Healing Through The Internal Editor

In this session we look at the presence and impact of the internal editor – the part of us that is judgmental, critical, and embarrassed – first asking it to step aside to allow us to write, and then to return to allow us to refine and express a specific point, emotion, or feeling. The poem ‘Music Of The Ever Present Moment’ was used to highlight the freedom of expression and poetic flow that can lead to peace. This track is taken from my course, ‘Finding Peace Through Poetry’, available now via my profile.

Transcript

A single blade of grass dances in the wind to the beat of the ever-present moment.

I sit and listen to the song into nothing but the song remains.

Wind rustling,

Traffic rumbling,

Heart beating,

Dogs barking,

Birds chirping,

People talking,

Brain thinking,

Eyes blinking,

Body breathing,

Mind perceiving.

Just sitting,

Just watching,

Just listening,

Just being here,

Just being now,

Just now,

Now,

Now,

Now,

Now.

A single wisp of smoke,

Rising,

More substantial than rock.

The knowing,

The knower,

And the known are one.

All labels fall away.

I never was,

Yet it always is.

There is nothing but the music of the ever-present moment.

There is nothing but now.

Freedom from form,

Freedom from I,

Spy the lie the moment I die.

What's left but now?

No one to wonder why.

Listen closely to the sigh of the inner I,

As it fails to find the individual I.

Oh my,

Don't cry.

This is all there ever was,

My guy.

Awaken,

The dream is over.

There is no one there to be shy,

And nothing to deny.

You never existed,

It was all a beautiful lie.

A cosmic joke,

Played by the eternal I.

Testify to the truth that words can only imply.

There is nothing but now to clarify.

So I chose that poem,

Music of the Ever-Present Moment,

For a couple of reasons.

I wanted to emphasize the lack of the necessity to adhere to structure that we talked about in the first session.

This poem is flowing and wide-ranging.

It's eclectic,

It's a bit ethereal,

It's sharp at moments,

And it has alliteration and a monorhyme structure at others.

It's a bit chirpy and surreal,

But it also points to the power of the present moment.

It also points to finding peace in that present moment.

So it felt pretty compelling to use.

I also chose it because of the main reason that I wanted to highlight,

Or the main point of this session,

And that is the interplay between the internal editor.

There's a part of us that pops up when we are writing that I like to call the internal editor.

It's the inner judgment.

It's the ego,

Perhaps.

It's the part of you that feels embarrassed.

And what you might find is,

When you are sitting and writing,

Either during this course or in your own time,

That part of you is judging you as you're writing.

It's saying,

Don't write that,

Don't talk about that,

Don't do that,

That's silly,

People will think xyz of you.

It's judging you.

Or at best,

It's trying to edit your work to make it seem better,

So to speak.

But the problem is that editor hasn't been called for.

You haven't chosen to use it yet.

You're not employing that part of you to apply itself now.

It's jumping in when it shouldn't jump in,

And its presence detracts from your writing,

And ultimately will detract from your finding of peace.

That poem,

The reason I chose to use it here,

Or another reason rather,

Is that the internal editor is screaming at me not to.

Because that poem is quite odd.

It's not normal.

Or at least that's what the editor is saying,

Because what is normal in this?

And during the writing of that poem,

I had to force myself to get out of my own way,

And just express what came.

And as you can hear in that poem,

It was quite flowing and free.

And it moved differently.

It was like the water flowing down a river.

It just went.

And if I had have let that internal editor stop me,

That poem would have been restricted,

And I wouldn't have felt the joy and the benefits and the healing power of the writing that I got from it.

Now in the next session,

We're going to talk about the benefits of writing therapy itself.

But for the moment,

We need to just learn to get out of our own way,

And to use that editor appropriately.

What we're going to look at today is the idea of just writing.

Words will start to come.

And when you notice that voice speaking,

The voice that's telling you to stop,

To restrict,

To pull back,

For whatever reason,

You acknowledge it.

And you say,

I will look over this writing later.

But for now,

I'm going to keep writing.

That's what you do.

What I would like you to do as the practice for today is a dual practice.

You're going to get your pen and pad out,

And you're just going to write how you're feeling.

And you're going to try and write your feeling poetically.

That is to use an analogy,

Or a symbolism,

Or a rhyme to express something about how you're feeling.

For example,

You could write something like,

My joy is like desert rain.

My joy is like desert rain.

With the implication being that when it comes,

It really comes.

It pours.

It lights up the whole desert with flowers,

Only to disappear and come very,

Very sporadically.

You see the imagery and the poetry there.

You could use rhyme.

I'm feeling a bit crappy.

I'm not at all happy.

Something a little bit silly like that.

You could draw upon memory.

You could draw upon alliteration.

My sad,

Silly self is sharing my soul.

My sad,

Silly self is sharing my soul.

What you're going to do is just sit for another minute and just express how you're feeling in this moment,

But attempting to do so,

Quote unquote,

Poetically.

So with a bit of rhyming,

With a bit of alliteration,

With a bit of symbolism,

With a bit of theme.

Doesn't have to be long,

Just a sentence.

As you're doing that,

The meta practice here is to observe the inner editor.

That voice inside you that is telling you that it's not good,

That it is wrong,

That you shouldn't speak like this.

The voice of critique.

And if and when you notice that inner editor coming,

Tell it to just quiet down.

Tell it we'll come back to this piece and we'll use the surfaces of the editor a little bit later.

But for the moment,

We're getting out of our own way and we're just writing.

So as in the previous session,

I'm going to just play silence for one minute.

But if you feel the need for that silence to go on longer,

Just pause until you're ready to continue.

Let's begin.

So if you need a little bit more time,

Feel free to pause the audio until you're ready.

But I just want you to take a little bit of a look over what you wrote.

And just hold in your mind the idea of whatever that internal editor was telling you.

Because the whole point of writing poetry isn't just to express in the moment.

Part of the joy is writing down and getting into the flow.

And like I said in the next session,

We're going to talk about writing therapy in more specific detail.

But for the moment,

It's suffice to say that there is a peace attainment aspect of just writing.

But one thing that we can do with this concept of the internal editor is deploy them appropriately.

You tell them to leave you alone,

To wait,

To hold back when you're writing initially,

When the words are coming initially.

But then later on,

You look back over it.

So I encourage you to look back over what you just wrote,

Or perhaps what you wrote from the previous session.

And just take a look at it from a little bit of a detached perspective.

Take a breath,

Just a sighing,

Deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.

Just allow yourself to be with and look at your words.

Because what you can do with this process,

By deploying the internal editor after you've completed a piece,

Or rather the first draft of the piece,

Is to refine it.

Because you might look over your writing and go,

You know what,

I can do better here.

You know what,

I can take out some words or add a little bit of symbolism in,

Or I could pick a better rhyme here to better convey what I'm truly feeling.

So for example,

My poem,

My little poem,

My joy is like the desert rain.

I could take out the word the in that sentence.

My joy is like the desert rain could become,

My joy is like desert rain.

Or even more simpler,

My joy is rain in the desert,

Or my joy is desert rain.

I can really refine my poem to best express the specific and clear and focused nuance of the feeling that I'm trying to convey.

And what this does is two things.

Number one,

It gives your internal editor something to do.

It knows that it will have a chance to look at your work and review it,

Which then gives it a promise of silence.

It's like,

Hey,

While I'm writing,

You be quiet,

I'll use you later.

And it sort of helps to quiet that voice down.

That's the first benefit.

And the second benefit is that it allows you to better express the nuance of a feeling.

And a lot of peace can come when you are in that mode and expressing the clearest,

Purest,

Most specific version of your feelings.

So for example,

The desert rain concept.

For me,

That is quite pure,

Because when I'm happy,

I am very happy.

But at times,

It can feel like those moments of intense happiness is few and far between.

And I would love to be able to express that in a specific,

Clear and focused statement.

My joy is like desert rain.

So I encourage you to take a moment now and I'll let the audio go silent for one more minute and just take a review over what you've written,

Either in this session or in the previous sessions.

And just allow your internal editor to make small tweaks or changes and just note how you're feeling.

And as always,

If you need more time,

Just pause the audio.

Let's begin.

Okay.

So how'd you go?

As always,

If you need some more time,

Just pause the audio and pick up where you left off and come back when you're ready.

So in today's session,

We looked at the poem music,

The ever present moment.

Using it to highlight the concept of the free flow of writing and the implication,

The imposition of the internal editor,

The part of you that judges,

The ego,

The embarrassment,

The aspects of the self that aren't quite that good for,

Or rather not so conducive to poetic and peaceful writing.

We gave that part of us a task,

Which was to first of all,

Stay quiet as we broke down how we were feeling in this moment,

Just playing with a little bit of poetry,

Playing with some rhyme or alliteration or symbolism.

And the reason I got you to use a little bit of symbolism or a little bit of poetic language,

A little bit of rhyme was because that would purposely trigger the internal editor.

If you're trying to do something quote unquote poetic,

That editor is going to jump in and be like,

You're not doing a great job because we wanted to highlight its presence,

Bring it to the forefront of consciousness and then tell it to go away for a little bit.

And then later on,

We brought it back.

We're saying,

Hey,

Improve this,

Make it better.

That does two things.

It gives it a task and it quiets it down during writing,

Both of which will allow us to write more peacefully and also refine our feelings into a specific statement,

Which can bring us a lot of joy and peace as we find ourselves able to express a specific feeling.

As always,

I invite you to share what you've written in the classroom and ask any questions that may arise.

I'll be in there daily to answer any questions and to connect with you all.

In the next session,

We're going to be looking at the concept of writing therapy in more detail.

I'll see you there.

Catch up.

This track was taken from the course Finding Peace Through Poetry.

It's out now and available via my profile on Insight Timer.

I encourage you to click through and check it out.