Body-based Writing - What it Needs from You
"Every collective fire is a personal fire, and every personal fire uncontained can run amok in the collective. The Wing Commander is sent back home without the kind of drama many had anticipated. There is rejoicing, but there is also a lull. An underbelly full of unsettling questions, sitting tightly. I can feel it in my chest, in my gut, around my shoulders. Where do we go from here?"
Written a couple of days ago, this piece carries the wind of two things - personal experience of the universal and negotiation with that experience, from a place of processing. You can't undo what stands done and yet, you have the choice to express. Funnelling it through what I often refer to as "personal truth". In a social scape, it might seem minimal, because who doesn't know how large the collective is, but does that mean it needs to be minimised? I think not. And that brings me to write about what body-based writing needs from anyone willing to try it.
- SHOWING UP
Speaking from an experiential place, I have often felt the need to look at my reality in connection to the world at times with denial, and at others with a critical voice that says, "oh c'mon, you're over-reacting." In both, I am "editing". How? By perhaps not opening myself up to the experience fully, by feeling the pressure to "change it somehow." When your intent is to engage with the body and then take it to writing, it is necessary that you "show up" exactly as you are - with your insecurities, strengths, weak joints, inexperience as a mover. What matters is how you experience the process. Nothing else does.
- TRUSTING YOURSELF
All that you have ever been, has brought you here. You've made many things about your life work for you. You've done with less, you've made progress when the only person backing you was you, you've stood the test of time. It's another matter that we keep forgetting how far we have come. When you're seeking confluence between body and your special set of words, you'll need to remember. Trust, as you would well know, opens up the floodgates of possibility, helps you relax and allows you to get in touch with parts of yourself you've not had a chance to access yet.
- RELEASING CONTROL
Some of us would readily agree that we have a valance towards controlling aspects of our own lives and that of the lives of others. For those of us who work with an inherent sense of control, and whether they are aware or unaware of this phenomenon or not, it is necessary to be able to look at it squarely. Entering a process of body-based writing can and will (yes, I speak from experience) throw up resistances, familiar and unfamiliar. Wonder what it would then be like to "release control"? Well, one way certainly would be to acknowledge that resistance and give it some form in the process. Because denying it or wanting to repress it usually doesn't work.
It's a given that each person's process would be unique. However, it helps to know what can potentially blindside you, even when what you're doing might be what Lauren Oliver quoted as "don't worry about what you're writing or whether it's good or even whether it makes sense."
(This article is an informative piece leading up to a body-based writing workshop I am conducting.
"Let the Body Narrate" is happening in Bangalore on March 17th. For more information, check the Facebook event page : https://www.facebook.com/events/566613703818296/ )
Image source : Freeimages.com
Written a couple of days ago, this piece carries the wind of two things - personal experience of the universal and negotiation with that experience, from a place of processing. You can't undo what stands done and yet, you have the choice to express. Funnelling it through what I often refer to as "personal truth". In a social scape, it might seem minimal, because who doesn't know how large the collective is, but does that mean it needs to be minimised? I think not. And that brings me to write about what body-based writing needs from anyone willing to try it.
- SHOWING UP
Speaking from an experiential place, I have often felt the need to look at my reality in connection to the world at times with denial, and at others with a critical voice that says, "oh c'mon, you're over-reacting." In both, I am "editing". How? By perhaps not opening myself up to the experience fully, by feeling the pressure to "change it somehow." When your intent is to engage with the body and then take it to writing, it is necessary that you "show up" exactly as you are - with your insecurities, strengths, weak joints, inexperience as a mover. What matters is how you experience the process. Nothing else does.
- TRUSTING YOURSELF
All that you have ever been, has brought you here. You've made many things about your life work for you. You've done with less, you've made progress when the only person backing you was you, you've stood the test of time. It's another matter that we keep forgetting how far we have come. When you're seeking confluence between body and your special set of words, you'll need to remember. Trust, as you would well know, opens up the floodgates of possibility, helps you relax and allows you to get in touch with parts of yourself you've not had a chance to access yet.
- RELEASING CONTROL
Some of us would readily agree that we have a valance towards controlling aspects of our own lives and that of the lives of others. For those of us who work with an inherent sense of control, and whether they are aware or unaware of this phenomenon or not, it is necessary to be able to look at it squarely. Entering a process of body-based writing can and will (yes, I speak from experience) throw up resistances, familiar and unfamiliar. Wonder what it would then be like to "release control"? Well, one way certainly would be to acknowledge that resistance and give it some form in the process. Because denying it or wanting to repress it usually doesn't work.
It's a given that each person's process would be unique. However, it helps to know what can potentially blindside you, even when what you're doing might be what Lauren Oliver quoted as "don't worry about what you're writing or whether it's good or even whether it makes sense."
(This article is an informative piece leading up to a body-based writing workshop I am conducting.
"Let the Body Narrate" is happening in Bangalore on March 17th. For more information, check the Facebook event page : https://www.facebook.com/events/566613703818296/ )
Image source : Freeimages.com
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