Hello wonderful people,
Welcome to issue #53 of our Wisdom Workshop Newsletter.
This week: free-writing as a mindfulness practice to broaden and build our thought-action repertoires … and some new summertime music …
Feeling called to support our work? Check out our courses. They’re designed for people in transitions who want to build a life worth examining. If you’re interested in daily writing and community, the next cohort (#14!) of Writing the Good Life might be a good fit.
💎 On “Free-Writing”
“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
―Ferris Bueller
“Nature does not hurry, and yet everything is accomplished.”
―Lao Tzu
“The way you do anything is the way you do everything.”
― Tom Waits
✍️ Writing for Mindfulness
You're not writing to write well ... you're writing to practice presence. Attend to the present moment without judgment and without labeling what arises as "good" or "bad." Say what you need to say, and hear what you need to hear. You're writing to be alive to yourself and your experience as it is now.
Natalie Goldberg’s Five Rules for Journaling
From Writing Down the Bones:
1. Keep your hand moving. (Don't re-read what you've just written, just keep going)
2. Don't cross out. (Don't edit as you write, just let it be what it is)
3. Don't worry about spelling, punctuation, or grammar.
4. Lose control. Don't overthink. Don't get logical.
5. Go for the jugular. (Go for what's most alive right now)
Five Rules for Journaling Using Positive Psychology
Barbara's Frederickson's broaden-and-build approach suggests that experiencing positive emotion “creates broader thought-action repertoires, which lead to increased resources and more satisfied lives." Writing is a powerful way to experience (or re-experience, in memory) positive mental habits - like gratitude, joy, awe, wonder, and loving kindness. So the Wisdom Workshop list of writing rules might be:
1. Say some nice things to yourself.
2. Savor your experience.
3. Cherish something.
4. Count your blessings.
5. Celebrate putting your pen to the page.
Also, Sometimes You Have to Write Shit
Too much of a positive spin on the practice can be toxic. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes you have to write shit. Or process and compost some shit that somehow keeps happening. In a TikTok on how I’ve kept a daily writing practice for nine years, I say: “You’ve just got to keep the pen moving.” The auto-captioning wrote : “You’ve just got to keep the pain moving.” This is telling.
We need to digest our experience. Writing can be a powerful way to let that shit go.
Mindful Writing and Group Dynamics
In our existential writing groups, we cultivate a culture of kindness and non-hierarchical communitas. This includes being kind to ourselves. We're not putting our writing or experience above or below anyone else. We're not labeling. We're not judging. We're getting curious and practicing the positive emotions that broaden our thought-action repertoires with ourselves, each other, and our experience.
In this way, mindful writing can lead to universality, altruism, and instillation of hope … each a powerfully positive force in an interpersonal group.
What to Write About ?
Here are some of my go-to questions, also good for conversations:
Q: What do you need to hear this morning?
Q: What support can you give yourself today?
Q: Where are you now?
Q: Where is your heart right now?
Q: What do you need to say?
Q: What joy happened recently?
Q: What are you grateful for?
Q: Wild synchronicities or aha!s?
Q: What good did you do today?
Some Supportive Reading
I strongly recommended books about writing if you (a) enjoy reading and/or (b) want some additional supportive framework. These are three of my favorites:
Writing Down the Bones: On Freeing the Writer Within by Natalie Goldberg (1986)
The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron (1992)
Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life by Burnett and Evans (2016)
Writing Down the Bones and the Artist's Way cover the creative dimensions of free-writing as a tool to develop self-awareness and reflective inquiry. Designing Your Life offers more existential strategies for crafting a more joyful life.
If any of this grabs your heart, simply “Reply” to start a conversation or reserve your spot in an upcoming course. There are currently a few spots still open next round.
May the peace of the pen be with you,
Sean
📅 May Calendar
🔔 Friday, May 19 : New Music! Follow on Spotify or Apple Music (or play below).
🖼️ Tuesday, May 23 : Start of The Art of Living Beautifully #2. Virtual via Zoom.
✍ Wednesday, May 24 : Start of Writing the Good Life #14. Virtual via Zoom.
🎵 Saturday, May 27 : Sean Waters and Friends at the Forge Publick House in Fort Collins, CO, 21+, 8-10 pm MST
I acknowledge that the land I write from was the ancestral homelands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute — stewards of this land and all our relatives within it.