Writing to Manage Anxiety

With the current state of the world, you may have noticed an uptick in your level of anxiety. Writing is a great tool to use when dealing with anxiety and other difficult emotions (like rage or frustration).

Before writing whatever projects you are writing, take 15 minutes to write out your anxieties and fears. It has been proven to help! It can even improve your test-taking abilities!

Freewriting is a powerful tool that you can use any time! In doctor's waiting rooms, before school tests, before you give talks or do anything anxiety-producing.

If you are reading this, you are already someone who writes, someone who uses language more than the average bear, so consider using it to reduce your anxiety. It works! Here are a few links that discuss the tests that were done to prove this and ways you might use your writing skills to create more ease in your life.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/write-your-anxieties-away-2017101312551

https://www.changecompanies.net/blog/james-pennebaker-expressive-writing/

https://www.jennyrapp.com/feelings-write-to-heal-the-pennebaker-exercise/

Let me know if you'll write with me in Brave Space this week!

About The Inner Critic Class + a Prompt!

We all have an Inner Critic. Because our brains don't develop fully until we're 25, our Inner Critic shows up pretty early (when we're little) to protect us. Of course anything developed at such an early age is bound to get a few things wrong, so the class I’m teaching helps us develop a new relationship with our Inner Critic. We can actually update our Inner Critic from a place of curiosity.

If you're thinking you could never be curious about such a difficult bully, you may want to check out some self-compassion practices I'm always talking about. Self-compassion helps to balance out the loud voice of the Inner Critic. So before we try to get to know our Inner Critic, we do a compassion exercise. I've written about these before and provided links here https://www.bravespace.online/new-blog/inner-critic-work

If you're interested in participating in an Inner Critic Class, send me an email. When I have 5-6 people, I'll offer a class.

Here's a prompt in case you're in need of one: choose to free-write around the particular news item that is driving you crazy these days. Zero in on the specific ways you feel when you receive information about this. (You can quote it if you want.) Go through each of your senses responding to this particular bit of news in larger/faster/smaller/slower ways. Work on changing the size and speed of your response however you choose until the centrifugal force of your writing pinning you to the subject, as on a Tilt-A-Whirl, peters out, and you can peel yourself off the wall of it and walk away.

Come to Brave Space and write with me!

Time's Wingèd Chariot... (or what are you waiting for?)

Dear Ones, as I mourn for my dear friend and colleague, the playwright and poet, Matthew Wells, I look for consolation. I think in particular of the consolations of writing, our ability to console ourselves and each other with words.

In my search for consolation, I turned to a book of essays by David Whyte called Consolations. Here I immediately went to his essay, "Solace," the closing few words of which I offer to us all:

"To look for solace is to learn to ask fiercer and more exquisitely pointed questions, questions that reshape our identities and our bodies and our relationship to others. Standing in loss but not overwhelmed by it, we become useful and generous and compassionate and even amusing companions for others. But solace also asks us very direct and forceful questions. Firstly, how will you bear the inevitable that is coming to you? And how will you endure it through the years? And above all, how will you shape a life equal to and as beautiful and as astonishing as a world that can birth you, bring you into the light and then just as you are beginning to understand it, take you away?"

Here is one of the best ways to understand our gifts of language; that we are made in some way to be able to articulate our thoughts and feelings, to make something beyond ourselves, something of beauty and hope with our lived experiences, so that all that we suffer is not in vain.

Whatever you are writing, even as we are writhing and wrestling with our writing, know that it is much better than you ever give it credit for - trust me - it is. It is something no one else could express as you do. This is true, and you know it the more you listen to or read other people's writing that you appreciate. Do not hold it secret with the vain idea that one day it will be better - it becomes better from airing it out and letting it be heard or read. Do not keep it all so close. It is a means of communication meant to be shared.

When you are doing those free writes that you think are interesting only to you, consider working them into a poem or an essay and sending them out -- why not? There are so many places looking for you and your words. There are people who will be healed, given hope, and astonished at what you have to say.

Come to Brave Space! Write in community!

Why, Resistance, Pushing Through to Stay, and a Prompt!

When I was writing my play FUKT (a memoir about the emergence of my traumatic memories), I didn’t have Brave Space. I wrote on the subway so I wouldn’t feel alone and afraid. I figured the darkness of the show couldn’t get to me if I wrote it in public. I thought if this difficult material has to come out, then let me find a safe way to let it out.

But as a trauma survivor who was still struggling with cPTSD, I didn’t really believe in the possibility of safety. Further along in my recovery, I think safety is more possible than ever before - even in this crazy world - but safety is not where I want to situate my writing. I like the idea of a brave space better. A brave space connotes risk-taking, and I want to go out on a limb when I’m writing. I want my work to touch on the subjects and details that many shy away from. I want to go beyond the usual. And that’s brave.

After writing FUKT mostly alone, I started to ask myself how I could support more people writing their stories. How could I have better supported myself? So I made Brave Space. Because the world needs more stories of survival. The world needs the words of marginalized voices. The world needs to know the truth about what it doesn’t want to acknowledge happens a lot to so many of us. None of us should have to feel alone.

Brave Space exists for the day when you can finally show up for it. Because when you do, it will start to shift how you see your work and yourself.

This past week, one of the writers in Brave Space told us all how she tricked herself into showing up in Brave Space. She told herself she would just come to work on some emails. But once she got here and read the warm-up in the prompt, she decided she'd just do a little bit of that first. And then the writing started to happen (because it does that in Brave Space). So then she had to decide to stay, and she did! And she wrote, and the time flew.

I am so pleased with this story because I'm always hoping you'll get sucked into the process, to the writing, to doing the work you need to do, and that you'll stay and go deeper. I love how she got herself to Brave Space, but I am even more thrilled that she stayed instead of shifting back to those emails.

This is the fight all day long for those of us writing full-time. And this is the fight to get started. This is the fight for anyone who is trying to make meaning in this very difficult and volatile world. Staying is hard. Pushing through resistance is hard. The world - and therefore our minds - are full of resistance. But as meaning-makers we must push past the resistance and show up, and then we must stay and do the work.

Pema Chodron says, “To stay with that shakiness — to stay with a broken heart, with a rumbling stomach, with the feelings of hopelessness and wanting to get revenge — that is the path of true awakening. Sticking with that uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic — this is the spiritual path.” This is also the way to get the words onto the pages, to stay with our judgment and uncertainty, to stay even if we don’t know what it will be yet. If you are a writer, or you’re dreaming of being a writer, come to Brave Space and learn to push through your resistance!

Try the warm-up prompt from last week: Warm-up with colors. Write for 5 minutes (or 10) without stopping, letting everything come up through you without censoring. You can begin with your favorite color - why is it your favorite and what does it remind you of? Did you used to have a different favorite and why did it change? What foods are this color? What experiences were this color? Or begin with how color makes you feel? Can you change your mood by changing colors? Can you change our relationship to concrete objects by assigning them specific colors? Can the colors of a setting make a mood? How does color work in your work? Consider the color of a scene - is it blue, red, green? How do your characters relate to colors? Are there different colors for each character? If you have a yellow character and a red character, how will they relate? What colors create more drama for you/your characters? Calming colors? Peaceful colors? Natural colors? Plastic colors? Assaultive colors? Who - which characters - have what kinds of responses to what in terms of color? History is often colored sepia in our memories or they could be vibrant or faded like old photos - what history exists in the work you are doing, and how are the tones of those colors different from the today tones in the writing? What does color bring forth? Where does color take you? Are there moments of meaning that color can highlight in your stories/scenes?

Sunday June 12th I'll be offering a new class via zoom from 7-9pm ET on Working with Your Inner Critic - please join me! (And let me know if you are planning on it!)

It's $20 for Brave Space people and $30 for newbies. If you struggle with your Inner Critic, this class is for you! And if you need a special rate, just let me know.

Artistic Statement Seminars (ASS Class) will be offered Thursday 630 - 930pm ET and also Thursday 6/23 1-4pm ET and Sunday 6/26 2-5pm ET with a sliding scale for Brave Space people starting at $50 (class is $75 for everyone else). And let me know if you want to take it for less. If you need to write an artistic statement, this class is for you!

Inner Critic Work

When we focus on strengthening our voice, or we allow ourself to dive deep, or we stop censoring ourselves, our Inner Critic can see that as a signal to start up with the negative self-talk. This can be toxic and shaming. It can feel bad enough to keep us from writing.

As women and non-binary people, we have been shamed enough! Internalizing a shaming voice is part of existing in a patriarchal system, and I have been working for over 50 years already at freeing myself, and my voice in particular, from this cultural and insidious shame. And I mean to help free you too!

Here are a few ideas toward functioning as a creative risk-taker with an Inner Critic.

Consider that your Inner Critic wants to help you. They are a part of a system created to protect you when you were young. You might want to find out who they are - how old they are and how they are trying to protect you. You can do this by getting grounded and centered in yourself and asking them nicely if they will talk with you. They might not recognize you or know who you are. If you can let them know who you are, how old you are, and how accomplished you are, you might surprise them. If they start to realize just how strong you are, and how grown up you are, they might start to back off. Let them know that you won't get in trouble for writing whatever you're writing.

If you are worried that you will get in trouble for writing whatever you're writing, you won't be able to truly reassure them. First you will have to reassure yourself. And start putting those worrisome thoughts on the pages of your notebooks in an act of defiance!

You could explore the worry. Will Uncle Joe recognize himself and never speak to you again? What will actually happen if you write the truth in a private place where no one else would even know to look? When I started writing, I was terrified that someone would see my writing and find out that I felt cut off from others in a way that always made me feel anxious, lonely and alienated - now I know that's called autism!

I wish I had been brave enough to write about it sooner. I might have figured it out earlier if I had written about it. I dreamed of titles like The Autobiography of a Stranger, but I was always terrified to write the book... especially because I didn't have a name for what I was struggling with. But if we aren't writing about it, how will we ever find a way to name it?

Some of us have lived through moments of actual shaming when someone did find our writing and tormented us for it. Or shared it with a group. I have a friend whose husband burned her sketchbooks and paintings. These traumatic experiences must be recognized in a safe place where the trauma can be managed and healed. But the shame cannot live if it is witnessed with compassion.

So we're back to compassion - what I'm always talking about. Do you have a way to offer yourself compassion? Do you try to do that daily? Here are some links to help you begin a practice of Metta (lovingkindness).

Try Tara Brach's podcasts and/or her book Radical Acceptance. https://www.tarabrach.com/talks-audio-video/
Sharon Salzburg's 8 minute teaching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-z4HqdTQFw

Tara Brach's Embodied Metta on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhiHCU2CpB0

A shorter metta https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR0dohZ3iIw
Lovingkindness for well-being https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-z4HqdTQFw
5 Benefits from Metta meditation https://www.healthline.com/health/metta-meditation 

Or simply put your hand on your heart and offer yourself some love. I say simple, but for some of us, this isn't easy. Practice. Because you are worth it! We all need your words. We all need your bravery.

Increasing your ability to have compassion for yourself will decrease your struggles with your Inner Critic. Stay tuned for more on this topic in future blogs. And let me know if you'll join me in Brave Space!

On Hiatus - Can a Writer Take a Break?

Must writers write every day? I don’t think so. I don’t think anyone has to do anything every day, and we can still say we are writers. Yes, a writer writes. But a neurosurgeon might also one day write, and their work might be just as amazing as any other writer’s work, even a writer who wrote every day for decades. And someone’s mother might pick up a pen one day and slay me with what they write after decades of silence. Why not? We are creative!

Why do we “should” on ourselves? (I mean with the nonsense, like, “I should write every day, or else I’m not a real writer.”) This is a threat! This is a diminishing and a cruelty. Why do we do it? If writing is easy and fun and joyful, then we start to question how good it might be. Because we want a certain degree of discipline in order to validate that we are really doing something worthwhile. Because we live in a capitalist, transactional society. Our culture believes things that are good are expensive and worth time and effort. Our culture also says if you don’t get paid for it, it’s not worth anything.

But the impulse to make something is a deeply human impulse. Anyone can have it at any time in their lives. And what they make doesn’t need to bring them money to be worthwhile. But more important than that, it doesn’t need to make sense for a long time.

Often when I’m writing, I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know why I’m writing what I’m writing or what I might do with it later. Sometimes I don’t even know if it’s a play or a poem or a story or an essay. Why must I? Our society loves to label, categorize, jab, stab and fry things on skewers. We love to judge. But the process of creating anything, whether written or painted or sculpted (etc), is the process of suspending judgment until some later period of time in the process. No one says to a pregnant woman, “your baby doesn’t have eyes yet!” That would be absurd and cruel. How can it have eyes right away?

We are impatient. We are taught to be impatient. We are encouraged to be impatient. Impatience means we are willing to pay for faster shipping, cheaper production values, and all the other things this capitalist world wants us to freely pay for.

Patience means we have the skill to sit in the chair and do the work we are called to do as we are called to do it. We have the patience to suspend our judgment over what it might be.

I write when I need to write. That happens to be quite a lot. I write a lot. But I happen to have a habit of writing. I understand myself and the world via writing. I think it has a lot to do with how my brain works. I often don’t know what I think or feel unless I’m writing. But that’s how I work. You may work differently.

Let’s be kind to ourselves. Let’s try to discover what works best for us at the moment. With mindful kindness. Without judgment. Writers can still be writers even on days or weeks or years when we don’t write. We will never forget how (unless we sustain a brain injury).

I am taking a break from Brave Space because I’m in developmental rehearsals for Tanya’s Lit Clit. I’m working with Experimental Bitch, the company that commissioned it, to turn it into a musical. I’ll be back in Brave Space May 18th and 20th and onward from then. I hope you’ll join me!

Self-Compassion

Dear Brave Ones, Are you fighting with parts of yourself on the page? Or before you get to the page, are there parts of you that keep you from sitting down to write or make art? Has our culture given you the gift of Resistance? Judgment? Fear? Is it hard to dive in? Does your creative pool feel too cold, too still to disturb or too dangerous?

I'm teaching a 90 min class for the Alliance for Jewish Theatres that members (free) or non-members ($10) can join on Sunday 5/15/22 at 7pm ET called Strengthening Your Artistic Voice. We will deal with confronting and melting this fear and warming up that creative pool of yours. https://alljewishtheatre.org/

But these are things I do with everyone in Brave Space all the time. So if you can't be there 5/15, come to Brave Space and ask me for some support. Just send me an email.

"Yeah, right," you say. Okay, here is a second step toward helping yourself manage the diving in. (Remember, the first step is setting a timer for a very short session.) Self-compassion is the second step. Because it's hard to set the timer; the reason you avoid your desk is fear. I have this fear too. I used to have this fear all the time. Since I've been working with it, it has receded. But fear can come back any time I'm charting new territory or reaching into myself for something deep. Why wouldn't there be fear in the dark, unknown waters of my interior? But that's where I want to go to find my most authentic expression.

So self-compassion. Because we creatives are suffering. Because we are pulled into a process of trying to understand a question we may not even be aware of having asked. Because we know we have something to say that we're not saying, that we're pushing aside, and that negation hurts. That refusal to look hurts. It might even hurt more than actually looking.

Self-compassion softens the fear by acknowledging our suffering. Developing a practice of offering one's self compassion strengthens the heart, and the heart is the seat of our courage. Courage, the word, means heart. Hence Brave Space.

Self-compassion is a skill that can be strengthened. There are many ways to work to develop more compassion for one's self. Here are a few places to learn different methods: https://www.mindful.org/how-to-be-more-compassionate-a-mindful-guide-to-compassion/

https://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-23406/10-easy-ways-to-cultivate-compassion.html

https://www.health.harvard.edu/mental-health/4-ways-to-boost-your-self-compassion

But the easiest way I know is to allow yourself to notice when you are suffering. Put your hand on your heart, and say, I'm suffering. (You don't have to say it aloud.) Then breathe in mindfully with compassion and breathe out mindfully releasing the suffering.

Breathe in: sending myself compassion or may I be happy or may I be healthy and whole, or whatever wish you have for yourself, may I calm down. And breathe out the suffering - I often use the phrase "letting go." Or try a practice called Metta (easy to google).

This has truly changed how I live with myself and how I approach my desk or my notebook to create.

If you find it difficult to offer yourself compassion, imagine yourself as a child. We can all easily offer compassion to people in the Ukraine - they are far away and their suffering is clear. But we compare ourselves to that and suffering seems incongruous, but it's not. It's vital that we find compassion for ourselves in order to do the work we know we're here to do.

with love and compassion,

Emma

Notes to Self about Rewrites

I'm settling in to another week of rewrites and trying to keep things fun! I have to remind myself I’m writing a comedy! I can't let my sense of the grindstone beat down the work! So this is my little cheerleading note to myself. And if you happen to also be in rewrites, maybe it will help you too!

1. Stay comic if you're writing comedy, tragic if you're writing tragedy! This doesn't mean everything about your life should stay in one mode - how could it? But certainly I try to ground myself in tone. I find it easier to go dark than light, but if I'm writing light, I've gotta stay up there with the light. Whatever keeps me up there becomes my go-to fun thing. It could be watching silly animal videos or pratfalls. It can also mean singing or talking the piece out loud as if it raps! Whatever helps!

My dog helps because she is always happy and will always get me to lighten up. My ukulele helps because there are no dirges on a uke... Yes, I play in between scenes, or sometimes sing the scenes to myself to keep the humor up in the air. I also like to squeeze my dog's Mr. Bill doll just to hear him say, O No!

2. A revision is only as good as you are. You have to feed yourself, be kind to yourself, get up and shake yourself when you start going pins and needles... Get outside for a walk! Keep the oxygen flowing! And set limits, stay hydrated, and get your rest!

3. Hold the reins loosely. No sense in revising if you can't let go of old material. No sense in revising if you're not ready to reimagine what the scene or story could be! I try to imagine the best version of the scene, the most exciting scene I'd write if I could do anything I want. I ask myself, what would be better than this?

The answer is usually: writing in Brave Space! I hope you'll join me!

Giving Yourself Permission (and a warm-up prompt)

Dear Brave Ones, I think a lot about the act of writing and the written word. I often think of the difficulties we discover sitting down to write. Some of the voices I hear say, "Who am I to do this? And what would I have to say? I have so much to say I don't know where to begin. I always make a mish-mosh and get discouraged, what's the point? It would be so much easier if the world would just value my mess!"

I've been looking at a lot of visual art lately, (Jennifer Packer's work - at The Whitney https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvYrqE1l_Os - is amazing!). And I’ve also been especially interested in artists who make their own pigment. Kaori Someva and Bill Jensen invent their own paint from minerals...

I think that's a lot like my own process which involves discovering a lot of earthy mineral content (not necessarily personal content) that doesn't make a lot of sense at first, and then working and reworking it until it becomes something through the act of composing. It is in many ways like a poem, a made thing (from the Greek word poiesis for making) but it doesn't have to be a poem, it could be anything.

I wouldn't care too much about whatever I was writing if it didn't come from somewhere deep inside of me. If I wasn't connected to it, and if it wasn't grappling with whatever I'm grappling with. Because the work it takes to get it where it needs to be can be long and hard.

Of course doing a lot of that work in Brave Space helps because we are not alone in our process. Knowing others are struggling alongside us is actually helpful. Seeing each other via zoom is proof that in Brave Space none of us struggle alone. So if you're feeling as if you want to make something, and you want some support accessing the deepest parts of yourself, come to Brave Space.

If you are struggling alone and unable to come to Brave Space for any reason, try giving yourself permission to make a mess with your writing. Decide to see what happens if you let yourself do a little warm up. Here’s the Brave Space warm-up from 2 weeks ago, so you can see if it’ll work for you:

Warm-up with earth. Write for 5 minutes (or 10) without stopping, letting everything come up through you without censoring. Be the earth, be the soil, the clay or the mud, the ooze, the muck, be the flower bed, the mulch, be the sod, be the seed, be the thing that lives beneath, the worm, the midge, the blind mole, the mice, the vole. Consider your fingernails in the earth, your hands and your toes. Your face and the mud mask, your bottom on the mudslide, the physical sensations of earth against your skin. What are your memories of earth, your dreams of earth, your wet or dry seasons, your accidents spilling onto it, tripping against it, how has it caught you unaware or surprised you, what have you made with it or imagined making, grown in it, planted or buried, put to rest or resurrected?

Leave whatever you wrote for at least a day if not more. When you come back to it, what does it want to be? Can you make it into something? What parts appeal to you? How can you let it be what it wants to be? How can you support it on its journey?

We live in a product-oriented world. Art is process-oriented. Your warm-up might not want to be anything but a warm-up, and that’s fine. What did the process do for you? How did you feel before, during and after? What did you learn?

Writing Alone, The Masculine Myths

One of the things that people in Brave Space tend to do is to articulate in writing what needs to happen next. Especially if you're wading into a large project, taking some time to send yourself a note is really important. What do we write notes about? What we want, why we want it, where we see this going, what we wish we could write, what we don't want to forget to fix, ideas, images, what we saw in the park on a walk, what we felt, what we remembered, what we know. There is so much we can do to prime our pumps! Carry a notebook and use it.

Some of us imagine that we are supposed to sit down and reams of words are supposed to just flow - this is such a myth! I can imagine Jack Kerouac and his endless unbroken pages flying through the typewriter. He wrote before the old green and white striped computer pages existed, so he had to attach his pages with tape! Personally I think this was a great way to procrastinate.

If you are sending yourself notes, it is easier to sit down and get the words out. It’s as if you haven’t really been away from the work at all.

The other myth that used to haunt me is the lone male writer banging out his "copy" whether he wants to or not. How masculine that seemed to me, drinking his hard liquor to get through the material he never wanted to share sober, forcing himself to "open a vein..."

I much prefer the idea of writing in community. It fosters kindness. Not just to each other, but to ourselves. And we all need much more kindness, especially right now with war, a new Covid surge and the East Antarctic ice shelf collapsing. Every day more chaos to contend with. We need a place to ground ourselves.

In Brave Space we are creating more of a give and take with ourselves, and this is healing and inhabitable. We can manage large (or small) projects this way. We can keep going.

If you are finding it hard to get or keep going, try Brave Space!

Why Brave Space Works (free prompt)

Sometimes it's the most random thing that can set us on the road to a creative session. Think about what set you off on that road the last time your own writing went well. In Brave Space we begin with a brief meditation. It is geared toward embodiment and being present. This lets us show up for our creativity. We aren’t working on autopilot.

Brave Space always provides prompts that meet you and your work wherever you are. There is often a word or an idea in the prompt that is the edge of a deep vein of gold for us to mine. It will catch you and take you somewhere.

For example (free prompt): have you thought lately about what season your work is situated in? What is your relationship to that season? What about your characters - how do they each relate to the season? What memories does it hold for them? Where do the sensory elements of the season take them?

Sometimes seeing someone else trust that their work matters is enough to help us believe that our work can matter too. Sometimes it's knowing that we're not alone.

Brave Space reminds us to give ourselves permission to make a discovery draft (a pre-first draft). Once you are working on a discovery draft, discoveries start happening all over the place, like walking through a city bursting with flowering cherry trees.

I believe that knowing you are about to make something and consciously arriving in the mind-state of allowing lets Brave Space work a kind of magic.

The more this happens, the more you can let it happen when you're working on your own. The more you want to work on your own. The more you find that dipping into your own creative well is easier than it used to be. Because Brave Space works. Try it!

Defusing Hate & Misogyny

This has been a great week for Brave Space participants! We have reached many milestones! Yes, Sacha Rosel’s first novel is out! My Heart is the Tempest is available now where you buy books! Also many Brave Space participants are reaching important milestones with their own internal selves by moving closer to a new kind of freedom. I’m feeling it (joy, pride, excitement, endless possibilities, rebirth…) and I know that those of you who are experiencing these moments of realization are feeling it too.

I'll just say it: Brave Space was created to destroy the patriarchy and specifically to defuse the hate and misogyny (and the racism, sexism, homophobia, and agism) that stops many of us on our way to making something magical and necessary.

Brave Space was invented to push our culture forward in a good way, to a better place, through story, through art, through daring by way of community, attention and care. And Brave Space works!

I'm not saying it's the only place to get your groove back, but if you can get yourself to Brave Space, you will find a rich array of learning, doing, writing, and allowing, giving, kindness and joy! Even for those working through grief, sadness, and depression, being in community in Brave Space to do this work brings joy. I can see it in all of our faces as we work in the little zoom-boxes, and with the people working with cameras off, we are a community willing to have deep conversations about the process of making work.

Brave Space offers actual exercises to ground you and help you do the work you're here to do and ways to wrangle with your demons, critics and judges. This and so much more will bolster you along your creative way!

Join me this week in Brave Space!

On Shame

This week in Brave Space, shame came up in a wonderful way. We got a chance to discuss it and shine a bright light on it. Because light with compassion can shrink shame to nothingness. This is the kind of work I am most proud of in Brave Space. All of my participants, regulars or once-in-a-blue-moon-ers, should know that in Brave Space, even shame is welcome.

What did we learn about shame? It arises while we're writing. Shame often creates all kinds of resistance. All of a sudden, you might feel exhausted or starving! Shame is tricky, or rather the resistance to feel shame often plays physical tricks on us. It may be a reason you avoid writing (or Brave Space).

How do we work with shame? We begin - even before shame arises - by working toward a compassionate way of being with ourselves. Metta meditation (also known as lovingkindness) is a practice of offering compassion to ourselves and others. Sharon Salzberg teaches all the levels of this practice in this video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erQipF_84yI

The phrases are: May I (or you or they or all) be safe, May I be happy, May I be healthy, May I live with ease.

Or you can invent your own. I typically adjust mine to say: May I be healthy and whole.

But if you aren't into starting a new practice (and you don't have to learn to meditate to do metta - it's only one way) you can just try this instead:

Put your hand on your heart and recognize you are suffering (or stressed or feeling anxious...), and then offer yourself compassion.

Sending compassion can be hard if you're not used to doing it. So please be kind to yourself if this is difficult. It only means you need to do it more. If you want to try offering compassion to a pet, that is usually the easiest way to begin. Or imagine you are your own best friend who can easily offer you compassion. One thing I know: you deserve compassion. No matter what.

Even if you don't have a strong compassion practice, it's the kind of thing you can fake until it gets easier. It might make you cry to realize how long you've missed it. Or it might make you feel nothing at all for a while. Keep at it until you can soften into the feeling of being cared for.

So if shame arises, offer compassion. Compassion is the antidote to shame.

So what happened in Brave Space? Imagine you're writing an essay about your life and suddenly you notice that a lot of anger is arising toward a person who might read what you're writing. How can you keep writing? What if they see it and get hurt? What if you're writing something about your own child who won't stop crying? What if you say how much you hate this baby! People might judge you and think you're a bad mother! All these thoughts swirl through your head and cancel your project. All the energy leaves the room.

Some days this happens to me every five minutes when I'm writing, so I'm used to it. But if you're not used to discovering your rage rising up toward your page, it can be upsetting, even shocking.

What do I do? I keep writing because I know I have to get the feelings out. I also know that the person I might upset isn't reading my words. I know that I'll disguise that person later, but I will use my authentic feelings whenever possible.

But what if you are writing non-fiction and you can't disguise the person? What if you allowed yourself to write your true feelings as an exercise in allowing yourself to be human? What if you allowed yourself to write your true feelings because they are true? What if you put the worries on hold until after the feelings are written?

Once it's all out on the page, you can decide what to do with it. But admitting shame is the beginning of healing from it. Being able to look at it with compassion is the beginning of the end of shame. I have moved on to bigger, darker shames, and even those no longer haunt me.

Like the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz, water melts her. Have your water on hand - in this case, the water of compassion.

Join me in Brave Space this week!

Courage!

Dear Courageous Ones, courage means with heart. It's a word that fills me with strength. Taking heart, writing from my heart, thinking and acting from my heart during these difficult times... We must consider that while it feels sometimes as if the world could break apart, we also have a remedy. Not for the world and its ills, but for our own hearts. To refuse to give up, to continue to reach out through our work.

When I am truly at the brink of despair, I read. I read writers who inspire me like Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, bell hooks, Susan Sontag, Simone Weil and many more. Or I listen to music. Tori Amos just released a new album. Or I discover playwrights I didn't know before. Moira Buffini is blowing me away.

Why is it that those of us who can write forget that we too have the power to inspire or simply to offer them a hand-up and out of the despair of loneliness, or the feeling that no one ever felt like this or thought this way or ached like this... Put that feeling, thought and ache on the page.

I'm not talking about what you're living through - that's for your therapist and your journal. (You are always welcome to journal in Brave Space too.) But I'm talking about what you've already survived and processed. You have the power to help someone else if you can write it down. Share something of yourself. It helps.

Come be courageous with me in Brave Space!

Yawning - The New Mindfulness Hack!

I attended 2 great webinars this week. The first was about writing about trauma, and some of it was stuff I already do to help people write about trauma. But other parts provided new ideas, so I have even more ways to help you write even the toughest stuff!

The 2nd webinar was about new discoveries in neuroscience that will help everyone no matter what you're writing. Instead of taking the time to start with a meditation or a grounding exercise when you’re writing on your own - do any of you really do that? You could just start by yawning!

Want to increase your intuition skills? Want a quick route to relaxed awareness?

Before you start any writing this week, try yawning! Try 3 yawns in a row. Try to do them mindfully, paying attention to how they feel in your mouth and your body. Stretch and make some sounds while you're yawning! See if it helps you ground yourself and opens you up to a more intuitive process. I’d love to hear if it’s working for you!

Why Free-Write?

Dear Brave Ones and the not-so-brave, This week in Brave Space we touched on some serious fear. How do we dive deeply? Where do we find the permission to do that? And what if we know we can do that, but why should we? What happens if we're just not sure that's where we need to go? What about resistance? What about we're perfectly good writers already so what's the big deal about freewriting? Why bother?

Every week the prompt has a warm-up which is a free-write. For those of you who aren't sure what a freewrite is, it's when you agree to continuously move your pen (and it's best if it's done by hand the old-fashioned way, neuroscientists have proven that we go deeper this way) and you don't bother about grammar or punctuation, and you don't cross anything out you just keep going and spill whatever comes up until the timer goes off. I free-write every day. Here are a few reasons why:

1) it teaches non-judgment - whatever comes up, comes up. No one else can see it, but even if I had to share (and there are workshops where we all share our freewrites).

2) it helps us to get comfortable with and accept our natural voices. Voice is one of the hardest things to get comfortable with and embrace as a writer of any genre. It is a big skill to hone.

3) it teaches us that writing can always be done - we don't need to wait for inspiration - that there is always something to write, so we can be less precious about what we're writing, and much more productive. I use free-writes to jumpstart any assignment I have to do, even commissions.

4) it helps us be more process-oriented in a product-oriented culture, so we can actually learn the tools to manage creating so we aren't overwhelmed when it's time to come up with a product. Those who can freewrite are rarely afraid of a deadline. We know it will be there.

5) it creates more flexibility of mind so we can dance more fluidly on the page, create different combinations of words or ideas and play more. This leads to greater ease with risk-taking and more confidence.

I highly recommend 10 minutes of freewriting a day especially if you find that you sit in judgment of what you write or if you haven't been writing and want to start again. I also recommend free-writes for anyone who has a writing practice that they want to stir up, air out, or just to jumpstart your creative mind.

What do you free-write about or from? I usually have a book of poems beside my bed and on my desk, something I'm dipping into, a newspaper, an article, a novel, a cereal box, anything will work! If I go to a random page, say page 17, and I go to the 5th line, there will be an image. Here's one from Brute by Emily Skaja, (Graywolf Press, 2018), "a red bruise." 5-4-3-2-1, write!

Let me know if you're coming to write with me!

An Example of a Prompt

When you show up in Brave Space I provide something I call a prompt. This is several pages of text with several different prompts that include several different ways to begin your creative work. Not everyone who comes to Brave Space uses the prompts. Some are revising novels and memoirs and others are making art. And sometimes people already have a strong idea of what they need to be doing. Sometimes people come in and work on grants, applications or journals. So a prompt isn’t always necessary. But if you’ve been wondering what I mean by a prompt, this is what I mean, and an example of one of my warm-ups. This prompt also happens to be very powerful, so I hope you’ll enjoy it.

Even though this is a warm-up prompt, it also includes an extended exercise that you can choose to do after warming up. It's great for downtime when you don't know what to write or you're in between projects. It's a great way to discover a new project.

Really, the best thing my prompts ever do (imho) is help you listen to yourself. So take a few deep breaths, and release the tension in your shoulders, your belly, ground yourself into the earth. Before you read the prompt, set a timer for how long you will write. 5 minutes is fine. If you’re on a roll, you can always set it for another 5.

Please understand that this is not about following directions. Whatever speaks to you is what you use. If that means you notice the impulse to write before you've finished reading the first sentence of the prompt - write! When that impulse empties itself out, go back to the prompt for more (or use another prompt - in Brave Space there are pages of these). Repeat.

Warm-up with a Belief: Write for 5 minutes without stopping (free-write) on a belief you have. Consider a limiting belief like not being good enough or what you believe about money - anything that speaks to how you might be limiting yourself (ways you identify as lacking, etc). Take a look at where that belief began, how you got it, the circumstances, sensory details about the moments it took root, anything involved in that belief that you can remember.

If you want to continue working on this belief, beyond the 5 minute warm-up, you can give the belief to a character who is separate from you. Let them stand for the belief. Get curious, be genuinely interested in learning about this character who believes this limiting belief. Offer them kindness, compassion and love. If you can't offer this, step back and imagine the tiny person you were when this belief came to live in you. Remind yourself that you took on this belief for good reasons, coping reasons. Find the reasons. Let the character tell you all about how this belief has helped you survive. Listen to the character and their belief and their survival strategies. Make them your friend. Offer them a more productive way to help you. Something less onerous and taxing for them. Celebrate all they've done for you and allow them to evolve into something new, something truly helpful.

There are many different kinds of prompts in Brave Space. This is one example. Check back for others. Or contact me to get on the mailing list. And, in the meantime, come to Brave Space!

Hermione's Purse

Sometimes you have a concept for what you think you want to do, but it's so big (and maybe scary) that even though you live with this dream, you aren't doing anything about it. Or if you are, you do it sporadically because it's not really coming together yet. Maybe you wonder if it ever will. Maybe you think it hasn't come together because it's not really a good idea?

Well, you're wrong. It is a great idea. The universe doesn't hand out bad ideas! But you might be living with a lot of fear around the idea you’ve been given. Brave Space is a really good way to get past that fear. Being in Brave Space is like being able to stick your hand into Hermione's purse and pull out anything you need!

How? Each week in Brave Space you get a prompt. A Brave Space prompt includes a warm-up and craft tools and elements along with questions to prompt you to remember all the vast amounts of wisdom inside you that you may not have previously connected with or even noticed (like access to Hermione’s purse). Brave Space gives you concrete ways to engage with your big idea.

One way to do this is to ground into the senses. Try to explore your concept at the level of the senses: seeing/smelling/tasting/hearing/touching, and see what happens. How does your big idea function in terms of actual sensory data? How does the reader or audience enter the world, through which senses? Can you list how the senses could be engaged in your idea?

Of course there are more than 5 senses. And the truth is that in addition to Hermione’s purse, you also get me live with chat support if the prompts aren’t enough. If you want access to my greater list of sensory elements, come to Brave Space!

Tempo is Temporary

One of many exciting things that happened recently in Brave Space was that we all learned a new saying from Melinda Hall: "Tempo is Temporary!" And I love it!

For those of us who think of creativity as a kind of birthing process, sometimes it can be hard to manage a process that is very slow or to trust a process that is happening fast. It's hard to just go with whatever is, but that is one of the things that "Tempo is Temporary" does for us - allows us to realize that this too will pass... And hopefully that will get us back on track.

If you can reframe what frustrates you in your process, call it fleeting or impermanent, you won't have to suffer with the idea of feeling stuck. Quickly that can become: you, pushing a heavy load, trying too hard to manage a tough problem. Reframing you can say, "tempo is temporary," and this allows for change.

If you are still feeling stuck, please come to Brave Space where the unsticking happens!

Regrets for not Diving in Sooner

I am loving being back in Brave Space after way too long a break! This week new people showed up! Also people who haven't been there in a long time showed up! And I heard from people with intentions to show up! So why didn't I start earlier?

This regret feels just like I feel when I put off my writing and put off my writing and then, feeling like I'm gonna explode if I put it off any longer, I write, and I'm like, why didn't I just do that earlier???

Boldness might have genius, power and magic in it (as Goethe says) but it is also fraught with terror. Often it takes a lot longer than expected to begin or to begin in any sort of bold way.

Truth is I rarely put off my writing these days because it's a habit I've cultivated and love. In fact, today at the gym, I had to leave the weights for 5 minutes to make some notes in my emergency writing notebook that I always keep in my coat.

I believe that because I show up, I get these little extra gifts and downloads from the muse because she knows I'm listening and trying to honor what arises.

I taught my ASS Class (Artistic Statement Seminar) yesterday. We do 3 5-minute exercises before we craft our statements. Most people agreed, the 3rd 5 minute exercise went by faster. Because we - in only 10 minutes! - had taught ourselves how easy it is to dive in, so the third plunge went exceedingly well. Time flew by. You too can get more comfortable diving into whatever creative practice you are longing to do! Come to Brave Space and let me show you!