Prepare yourself to practice writing meditation.
Get yourself situated where you're comfortable,
Where your posture is decent,
Not cramped,
Not rigid,
But good enough that you can breathe comfortably.
Place paper in front of you and lay your writing instrument on that paper for now.
As you center yourself,
Allow yourself to draw in a slow,
Deep breath and notice the physical sensations.
Exhale as it comes naturally.
And now take your pen.
As you hold it,
Observe how your hand feels holding the pen.
If you feel tension,
Let it go.
Take a breath and as you exhale,
Let the tension fall out of your hand.
Now take your pen and somewhere near the top of your page,
Simply write your first name.
Do this mindfully,
Notice the speed with which you write.
Notice the movement of the pen over the page.
Place your pen on the paper again and observe now your name.
That's your name.
Is it signed like your signature?
Is it carefully printed in block letters?
Is it carefully written in cursive with a flare or not?
Notice the color of the ink.
It doesn't have to mean anything.
Simply observe it.
Now take another breath.
Maybe close your eyes briefly and as you exhale,
Allow all tension to flow out of your shoulders,
Out of your hand,
Out of any part of your body.
And as you open your eyes,
Take up your writing instrument and next write a thought.
With no more instruction,
Simply write a thought.
And I'll give you some time to do this,
If you run out of time,
Simply pause.
Now place your pen down on a surface and place your hands back in your lap on your thighs or on the surface that you're writing.
Observe the written thought.
Can you observe it without thinking it?
Can you observe the written thought?
And then alternatively,
Observe the thought in your mind.
This is not a test.
It was simply an invitation to attempt and observe the result of your attempt,
To observe the attempt itself.
Now observe whether you made this a test in your mind.
Take up your pen and draw in a breath and notice the tension leaving your writing hand.
And now I'll give you time to write a feeling.
Just write a feeling.
And if you need more time,
Go ahead and pause.
When you're complete,
Place your pen back on the surface of the table and observe whether this was a one-word feeling.
Was it a sentence or was it a paragraph?
And notice,
Did you make one of these preferable over the others?
Breathe in to that feeling.
Close your eyes and observe the feeling in your being.
Observe the experience of feeling this feeling right now.
And now allow your eyes to open and look at the recorded feeling on the page.
Observe whether this alters the feeling you feel.
Does it change it?
Does it bring more intensity to the feeling?
Does it distract you from the feeling?
When you are comfortably ready,
Take up your pen again.
Take a breath.
And now write a want.
This can be a couple words,
A sentence,
A paragraph.
Just write something that you want right now and right here.
And there are no rules.
You can write any want that you want.
If you finish before I continue,
Focus on what you've written and just observe it.
You might observe your penmanship.
You might observe the speed with which you wrote.
You might observe your mindfulness of each word,
Of each letter,
Or the notion in your mind that you were writing down.
When you're ready,
Take another breath.
If you haven't already,
You can place your pen back on the surface where you're writing.
And place your hands back in your lap or in a comfortable position and take a breath.
A deep,
Slow,
Refreshing breath that brings you back to center.
And look at what you've written as a whole on this page.
Was it evenly spaced?
Did you choose a new line for your name,
For your thought,
For your feeling and your want?
Does it run on all in one continuous block of writing?
How is this ability to write a gift to you right now?
As I finish,
You don't have to,
And you may.
What are you going to write the next time you put pen to paper?
There's a mystery that you can embrace until it happens.
I'm glad I got to the writing stage.
You you you
