CAFE LifeThe Art Of Facilitation
CAFE LifeExciting news! Mandy and I are deep in the creative process of writing our next book: Tunnel Vision. It’s an incredible true story about healing, sight and how all of us, in some form or another, experience the limitations of tunnel vision. It’s been such a beautiful, expressive writing process for both of us. Watch this space.
But there is something magical about the creative process. That feeling of being completely absorbed and captivated by it becomes truly satisfying – and delightfully addictive. It’s like medicine for the soul. It gets me wondering whether the world’s level of anxiety and overwhelm would reduce if we simply spent more time in a creative space.
Unfortunately, thanks to the rapid scale of technological advances, I think we’re becoming less creative. Sure, there are many benefits to AI, and it’s essential that we learn to dance with it. Yet I can’t help but worry that we’re running the risk of giving up our creative birthright: to think, to play with words, to be “in the sandbox”, messing around with our internal thoughts. When was the last time you wrote something for the public eye without using AI?
We can’t let this essential part of human nature fade; there are too many reasons we need creativity. And too many reasons we need writing, in particular. The benefits of writing your thoughts out (whether by pen or keyboard) range far and wide:
Texas University Professor James Pennebaker is famed for his work on journaling and writing things down. In one experiment, one hundred engineers were being retrenched from an IT organisation in Dallas. These guys were mainly older men who had obvious fears about the future.
A third of the men were put into a group and told to write in a transactional, safe-natured way. Another third was taught and encouraged to do vulnerable, heartfelt, expressive writing. They were encouraged to share in their daily papers their emotions, sense of disappointment and betrayal, embarrassment and so forth. The other third was given no instruction. Three months later, those who had started the practice of vulnerable, uncensored writing were three times more likely to have been reemployed.
Writing is not only a means of communication, but also helps us to process things. Fill in the gaps. Comprehend in a different way.
Edith Eger, author of the memoir, ‘The Choice, ’ shares two beautiful inside-out practices that support wholeness.
Practice 1
Write down on a piece of paper one thing you have not said to someone in your family that you need to say. It could be small or it could be large. You get one sentence. The only rule is that it needs to be something you have never said out loud. What you do with it afterwards is totally up to you.
Practice 2
Write down all the things you put into other people (or contribute), like the things you nurture in others. See yourself putting them into all the inner compartments of your own body. Be mindful and feel.
Both these practices take inner feelings and make them visible by seeing them on a piece of paper or a screen. They are visible externally, rather than internal feelings. That is the power of expression.
Brene Brown takes us even deeper into this concept when she talks about stormy first drafts. When something ticks you off, write about it, uncensored. Don’t hold back; it’s for your eyes. Put it aside for a while and then go back and now write the second draft. The first draft allows you to see things more objectively. You may notice things like an overreaction, or maybe a hot-headed righteousness, or a pattern of what triggers you. The important word here is ‘see’ – literally. Now you might need to go through a process of refining a couple versions before you act.
Writing moves us away from suppression being our default response (pretty much never a good idea). Things don’t go away because they’re suppressed; they just sit there. Growing. Festering.
I love this line of thought by Cathleen O Conner, who talks about lament and how important it is that we do express. She says,
And so I suppose I am writing this, because as mentioned Mandy and I are doing this very act right now, and I am once again being reminded of the power of creative expression, and expressive writing in particular. Let’s end with a couple of encouragements.
We are creative beings. It’s the reason our world has advanced this far – let’s not let that very advancement make us forget to create and express.
