Free-Writing as Meditation for Smart People
Better than meditation.
It was the title of an article that instantly captured my attention.
Author shares his experience with meditation and that he literately tried every approach until he discovered the free writing.
The idea is that in the process of writing we occupy exactly that restless part of the brain, which is normally nagging us and does not give us a break. This is the tiny voice reminding us about thousand things that we still need to do today. It might be excited or depressed but has always something to talk about.
Free writing occupies exactly that inner voice (or voices - depends how lucky you are). And you can actually relax your mind for the moment of writing.
Being an observer.
Couple basic rules of free writing:
Have a word limit and write until you complete it.
Do not pause to read what you wrote and stay on track.
Only the process of writing is important, so do not pay attention to spelling, punctuation, and style.
Keep writing even when you run out of ideas, write down anything that comes to your mind.
If you feel uncomfortable while writing, ask yourself why and write about it.
Be just an observer to the flow of ideas. It is important not to judge or edit your text in order to take an advantage of free writing.
The process is already healing. But the magic is that after writing for substantial amount of time and putting everything what was in your head on paper - your brain actually lets go these thoughts. And you are ready to start your day with a clear mind.
Morning pages and 750 words.
The author of the discussed article is actually a founder of 750words web site (inspired by the concept of morning pages from the The Artist’s Way).
It is a very simple tool, so simple that I did not understand the point of it on the first day.
However, couple simple tweaks make a huge difference to writing on the web page in comparison to creating every time a new word document or opening an existing file that you have just for this purpose. I tried both options and somehow this extra step kills the vibe, but this is not even the main point.
Having your thoughts locked on your drive or cloud make you feel lonely and isolated. On contrary, adding your 750 words to the community pool of written thoughts feels like being a part of the larger movement, where everyone plays an important role and contributes through writing.
Additionally it has couple gamification functions, which do wonders.
You can see a simple line of progress on top of the page and if you did your daily share - it is marked as done. And I do love seeing that I reached my goal. Especially if I write as a first thing in the morning. It gives a sense of accomplishment for the entire day.
Other fantastic feature, which makes the entire process more motivational, is the statistics about your writing of the day. It identifies your current priorities (work, family, money) and defines general mood and mindset. Already after couple days I started seeing that my posts got more positive and optimistic. There is data backing that up. I love data. And colorful diagrams!
Free writing has been the best therapeutic tool for me, but it is a serious habit that has to be developed.