example: socks for cold feet.)
5. Develop a post-writing ritual(s)
- How might you invite creative recovery into your writing ritual? Might you change your scenery? Might you seek connection with a friend, family member, or writing community? (I happen to know a beautiful one!)
- Perhaps you use post-writing time to re-attune to yourself and to plan an act of care for yourself? Here is a planning sheet that I created for myself that I welcome you to be curious about trying on for size.
To me, the practice of writing feels akin to observing, sitting beside, and interacting with the experiences already “written” within your being. Writing can be spiritually elevated in nature, if that feels right for you, by greeting the process holistically and fixing our gaze beyond the tip of the pen and the click of the keys.
I will leave you with a slightly modified version of the blessing I close my yoga practices with:
May you be filled with loving kindness (and an abundance of inspiration)
May you be safe from inner and outer danger (and forever know the sacredness of your words)
May you be healthy, in body and in mind (may silence invite, rather than intimidate)
May you find peace (and synonyms), and be truly, truly happy (and may you KNOW how deeply meaningful your unique voice is to this world).
With Much Love & Gratitude, Katie
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