Supermamma!

Many writing exercises promote emotional, physical, and spiritual healing. The key question is: Do they help you travel deeply enough to contact and work through the source of the dis-ease? Here are four exercises that work to get the job done—and provide you with great material and a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment, which are always a critical factor in the healing process.

DEEP CLUSTERING:
Write the word that describes your prevailing feeling or the feeling of a life event that precipitated a health issue. Anger? Fear? Jealousy? Remorse? Sadness? Anxiety? Loneliness? Draw a circle around it. Write down six to eight words or phrases that come to you from that feeling. Are they events in your life? People? Types of weather? Moments you didn’t handle well? Circle them. Jot down associated words, phrases, or brief sentences around one of the new circles, as you did before. When finished, depart from the one circle that triggers the greatest emotional charge, and write one hundred-fifty words. Go into that vignette and feel the one sentence that draws you. Depart from that place and write one hundred-fifty words, traveling deeper and deeper into the core of what you feel. Underline the most potent sentence, and try it again. This exercise is most effective with five to ten repetitions and is a great source of spontaneous emotional healing.

DIALOGUE WITH YOUR DIS-EASE:
Any dis-ease—illness, emotional upheaval, chronic fatigue syndrome—is conveying a message to us. Now, we’re “hearing” the “voice” of that dis-ease, and giving it room to express. Become very quiet, and use your mind to visualize the center of your dis-ease. Tune into any thoughts, feelings, or anxieties that specifically relate. Write them down. “Talk” to this place as though you were having a conversation with another person. Give it a name. Go back and forth, on paper; “talk” until the well runs dry. If you run across a place where you or the “other” don’t want to speak, dig in, and advance the conversation—this is what you’re looking for. Review. What was said? What can you learn from it? What can you talk about next? I re-connected with my inner child after a twenty-year separation by using this exercise every day for six weeks. I’ve seen many others integrate “lost” aspects of themselves and overcome major illness.

CHANGING THE LANDSCAPE:
Mountains, rivers, hills, oceans, deserts, lakes, and forests exist in our outer world because we feel their presence in our souls. We immerse in nature to heal; likewise, if we immerse in our inner nature, we heal more deeply. What elements of nature reflect who you are? What elements strengthen you? What elements do you crave? What elements are missing from your interior landscape? Write about all of these, and use the language of the land. Let’s hear about the crags in your relationships, or the mountains of doubt you climbed—what did that expansive vista of confidence feel like as it poured into your soul? By bringing landscape within, we can readily identify with places we need to explore or incorporate into our wellness.

LET IT POUR OUT:

What was the most emotionally charged event of your past seventy-two hours? What took you out of balance and either revved you up or sent you down? Write it down. Look at what you wrote, slow down your mind, and let your body again feel the moment the event occurred. Go into that feeling, and from there, write your way through the experience. Write about what it feels like, why it can’t be allowed to linger (unless it was a great feeling), and the message the event conveyed to you. Write until you have nothing left to say. Release the emotional charge of the entire experience. Feel better? Chances are, your body does as well—because that experience cannot fester within.

Source: Sciense of Mind