Writing is not just an activity of the mind (thinking), but rather it involves the heart (emotions), spirit (essence) and the body (physical) parts of the self as well. Allow your whole self to inspire your writing. The urge to create comes from within.
John Lee, author of Writing from the Body: For Writers, Artists, and Dreamers Who Long to Free Their Voice says:
“The call to write is a call that’s received in the body first. For hundreds of years poets and writers have described the creative process as a physical urgency, a sense that things will fly apart if they don’t get the pencil to the page in time. Creativity is not tidy or polite – it’s insistent. It calls us to feel, not dimly, not safely, but wildly, passionately, in every cell and fiber.”
Writing from the body invites us to write and listen to our senses for wisdom and insights. Here are some body-centered journal writing prompts to help get you started:
- If your body could speak, what would it say?
- What is a truth that your body knows to be true?
- If your body was a messenger, what message does it have for you?
- What does your untamed self have to say? Write your wildness down.
You can also move your body. Go for a walk, dance, exercise, stretch and then come back to your writing.
- What does your awakened body have to say?
- What does your still body have to say?
- What does your active/inactive body have to say?
Give your body a voice and see where it takes you and your writing. Be curious. Be open to not knowing. Receive the gifts that your writing itself, your body, can give you.
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