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Meditations and other little Helpers
Contents:
These exercises where taken from the book: Writing from the Body By John Lee, they are in no way mine.
Meditation
Find a place and time where you won't be disturbed. Spend amount fifteen minutes thinking and feeling what you would like to say about some event in the past. It could be something that happened in the recent past or in your youth or childhood.
Before you attempt to write it out, try shouting it out in as few words as you possibly can. If you're in an apartment with thin walls, or in some other situation where you don't want to be heard, you can muffle your shouts with a think pillow. This way you'll get a similar, although not as poignant, effect. At some point, if you continue to practice this, and just as Robert Johnson did with his wet towel, you will experience a release, and next a rush of energy. When you reach that point, write about this memory. If you see that your thinking is not yet clear--that is, if the words seen 'muddled'--go back and repeat the exercise until you break through that barrier. Most of us have stored up shouts and screams that we would have let go of decades ago, social weather permitting. When you written down something that feels clear to you, put it away for a while. Let it sit. In a few days, it will look entirely different. You may want to add to it; you may feel like chucking it. The most important thing is, you're engaged in the practice of writing.
Meditation Part 2
This exercise will work best if you record the instructions onto audiotape, then play it back while you follow along. This way your body is free to focus solely on the experience.
You'll need some upbeat music, light and fast. Find a place and time where you won't be disturbed. Standing up straight, begin to March in place to the music. The very deliberate about feeling each foot as it hits the ground. Closing your eyes, sink into the experience of marching in place. Take your awareness into your legs, your thighs, your calves, and your feet, deep into the ground. Now open your eyes. Loosen your legs: shake them around. Let your legs it jazzy now--wiggling your toes, your fingers, your eyes, your hits, your elbows, and your head. Now let all of these wiggling parts of you drop slowly and gently to the ground, or to a chair. Sit softly. Close your eyes and let the weight of your arms stretch them out. Now feel your arms growing longer and longer. Reach with your arms all the way out of the room, all the way out of town, until you touch something very far away. What is it? Feel everything about whatever it is; its color, is texture, its smell, the sound it makes. There are no rules. Now bring your arms back to their normal size, nearer your body. Cross your arms in front and hug your shoulders. Now, right about your experience quickly. Don't stop for anything--it will only be the Inner Critic, come to disturb the flow. Just keep going until you're finished. For now, don't judge what you've written. It's only a souvenir.
Getting past Writers Block
Take out a few sheets of paper and tear them into three or four fairly equal strips. Now pick up a strip and write down one of the negative messages you received that prevents you from writing or creating. (' I don't know how to write,' ' I'm not talented,' ' Other people won't like what I write.') Wad it into a ball and throw it. Write down another message, and another, and another. Keep wadding them up and throwing them down. Let yourself enjoy the throwing! A variation: take a whole sheet of paper and write the message in big block letters. Fold the page into an airplane and let it fly! Now grab it and wad it up. Tear it up if you like. Get a trashcan and a long strip of masking tape. Use the masking tape to make a sign for the trashcan LIES. Tape it on, and then go hunting. Look around until you've found all the little wadded-up lies, and shoot them into the trash can. Feel the finality of disposing of the lies. If you like, you can carry them to a safe spot and burn them in a ritual fire. You can sing a song of goodbye. When this is done, take some time to sit quietly, and close your eyes. Notice the quality of your breathing. Deep inside yourself, watch what it feels like to be free of lies.
Inspiration
An exercise for awaiting the creativity inherent in the breath: become still and quiet, in a place where you will not be disturbed. Closing your eyes, focusing on the movement of your breath. Imagine breathing in the coolness of the ocean, its whiteness, and its darkness, its ebb and flow. Imagine you are breathing in multicolored fish, one by one. As you breathe in, they swim into your body. As you breathe out, they swim away from you. Breathe in... Breathe out.... Breathe in....
Now breathe out the entire ocean in one huge gushing wave. Send the ocean far into the distance.
More to come
