Wordplay Magic

Do you believe in magic? Let me ask a deeper question here: What is magic? I keep a link to Dictionary.com on my favorites bar. The drift of their definition is that magic is appearances created by sleight of hand and devious means. I'm so disappointed. I do believe in magic, and the magic I believe in is the appearance of the unexpected, that which is not ordinarily possible. A related word is supernatural.

That word, supernatural, brings me to the point of this post.

Questions may be the single most powerful life writing tool. I refer to those open questions you pose on the page, then suspend thought and write the answers from wherever they come — your subconscious, God, the Universe. I'm less concerned about the source than the substance.

Winding along the path of my daily adventure of discovery on the pages of my journal, I wrote into a dream fragment that took place in a church of sorts, a sacred space. I posed a question: “What is sacred? What does the concept mean?” Two words flowed out of my pen, morphing into altered configurations:

Trance-form. Trance-in-dance.

I felt a tingle of excitement and delight at the invitation into this wordplay game with Wisdom. Trance. What is trance? My answer is “altered state of consciousness, awareness, or  perception.” I could interrupt my writing to check Dictionary.com, but my meaning is the one that matters when I'm on a journal page. That's my reality. The trance definition I work from is a state of being open to the super-natural, aka God or Wisdom.

Thus transform, or trance-form, involves suspending or setting aside the limitations imposed by (my) ordinary ways of thinking and entertaining alternate points of view and possibilities.

Aha! Of course! How could I change, grow, develop and learn without opening to alternate possibilities? That's the only way forward, out of a rut.

I moved on to trance-send. While in that trance, I send (or am sent) from one way of understanding to another, from one form to another. The sending led me to the next step:  trance-in-dance. Dancing is movement. Dancing is energy.

All these thoughts swirled together in a satori moment: for me, sacredness involves suspending belief in the limits of what I currently know and believe so Wisdom can mold my understanding into new forms better suited for whatever purpose is at hand. In an even more fun-da-mental sense, sacred means opening to the pure energy of life, of God. This new point of view, this new understanding of sacredness, forms an evolutionary thread connecting stages of faith and belief through my life.

The effect of those words and that wisdom flowing from the page into my awareness and understanding is magic — the appearance of the unexpected and ordinarily impossible. I might have struggled for weeks or years to come to that realization if I'd sought it deliberately. I definitely, strongly believe in magic — the magic of opening to the possibility of the page!

Write now: spend some time freewriting, easing into a deep place of meaning for you. Then pose a question similar to the one above, “What is this concept? What does it mean?” As the answer begins to emerge from your fingers, engage with it playfully and let it magically trance-port you to new vistas.

Image credit: h.koppdelaney

Puzzles, Choices, Truth and Story

This morning as I wrote in my journal a name flowed out onto the page along with the thought, “Which Truth is True?” I have many conflicting feelings about this person, whom I'll refer to as Heesh, because nothing about the identity of this person is important. On impulse I began listing “true statements” about Heesh.

• I admire Heesh.
• Heesh makes me nuts.
• Heesh sometimes says hurtful things.
• Heesh is a b... .
• Sometimes I avoid contact with Heesh.
• Heesh doesn't mean to be hurtful.
• I learn a lot from Heesh.
• Etc.

The list grew. Without conscious transition or intention, I began adding statements about my role in this relationship, the filters I perceive through. My filters subtly shifted as I realized the role they have been playing in my perceptions of this person. I became aware that I can choose filters. 

At some point my hand quit moving and I fell into a reverie, staring at the tiny lights on the small Christmas tree a few feet away. I became transfixed by the glow as it warmed the darkness of early morning. All thought ceased for a few delicious moments before I glanced at my list again. In those few moments it had been transformed. I no longer saw it as a list of paradoxes. I saw it as a picture with light and dark areas. All these things are Truth. It's possible to hold conflicting feelings, just not at the same time.

And … here was the payload: when one of those dark thoughts comes clouds the sky of awareness, I have the power to replace it with a neutralizing positive one. That does not make the dark one untrue. It simply makes me happier. I feel better. I feel strong. Making that list lit up my whole morning, and my view of Heesh.

I include details of this process to underscore the power of writing in a journal, but that wasn't the end of it. My thoughts moved on to stories. I've written a couple of short vignettes about Heesh in the past, each showing an isolated list element. Each is a scene showing behavior, without comment or reflection. I doubt that they'll ever be included in a volume for others to read, but writing them served the purpose of clearing my mind at the time. It felt good to get those stories nailed to the page. 

Now is a good time to follow through and write an expanded story that includes illustrations of each list item and some reflection on the evolution of my feelings toward and about Heesh. This story will deepen the narrative aspect of my morning's experience and perhaps solidify it to ensure a permanent shift in my filters to enhance the light rather than darkening it. This is in alignment with James Pennebaker's observation that research subjects who developed the strongest narrative and insight in their four days of writing showed the strongest indications of improved health. Such an involved story is more than I can dash off in thirty minutes, but it will be a good investment in my own growth and transformation.

By the way, this is not a co-dependent relationship. I might look at things differently if self-destructive behavior were involved.

Write now: think of a puzzling person you have conflicting feelings about and make a list as I did. Be prepared to shed a few cleansing tears between fond chuckles. If you don't feel cleansed and filled with light when you finish, you may want to spend a couple of days writing about the troublesome list elements until you work them through.

Mushrooms Grow in Manure

How often do you stop to think about the source of mushrooms when you slice one up for an elegant meal you’re preparing? Did you know that commercial mushrooms grow in manure in dark caves?

“Wait a minute,” you may be thinking. “Are you trying to spoil my dinner? And what on earth do mushrooms, manure and and caves have to do with life writing?”

More than you would have guessed. Mushrooms are a gourmet item, turning many a mundane meal into a foodie’s feast. Stories perform a similar function, perhaps livening conversation at that feast. Though not all stories have mushroom-like roots in dung, and not all originate in darkness, some of the most compelling ones do.

I mention this to urge you to look back through your life and explore a few of those dark moments you generally prefer to leave behind closed doors in the dungeon of memory. Grab a pen and paper and fling open that door, fearlessly facing the never-quite-forgotten. Do this with a strong sense of hope and confidence that your exploration will result in a feast of flavorful story (perhaps for an audience of one), freeing you from the tyranny of secrecy, and you’ll experience significant health benefits as a result.

Don’t be surprised if your emotional temperature begins to rise as you explore this mental manure. Before mushroom spore is planted in horse by-product, the offal must ferment or “cure” for three to five weeks. The pile becomes quite hot in this process, killing harmful organisms like weed seeds and pathogens. Mental manure has a similar effect. It’s quite common to feel some distress as you recall dark, upsetting memories and events. When you’re done, the memory is “cured,” and succulent Truth mushrooms can grow from it.

Rest assured as you do, this is a sign the process is working, and after three to five days, your mushrooms will be planted. It will be time to shut off the cave again and let the mushroom stories grow and mature. Go outdoors and bask in the light. By the way, writing about happy positive memories has been shown to have the same health benefits as writing about dark ones.

After a suitable period of time, recheck your cave, and don’t be surprised to find a long list of stories ready to be transcribed.

Here’s a link to a collection of blog posts about the Pennebaker research and process and how to use it, along with others related to mining those mental mushrooms.

Write now: make a list of ten memories you could use as manure for growing mushrooms. Set aside some time to begin curing your compost and get started.

Photo credits:

Mushroom cave: ChestofBooks.com

Portabello Bake: Jules.stonesoup

Playing with the Process

Yesterday was my dad's 90th birthday. One day last week the following conversation took place between my husband and me:

“Rats! I forgot to shop for a card for my father!”

“Why don't you make him something like Gil made my mother?” Gil is a friend of my mother-in-law's who lives in her retirement community. For her recent 98th birthday, he snagged some historical highlights of her birth year from the web, added a few sappy sentiments at the end, and wowed everyone. It was sweet, but … if I were going to do something like that, it would be a bit more, well, elegant. And definitely not sappy.

“I don't want to. It would take forever. … But … let me look at Gil's thing again.” He dug it out.

Hmm, I thought. How long could it take to pull a few facts off the web. A little bit more formatting, maybe a couple of graphics. Surely I could think of a suitable conclusion.

I cranked up Google to explore 1920. Most events pertained to war, the aftermath of war, or what would later be recognized as preludes to war. But did you know that's the year it became illegal to mail babies via the USPS? Prohibition began that year – for alcohol in this country and contraceptives in France.

I started playing with layout. A little graphic maybe? Yeck! Boring hardly began to describe it.

Let me see what I can do with PowerPoint, I thought. A few slides, a few graphics. How long could that take?

I knew. I truly knew. But I realized I'd been bitten by this bug and  the only way out was through.

Let's just say I didn't sleep much that night, and most planned tasks sat undone the next day. By the middle of the day after that, I had created a PowerPoint slideshow with animated loads and transitions for text and graphics. I'd snagged audio of a 19w0 top hit parade song. The final slide was an animated version of the image you see above, accompanied by a version of  Happy Birthday, sung way better than our family could ever do. I'd converted the file to a Flash video with the free iSpring plug-in. All was done.

“Good grief, if I'd realized how much time you'd sink into this project, I never would have suggested it!”

“I knew. It's always that way. That's why I didn't want to do it, but I'm glad I did. It was fun.”

It was fun. And it's typical of most projects I do, even more intentional ones. A project may seem too big, too vast. But I've learned through time that if I just nibble on a corner, I'll find my way.

I cranked out a handout recently for the next series of my Writing for the Health of It class. I had no idea how to do it. So I began writing a few basic ideas. Those led to more. Soon I had a sense of direction. In a surprisingly short period of time, it all flowed together. A formatting tweak here, another there. Print it out for an edit.

The key is to get lost in the process. Let it lead the way. If I try to force it to go the way I want, I always get discouraged. If I let the energy of the project lead the way, the path is a lot smoother.

These are some of the principles I've always known and used on some level, as far back as high school when I worked on the props committee for drama club plays. I was delighted to find that Mark David Gerson summarizes them most eloquently on the front page of his website, starting with Rule #1:

Rule #1: There are no rules: How can there be when creativity is all about breaking new ground and breaking old rules?

Thanks Mark David. This list is wind beneath our wings and a great reason to ask Santa to put a copy of your book in our stockings — paired with a copy of mine!

Write now: think of a story you want to write and play with it. Using Mark David's list as guidance, let it tell you how it wants to be written.  

P.S. I know you'll wonder. I can't show you the finished product, because I created it for strictly personal purposes and posting it publicly would violate copyright all over the place.

Turkey Delight

TURKEY DELIGHT

Twas nearly Thanksgiving and all through the house,

not a creature was stirring 'cept maybe a mouse,

The fridge held a turkey long since safely dead,

and visions of cranberries danced in my head. 

Then I glanced out the window and what did I see?

A full-feathered turkey looking straight back at me!

The turkey was perched aloft on our car,

I suppose it had flown there from somewhere afar. 

It returned to its preening with no further thought;

And I yelled for a camera to snap a great shot.

My mate came a running with shutter all set.

He set about snapping, each shot the best yet.

The turkey's head rose and down she did squat,

A gift she then left us, and not in a pot.

Ere long her four flock mates ambled onto the scene,

And the turkey decided to return to the green.

Her huge feathered wings spread open quite wide

to assist her ungainly hop down to the side. 

Then off the flock waddled, deep into the woods

In search of delectable dinnertime goods. 

I'll never forget this most wonderous sight

of the bird on our car I call Turkey Delight.

---

When I downloaded this recent picture from my husband's camera, it cried out for a story, and that story took on a life of its own, emerging in a totally unexpected way. I just relaxed and let it have its way with me. Who knows? Maybe Sarabelle was working her magic. Sometimes it's good to cut loose and play with our stories. I've always said I was born without the poetry gene. I haven't changed that opinion, but it's fun to dabble in different writing forms now and then.

Write now: think of a fun or wondrous event and try a new way of expressing it. Poetry. Song. Crayola. Write with your non-dominant hand. Use colored markers. You may be amazed at the creativity boost you get. 

How the Heck Did THAT Happen?

My overdue post was all written, and I was ready to pop a picture into place and click Publish. Something awful happened, the stuff of which nightmares are made. Blogger burped. That event had cosmic consequences. The cursor flew down to a graphic near the end. Then Blogger burped again. 

POOF!

No more post. Nada. Blank white space, as pure as new-fallen snow appeared in the Compose window. 

 

Stick Stories

The crude stick drawings above tell a story: Soku and Buho have a spat. Soku apologizes. They reconcile. The end.

 In October I attended a Road Scholar program at the Pilgrim Pines Conference Center near West Swanzey, New Hampshire. During the course of the week, Alan Rumrill, Director of the Historical Society of Cheshire County shared stories of local history and legends. One of my favorite was about Mrs. Taggart.

One winter day in the pre-Revolutionary era, Mr. Taggart took off for town to stock up on desperately needed provisions. He got caught in a blizzard that detained him for an indefinite period of time, and back then this meant days or weeks, not hours. When he was finally able to return, he did so with dread, fearing his family had perished from hunger. As he finally emerged into the clearing, he found smoke rising from the chimney and his family hale and hearty. Mrs. Taggart had slaughtered and butchered a moose with the family axe, ensuring her family's survival. Frontier women always were a force to be reckoned with!
 
As I reflected on Mrs. Taggart's story, I noticed that story is as simple as the stick figures I used to draw when I was six years old. Just as the sticks in the figures above represent entire people, the sticks in Mrs. Taggart's story form a complete story with beginning, middle, end, tension, characters — it's all there. The term “stick story” came to mind to describe this level of simplicity. Obviously there is a lot more to that story, and we spent a couple of pleasant mealtimes speculating with tablemates about story embellishments. But we kept coming back to the “sticks” of the story to regroup. Perhaps the story was told in more detail 250 years ago. Perhaps time has gnawed the meat from its bones. But the bones persist in local legend, and today we enjoy adding our own meat to revive them.

The tie-in with life story writing is the challenge of making modern stories as memorable as that stick story, as simple as Dick and Jane. Of course we want to add the details that flesh out those sticks and breath life into them, but if the stick structure isn’t there, the story won’t stand the test of time. 

Two tips for working with stick stories

1. Draft a new story in stick story form before developing it further. This should make it easier to stay focused and avoid pointless sidetracks
2. Keep basic story ideas in stick story form to cement the concept for later development. This takes only minutes and should fit on an index card.

The stick stories are what people remember. You can count on them forgetting the details soon after reading or hearing, but if the sticks are well-drawn, well-assembled, they’ll remember the story!

Write now: pull out your story idea list and select half a dozen entries. Write these in stick story form to be fleshed out another time. Or check a few older stories to make sure their stick stories stand on their own.  

I Will Keep Writing

Drawing by Rick S. Hall

Am I the only one with 23 unread books piled on my shelf? Each seemed so urgent when I found it, mostly at the Library’s Used Book Sale. All were titles I’d heard of, and intended to check out, so why not buy? I feel stressed!

Am I the only one unsubscribing like crazy from e-mail lists? Skimming blogs I used to savor? Am I the only one who doesn’t keep up with all 583 Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter friends? I feel stressed!

Now the question arises — if I’m stressed and slowing my reading down, maybe others are too, and I’m still writing this blog — is anyone still reading it? Well, yes. I do check stats now and then and see people stopping by from all over the world, and bless all of you who leave comments.

BUT ... I’m keenly aware this could change. Any day. On a whim. The day really could come when everyone turns off, unplugs, tunes out — for a day, a month. Maybe for good.

So what will we all do when everyone is too stressed out to connect with the amazing always-in-touch tools and toys we own? Will we keep writing? If nobody is reading?

My commitment and suggestion is YES! Definitely. I will keep writing.

I will keep writing because writing makes me feel good.

I will keep writing because writing lubricates my creativity.

I will keep writing because I find out what I really think when I put pen to page.

I will keep writing because writing keeps my blood pressure down and helps me deal with the stress of piles of unread stuff.

I will keep writing because writing is my practice, a form of meditation, a form of prayer. Spirit mixes with ink.

I will keep writing because I’m a writer and that’s what I do. On keyboard or paper, I write.

Who will read what I write? Maybe my descendants. Maybe blog readers. Maybe I’ll post more stories on various sites, or publish another book, or an eBook. Maybe I’ll explore digital publishing.

Or maybe nobody will read another word I write. Does that matter? Do I need reader acclaim to validate my skill? My story? Myself? Most definitely not! First and foremost, I write for me.

But, on balance, I think I’ll continue to blog, to read with groups, and generally hang out and share with writers, because that’s my calling, my mission — to help people discover and use writing to find and heal themselves and build connections. I want to help heal the world, one story at a time.

And, because I learn writing by reading what others write, I will keep reading books and blogs for sure. As soon as I write my stress away.

Write now: jot down your thoughts on why you write. What keeps your fingers moving? How important are readers to you? How important is publication? There are no right or wrong answers, and by writing down your answers to these questions, you’ll surely learn something about your motivations and reasons for writing.

Autobiography or Memoir? Ask Holden Caulfield

Art by Willie Jimenez

J.F YOU REALLY WANT TO HEAR about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told any-thing pretty personal about them. They're quite touchy about anything like that, especially my father. They're nice and all—I'm not saying that—but they're also touchy as hell. Besides, I'm not going to tell you my whole goddam autobiography or anything. I'll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out here and take it easy. …

— J.D. Sallinger, Catcher in the Rye

 I read this book when I was a freshman in college. We also read Catch 22 and Lord of the Flies the same term. That was a heavy introduction to liberated life! 

I don’t recall much about the book, other than realizing it was totally outside the realm of my experience or any experience I would ever have. To my surprise, a couple of weeks ago a friend older than I mentioned that she had read the book again, and that she had been especially impressed with the opening paragraph, because it made the book sound like a memoir. Of course I ran straight to the library and checked out a well-worn copy. Sure enough, I found the lines quoted above. 

Holden knew he wasn’t writing autobiography, and he correctly alludes to the definition by mentioning his birth, the nature of his childhood, and all that “kind of crap.” Quite possibly in 1950 when Sallinger was writing this book, the term memoir was not widely used, and it certainly would have been considered too “artsy fartsy” for a book of this nature. But it is indeed written as a fictitious memoir because it’s about a specific period of time and topic, “this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas ….”

He catches another topic of flaming interest for  memoirists in this paragraph. “… my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told any-thing pretty personal about them.” And he justifies the memoir approach rather than an autobiographical one by noting that “… I don’t want to go into it .…” And finally, his opening paragraph kickstarts the book with a powerful punch by outlining the plot, sketching in Holden's parents, and letting us know to expect what was considered racy language sixty years ago.

With this promising lead-in, I think I’ll follow the example of my friend and reread the book. When I checked it out, the desk clerk asked if it’s a book club choice or something. “You’re the third one this week to check it out.” Apparently a long line of adults are returning to this book shelved in the Young Adult section. It’s stunning durability over sixty years and its status as an exalted classic seem to indicate that any serious writer would do well to study it. 

Write now: think of a book that has remained alive in your memory for at least thirty years. Find a copy if you can and at least skim through it. Does it still seem as compelling as it did back then? What writing style differences do you notice? What writing tips can you find? Make notes on these discoveries, perhaps in an essay, primarily for yourself.

Nailing the Essence

Once, when his father was alive, Langdon had heard his mom begging his father to “stop and smell the roses.” That year, Langdon bought his father a tiny blown-glass rose for Christmas. It was the most beautiful thing Langdon had ever seen. . . the way the sun caught it, throwing a rainbow of colors on the wall. “It’s lovely,” his father had said when he opened it. “Let’s find a safe spot for it.” Then his father had carefully placed the rose on a high dusty shelf in the darkest corner of the living room. A few days later, Langdon got a stool, retrieved the rose, and took it back to the store. His father never noticed it was gone.

— from Angels and Demons, Dan Brown

Doesn’t this passage just tear at your heart? Isn’t it amazing that such a tiny detail can say so much about an entire relationship. In only 124 words and one fragile, non-fragrant glass rose, Dan Brown has captured the essence of Langdon’s father and their relationship, while also saying a lot about Langdon. Of course there’s acres of room for expansion and context, and there surely were other elements in their fictious relationship, but this dart seems precisely centered in the bullseye.

It’s worth spending some time thinking about the people in your life, looking for those telling details. You may get ideas from photo albums, meditation, or journaling. They may hit while you’re walking or folding laundry or standing under a hot shower. Who knows? Muses and creativity are whimsical and can't be turned on like a faucet.

One thing is sure: if you don’t prime your mind to be alert, you probably won’t recognize them. Ask yourself questions like

“What was Yobu’s essence?”

“What best captures Yobu?”

“What do I remember about Yobu?”

“What made Yobu Yobu?”

“What reminds me of Yobu?”

Relax and let answers come to you as they will. Keep the question in mind for a few days and jot down your thoughts. Relax and run mental videos of Yobu, muting the sound to concentrate on the pictures. Notice what Yobu did. Use Yobu as a prompt to do writing practice, maybe many sessions. Add insights from this writing to your list.

Let each item on your list play gently through your mind. At some point something will pop out at you. You’ll feel a shift of certainty, a stab of recognition. You’ll know that particular image and description nail the moment with precision.

So far I’ve spoken here as if one paragraph can summarize an entire life. Perhaps at times it can. Usually it’s enough to encapsulate the essence of a scene. Building up a collection of snapshot paragraphs will expand your reservoir of material and perhaps one item will prove to be the capstone you seek.

Write now: about a relative or friend. Capture a tiny detail that sheds laser focus on their personality.

Tips for Reading Out Loud

Sharing words of story connects people in a powerful way. And as anyone who has ever listened to David Sedaris knows, stories read by their author take on an extra dimension of life. I love reading to groups regardless of who wrote the story, and I especially enjoy reading my own work. 

My love of reading to others was sparked by Mrs. Schmidt, the third of my string of four first-grade teachers (we moved a lot that year). She insisted the Blue Birds read “with expression.” I loved it! From that day on, I read to anyone who would sit still and listen — sister, brother, classmates, children, grandchildren. Today I read mostly to classes and writing groups.

Most recently, I read one of my stories for the Talent Night event at a Road Scholar program in New Hampshire. To my horror, I forgot to take a copy of the story with me, so I had to rewrite it before I could read it. But read it I did, and I’m still basking in the warm glow of appreciation. I highly recommend this experience to others. 

On November 17 the life story writing group at our local library is going to present A Festival of Life Stories for the public to celebrate National Life Writing Month. Not everyone takes to public reading like a duck to water, and many are nervous. Below are tips I’m sharing with them, and perhaps you’ll also find them useful:

• Print a reading copy of your story in a serif font with larger-than-usual type and wider line spacing. I recommend using TimesNewRoman as your font, sized 14 pt or larger, depending on your eyesight. Bold type may also be a help. Set the line-spacing to 1.5 for this special copy. 


• If you stand to read without a lectern, hold a colorful folder of piece of stiff cardboard behind your pages to prevent them from fluttering in unsteady hands.


• Read your story aloud at home. Whenever your tongue says one thing and the words say another, edit the document to match your tongue. This helps the words slide out more smoothly.


• Read your story aloud at home. Read the final draft aloud to yourself, preferably in front of a mirror. Practice using lots of drama and inflection, like the librarian at Story Hour. Listen to Books on CD for examples.


• Read your story aloud to one or more other people — family member, friend or reading group.


• Read your final draft aloud at least six times to master it. Even though I’ve been reading to groups for decades, I practiced that most recent story six times before the show. It made a difference! It allowed me to frequently lift my eyes from the page to gaze out at the audience, using my finger to mark my place.

With this rehearsal, you may still feel nervous, but your preparation should pay off, and you’ll sound like a pro. 

Write now: pick one of your favorite stories and read it to someone. Then write about your feelings and thoughts before and after you read. Was it enjoyable? Why not? What might prevent you from enjoying this experience? What could you do to remove this obstacle? 

Why I Write

I write to listen

I write to order swirling thought

I write to still my mind

I write to make thinking visible

I write to understand

I write to heal

I write to learn — about life, love, self

I write to anchor insight

I write to celebrate Story 

I write to celebrate Life 

I write to celebrate the Sacred

I write to connect

I write to uplift

I write to encourage

I write to comfort

I write to explain

I write to instruct

I write to praise

I write to express gratitude

I write to celebrate success

I write to document life

I write because I can

I write because I must

Writing is my practice

Writing is my path

Writing is my work

Writing is my calling

Write now: make a list of all the reasons you write.  

Photo by Matsuyuki

The Power of a Question

“She hears voices.”

“He talks to himself.”

Until recent years such observations conveyed suspicion of ... insanity! Or maybe the dazzling brilliance of an eccentric genius. Few people want to be thought of as the first or qualify for the second. Could that be why so few people know about this powerful journaling technique?

Posing questions in your journal and then writing down the answers may be the single most powerful tool available for insight, healing and problem-solving. The more you use it, the stronger it grows. This technique is recommended by all leading journal experts for developing insight, solving problems, enhancing creativity and more. Let’s take a quick look at a few Power Questions and how to use them. Later posts will explore specific questions in more depth.

The first step of the simple process is to describe a troubling or puzzling situation, then follow it up with a question like one of these:

What can I learn from this?

An ideal question to pose after recording anger, hurt or fear arousing incidents and events.

Is this true?

This simple question is an offshoot of The Work of Byron Katie. Whether you are writing or obsessing, it’s a great way to break your chain of blame and negativity. It’s also a way to protect yourself from overoptimism.

What would (insert name) say about this?

Some variation of this question opens the door to understanding other points of view that may provide the key to resolving differences, or removing thorns from sticky situations.

What would I rather be doing? 

What gives me the most pleasure? 

What’s my payoff for continuing down this path?

How do I really feel about this?

The more often you pose questions to yourself, the more easily they will come to you. The second step is to start writing answers without any conscious effort to find them. Set your Inner Critic aside and just write. Let the words flow. You may be surprised at some of the answers that appear on the page. Don’t settle for the first answer that pops out of your pen. There may be many, and the most productive may lurk at the bottom of the bottle.

Where do these answers come from? Some say the creative subconscious. Others may claim they come from Spirit in whatever form you understand it. Maybe imply The Universe. Who cares? They work. Do yourself a favor and give them a try.

Write now: briefly describe a puzzling or emotionally draining situation. Begin a new paragraph with the question, “What can I learn from this?” Spend at least five minutes freewriting answers without conscious thought on your part. Read the answers and continue to drill down with more questions about juicy answers. Finish with a simple “Thank you.”

Photo: Wikimedia

Blowing off the Dust

When I saw this picture in a viral PowerPoint going around the email universe, it was love at first sight. Perhaps that's partly because I just returned from a couple of weeks of studying colonial New England history and it came alive for me in ways I'd never expected. My world became larger when I “blew off the dust” from pages of history I'd never explored.

In this picture I also see the potential for my own volumes of writing to be stored away on a shelf (physical or virtual) for decades — maybe a century or longer. This picture gives me hope that at some point, someone will blow the dust off those words and they will enrich the future just as olden stories enrich my life today.

Who knows? I write primarily for my own enjoyment and edification, and then for the enlightenment and entertainment of family. Should future generations derive unexpected value, so much the better!

Write now: explore some old pages. If you are fortunate enough to have family history documents, take a look at those. Pull out old letters. If you don't have such documents at home, check out biographies or historical accounts of bygone days and listen closely to the messages those old words hold for you today. Write an essay or story about your reaction.

It's All in How You Look at Things

Old woman or young girl?

You know how sometimes the same information keeps coming at you from all sides? The classic illusion puzzle illustrated above has taken over my life lately. It began as I wrote in my journal yesterday morning and realized that I could look at a situation from 180º around for a point of view my  more to my liking, then I could clearly see both points of view. "It's all in how I look at things," I wrote.

That reminded me of another favorite illusion, and rather than finding it elsewhere, I made my own. Notice how the bars and word look shaded? Click the image for proof they're not. 

Click and wait 4 seconds for alternate view

Within the next twenty-four hours, I noticed references to this sort of reframing several places. Unfortunately, the notes I made on the sources were mental, and like most great story ideas that aren’t written down, they vanished. (Note to self: write things down!) One was in a book I read. Another was in a blog, and the third in an email newsletter. I even found a link to a webpage with some amazing illusions, and video explanations. You can explore it on your own.

The relevance for us is that things are not always as they seem, and in many ways, everything we see is an illusion. We can often choose how to view it, and these choices can lead to inner peace and healed relationships. That isn’t always easy, and sometimes assistance like you’ll find on the Yoism website is the only way you’ll be able to make the shift.

Here are a few tips to use while you write in your journal or ponder a knotty question in a story. Look at a specific aspect of a situation and ask:

• “Is this true?”
• “How else could I explain things?”
• “What is the hidden gift here?”
• “How might (the other person) see this situation?”
• “What can I learn from this?”

In each case, write your answers down. Don’t be disappointed if you don’t experience an immediate shift in outlook or attitude. You may need more data or practice at alternate view and explanations. Whatever the case, you’ll get some great mind exercise and keep your mental muscles limber and lithe. You may find this exercise is a lot of fun, and even humorous. It may yield a story idea or few. You may feel more creative as a result. You may even become a more forgiving, grateful and accepting person.

Write now: if you’ve ever had a dramatic reversal of attitude write a story or essay about that event. If you haven’t think of a puzzling situation and use freewriting or your journal to practice looking at it from different angles, using one or more of the questions on the list above.

Lifting the Clouds of Depression

“Lifting the cloud of depression is one of the documented benefits of expressive writing, aka life writing, especially in the form of journaling, rants or freewriting.”

I got sidetracked after I wrote that sentence and before I sat back down to finish this blog post, I checked my e-mail. There I found the latest edition of Amber Starfire’s stellar Journaling Through Life Ezine. The first sentence in her feature article reads, “A recent article on health said that feelings of helplessness and lack of control are significant factors contributing to depression, particularly for women.” Well, hey! You know the saying, “Great minds run in the same channels.”

Back in the ‘70s when I was a psychology grad student, Locus of Control was all the rage, and research papers and theses (including mine) in psychology departments all over the country incorporated Rotter’s Locus of Control Inventory. A strong correlation was found between a strong external locus of control and depression.

Translated to Plain People Language, that means that the less control you perceive yourself to have over your own life, the more likely you are to become depressed.

Back in the day, I scored high on internal locus of control. I just found a self-scoring version on the University of North Carolina’s psychology department site. I don’t recall finding the test irritating thirty years ago, but today my preferred answer would be “neither one” for most questions, rendering my score personally meaningless. My path to that change of perspective could make a excellent personal essay topic.

In spite of being out of sync with questions on that scale today, I still subscribe to the message of Viktor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning that others can control every circumstance of our lives, but they cannot control our attitude. To me, that’s the ultimate in Internal Locus of Control. To date, the most powerful tool I’ve found for maintaining attitude control is “root writing”, a term I introduced in my Tree of Life Writing post.

By root writing I mean rants, freewriting about puzzling situations, and journaling in general — personal writing best done “underground” and left unshared. This writing helps synchronize head and heart and maintain that sense of personal control.

Which brings us back around to the well-documented value of expressive writing for lifting the cloud of depression. Or maybe keeping it from settling in to begin with. There’s nothing like a good session with my journal for maintaining serenity and optimism.

Write now: click over and take the Locus of Control Inventory, then journal or freewrite about the thoughts you have about your score. If you are subject to depression, try using James Pennebaker’s formula for exploring some of the “out-of-control” circumstances that may be contributing factors.

The Tree of Life Writing

The Tree of Life Writing  

Since a picture is worth 1000 words, the picture above should represent about three blog posts worth of insight. I first recognized the interrelationships among the various aspects of life writing over a year ago and included a simpler graphic with a post, The Life Writing Progression, on July 5, 2009.

Sarabelle gifted me with this picture last month while I was preparing material for my Writing for the Health of It class. I’d been thinking about the core Story (capital S) that defines us, and how everything we write grows out of that Story and expresses aspects of it. I was considering how some of our writing is deeply personal and earthy, best left out of sight and unshared. That root writing leads to insight and imparts power to our words and voice as we write publicly visible stories and essays.

When I began pondering the role of memoir in tying together the loose ends of life, and recalled that memoir is composed of the brush strokes of smaller stories, Sarabelle whispered, “You're thinking of a tree.” Sure enough, the image of a tree came clearly to mind. After I studied it a few minutes, she whispered again, "Now, draw it." That advice seemed a bit odd since I don't pretend to be an artist. But I began doodling.

One more element appeared as I worked on the picture. I had not realized that the soil the tree grows in also plays a role. That soil is composed of memories. Our root writing draws nutrients from raw memory, converting them to the empowering energy required for the tree to grow, forming branches and leaves above ground and more roots below.

The longer I think about this tree and the organic wholeness of the life writing process, the more excited I get. We grow individually by writing about our own lives, and we grow collectively as we share stories and provide safe spaces for affirming and supporting each other. As the seasons change and the tree matures, its leaves compost into the soil of memory for future generations, helping life go on.

So there you have it — the Tree of Life Writing. Ponder it and let it speak directly to you as it has to me.

Write now: do some writing practice on the way your life writing fits into this tree concept. Are you limiting it to certain forms? Would your writing and your life benefit from branching out into other forms? Try a form you haven’t explored lately or at all.

1000 Ways to Describe a Feeling

Would you believe there are more than 1000 words and phrases to describe feelings. 1000? That's right. And most are single words. I've compiled a list of that many. The list does not include any metaphors, and undoubtedly there are at least another hundred words not there.

The list has history. It began in June 2007 when I read a blog post that prompted me to ask people to send me lists of emotion labels. Results poured in as friends and readers submitted lists with hundreds of words and phrases. It took a bit of doing to compile them all and eliminate the duplicates. I was fascinated to see how little overlap there was among the various lists. I've since had several classes make lists as an exercise, and the master list continued to grow. Now that it has reached the 1000 mark, it's ready for public consumption. If you think of any words not listed there, please send them to me so it can continue to grow!

You may wonder why it matters to know all these words. Generally speaking, it doesn't. But it's an amazing thing to read over this list and realize the infinite variability of both the English language and our ability to experience nuances of emotion. Reading the list will surely heighten awareness of your internal state, and that's a good thing. Research has shown that labeling emotion calms the brain and helps the stories form that make sense of our experience.

Increased awareness of emotional state will also give you more response options, widen your perspective, and prompt greater levels of personal insight.

As icing on the cake, all those extra words will make you a stronger writer by adding variety and precision to your stories and depth to your perception.

Who can afford to ignore this list? Right-click this link to download the file.

Write now: write a story about an emotional event and use several new words to describe your feelings in exquisite detail.

Inventing Memory

Sometimes a book catches my eye and a small whisper urges me to read it. That happened yesterday as I helped sort books for the annual Used Book Sale at our library. The author’s name, Erica Jong, caught my eye first and triggered memories of reading FEAR OF FLYING caught my eye first, sparking a memory of reading that ground-breaking volume a few years after it was first published in 1973. Set in much smaller type, the title, INVENTING MEMORY: A Novel of Mothers & Daughters, furthered my interest. Perhaps it will have some Truth about memory and memoir, I thought, setting it  aside to take home.

I’m not quite halfway through the volume, and have mixed feelings about it several aspects of the book. But even so, I’m enchanted with the abundance of dazzling descriptions, and I have found many truths about memory and memoir. I’ll share a few here and leave you to savor them and suck out whatever meaning they may have for you.

    “It’s queer enough just to write books—to separate yourself from the whole world so as to re-create the world in paper and ink,” I declare.

    “I don’t know why anyone would do it,” says Mrs. Coppley. “Do you?”

    “Because it gives you back your life, calms your soul, bestows the ecstasy of understanding. And you hope it does the same for your readers.”

    *****

... his memories break down into set pieces, and he seems to tell the same story again and again. ... It is as if he made it all up long ago, locked it in his brain, and never revised it. He needs to repeat it again and again simply to prove he is still alive.

    “Promise you will write my story,” he says.

    And I promise. But how can we ever write another’s story?What we write is always some version of our own story, using other characters to illustrate the parables of our lives. I make furious notes, to please him and because I hope I may someday know  what to do with them.

*****

    The difference between writing a notebook and a novel: With a novel, you describe people; with a notebook, you assume that the reader—yourself?—already knows.

*****

    ... the book is spilling out almost as if by dictation from a secret source. I have no idea if it’s any good or not. I only know that I can’t stop.

While I’m wouldn’t give the book more than three stars for general readers, I’m glad I listened to that faint whisper and brought it home. The stunning descriptions and gems of wisdom like these are worth digging for and adding to my ever-growing collection.

Write now: use one of the quotes above as a writing practice prompt and see what thoughts about writing flow from your inner resources.

Story — With a Big S

I’ve nibbled on Christina Baldwin’s Storycatcher on several occasions. This book is like a pot of cream soup — flavorful, rich and nourishing, and hard to quantify. But I finally “get it.” When I began reading, I was wearing my author hat, looking for yet more tips on how to write stories or memoir. This book is larger than that. It isn’t a book about writing. This book is about Story, not stories.

The concept of Story transcends events that fill stories. Story is life itself. It’s the lens we use to define the essence of who we are. We all have a Story, though few of us are aware of what this may be. It’s our measuring stick, our comfort zone, our boundaries and guidelines. It’s the sum total of our experience, beliefs and values.

I stand in awe of Story. It’s there are surely as the air I breath, but like the fish in the ocean, because it’s just there, I never noticed.

Grasping the significance of Story is like finding the jigsaw puzzle box cover and glimpsing the potential of the pile of pieces to turn into a coherent picture. Using this metaphor, the short stories we write about experiences are parts of the big Story of Self. A sense of Story pulls our “little s” stories into alignment and sharpens their focus while also connecting them together.

Each chapter of Christina’s book describes a different facet of Story. She concludes each one with a related writing prompt, then urges readers to “Tell me that story.” Like soup, Story has no boundaries or form. It can start anywhere and fills the chosen container. It can be told, tailored to the time available, written or filmed. It can be shared, or appreciated in isolation.

The Story Soup of You has many ingredients including events, experiences, encounters, characters, conflict, triumph and failure, emotions, reflections, beliefs, opinions and values among many others. Should you undertake to pour your story out onto the page, it will likely oscillate between two forms: stories focused on events and experiences, and essays focused on beliefs, opinions and values. Both forms are essential. Stories pertain to action, essays to reflection. The two forms are the warp and woof of the fabric of Story and life.

Write now: look beyond the page. Imagine yourself high on a ledge looking down on this person below who happens to look like you and bear your name. Observe that person and tell that person’s story. What does she believe? What gets him going in the morning and keeps him going through the day? What stories does she tell herself to keep her doing what she does, day in, day out? How does he feel about what he does? What makes her different from her neighbors? Tell me that story!

Mention Your Journal in Your Will

>After learning that I teach and write about journaling, a woman I recently met asked me a heart-wrenching question. She told me that her adult daughter died last year and left instructions with her significant other that she did not want her mother to read her journals. Then she asked, “Should I read them?” 

My reflexive answer was simple: “No! I wouldn’t if I were you.” We discussed the matter briefly, and I could sense her disappointment with my answer. Clearly she’d hoped for permission to cling to that forbidden fragment of her beloved daughter, to know her as fully as possible under the circumstances. But I stand by my answer for the following reasons:

• Her daughter asked that they not be shared with Mom. This a chance for Mom to honor her daughter’s wishes and memory in this last way.

• Journals are a place to write with brutal honesty about our own shortcomings and uncertainties. They are a place to try on ideas the way we try on clothing in a store. Just for fun I often try on outfits I know will look ridiculous, or I discover others I really like don’t fit well. Most of what I try on goes back on the return rack. I try out ideas the same way in my journal. So there may be things in the daughter’s journals that were temporary thoughts, soon discarded without further consideration or note, but they linger in those pages, waiting to mislead potential readers.

• Journals are a safe place to ventilate frustration and anger about parents and other loved ones. Once it’s on paper, it often dissipates and disappears without a trace, even if no solutions are found, but those smoldering embers remain, waiting to scorch or sear more hearts.

• Young people often try on behaviors the same way they try on ideas. Journals are a safe place to confess to behavior that others may condemn, to analyze and work through trials and tribulations. If others know of these events, even long after the fact, relationships that could otherwise thrive may be irreparably harmed.

The fact that Daughter specifically said she didn’t want Mom reading her journals signals that she knew they contained volatile material, and she was trying to protect both Mom’s serenity and Mom’s memory of her. To me that seems like an act of love. There is no opportunity to clear up misunderstandings with a dead person. 

Some people choose to write journals intended to be a written legacy for grandchildren and the future That’s a noble thing to do. If you are one of these people, you know how much you want to disclose and where to set your boundaries as you write. If you write with pens of fire, take measures to protect your words. 

In either case, whether you write Top Secret journals or open book ones, it’s prudent to state in your will what’s to become of them. This will avoid family squabbles and confusion about who is to receive the public ones, and ensure your wishes are followed if they are to be destroyed. Especially if you want them to be destroyed, be sure to pick a person you can trust to carry out your intention. 

Write now: a short explanation explaining your thoughts and intentions on the future of your journals. Do you want them to be read or destroyed? If you died tomorrow, who would you want them to pass on to? Or who would you trust to destroy them unread? Type this up and date and sign it and have a couple of friends or relatives sign as witnesses. Then place it with your will.