“If writing is your practice, the only way to fail is not to write.”  -- Gail Sher

Many fabulous writing teachers are also meditation practitioners, and like many of us, seem to like to mix all the deep wisdom from one practice with another.  If we bring the practices of meditation: focused attention, awareness of sensations, loving kindness and compassion, the repeated surrender of control, etc., and attend to our writing with the diligence of a meditator watching her breath, what is possible?

Enlisting Body Aid
As a somatic coach, I look through the lens of the body at most problems.  As a writing coach, I’m interested in helping people figure out how to make writing happen with ease on a regular basis.  

Say for example that you are struggling with one of the following:

Problem #1: Getting Butt in Chair
Problem #2: Moving from Blank to Flow
Problem #3: Internal Critical Chatter 

There will be a moment when you are aware that you are avoiding something.

Often, that moment will come either when you are in the middle of an activity that is Not Writing, or when you are reviewing your day and realizing that you Didn’t Write.  The moment of avoiding probably came before this moment of realization, so you will need to rewind until you find it.  Most of us are so accustomed to fast forwarding past discomfort into new activity that the moment of discomfort may not even reach our conscious awareness.*

Say Cheese!
What you are going to do is take an internal photo (say cheese!) during the moment of discomfort, either by imagining it or by catching yourself in the act.  Once you’ve snapped that internal picture, scan your body for what’s happening.  Scan for the units of sensation: temperature, movement and pressure, and scan for emotion, mood, and thoughts or stories.

Body Scan
Start with your feet, scanning upward through your ankles, calves, knees, thighs, genitals, buttocks, belly, chest, hands, arms, shoulders, neck, and head.  Do you feel tension or pain?  Do you skip over a part of yourself, or feel numb, empty, hollow?  Does it feel like there’s a emotional hole of despair or judgment?  Don’t try to change anything, just notice what’s present in this moment, and continue on through the rest of the body.

If we start to notice the minute expressions of sensation, two things happen.  One, as we watch sensations, they begin to change, and two, the habitual story we have about the meaning of those sensations becomes disrupted.  When we stop and notice what happens, we transform our experience. 

Smart Body
The thing about discomfort is that it is entirely sensible for you to avoid it -- smart body!  However, by avoiding discomfort, you are also avoiding something you want very much: to write.  As you explore your pattern of avoiding, you may find that the discomfort is minimal when compared to your desire to write and your enjoyment of the process.  Or you may find that the discomfort is filled with physical and emotional pain, memories of painful experiences, and stories of why you are lazy, stupid, crazy, or not good enough in some way.

Mostly what I’m avoiding when I don’t write is a feeling of loneliness.  Somehow, writing and being alone got smooshed together inside me at one point, and when I write, it’s almost like I’m condemning myself to a life of unwanted solitude.  Even though I’m really happy when I’m writing, and happy with my life, my body doesn’t want to feel lonely, so I avoid writing.  Yikes!

We’ll continue to explore how to deal with these thoughts and feelings in future blog entries - in Skills for Change Coaching, we call negative internalized stories the pig, after the 60s term for cops, or as Augusto Boal pointed out in his Theatre of the Oppressed, the cops in the US aren’t just on the street, they’re also “cops in the head.”

For now, keep returning to the Body Scan practice, and see what you can uncover.  You might be surprised by what you find.

* I am indebted to Clare Myatt nee Bowen-Davies for her description of the moment of decision in her article, “The Power of Somatics in Sobriety” and to Mary Michael Wagner for her pioneering work as an Embodied Writing Coach.