I am held by the inertia of my own inaction.
If.
If only.
If only I.
If only I could.
If only I could just.
If only I could just take.
One single step.
I know I would be free forever.
So in the last few days of this course we've been looking at different ways to access,
Delve into and release upon the page different forms of internal tensions,
Either mental with the writing therapy or physical with the body scan.
I understand that this course isn't a how to write poetry instructional.
There are many of those out there and I guess the purpose of this course isn't to get you crafting perfect poetry.
It's not to get you rhyming or writing with alliteration.
Really it's not even to write something that's quote unquote good.
That's not the point.
Once again,
I want to bring us back to the title of the course,
Finding peace through poetry.
Finding peace through poetry.
That is our goal.
Our goal is to find peace.
Our goal is to use our writing to attain or to foster or to grow a feeling of inner contentment.
So what I'm going to do with this session is help you access a deeper part of yourself.
And from that space and that place allow you to express some of the core blocks and barriers and restrictions that may be holding you back.
And this poem,
Inertia,
Is the expression of the fruits of my work in this area.
After going through this practice,
This poem came.
I realized there is an inertia that I have inside myself,
An inability to act out of fear,
Out of being in the rut of my life,
Out of a lack of example,
Out of a whole variety of different reasons that I could point to.
But ultimately,
None of that mattered because if only,
If only I could just take one single step,
I know I'd be free forever.
I recognized that the sort of balm or solution to my problems wasn't going to come from the external,
Wasn't going to come from an apology or from any other outside intervention.
No,
It was going to come from me taking a step,
From me acting,
From me being assertive and doing the things I needed to do to,
Well,
Break free of my own inertia to act,
To do,
To become.
And this poem was a suggestion or a representation or the expression of that.
And once again,
The act of writing it helped me to solidify and to see the problem.
If only I could take just one single step and I wrote the poem in the way to emphasize that point.
Because remember,
It's not just the act of writing that heals us,
But the review and the refinement of the writing that we talked about in one of the earlier sessions,
Where we use the internal editor to tweak and to play with.
So I want to draw you into this session and to sort of start to look into the depths of the self.
This will be a little bit of inner work,
Self work,
Shadow work,
Inner child work.
It all sort of touches upon the same sort of space,
But you might know this sort of work by different names.
But what we're going to do is look in and connect to that part of ourselves,
To the shadow,
To the soul,
To whatever aspect we find inside,
And just allow it to speak.
We're going to ask of it,
What do we need to hear?
And just listen.
And this process itself,
Even without the poetry,
Is highly healing and will lead to peace.
But adding the additional poetry writing over the well,
The cherry on the cake.
So I invite you to take a seat or lie down and settle into this session.
Make sure you've got your pen and your pad or other writing materials beside you.
Just take a steep,
Slow breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.
And just draw your attention to that part inside you that's always there,
To the heart space,
To the inner world,
To your inner child,
To your shadow,
To an aspect of your subconscious or your eternal,
Or your totality.
You know you are getting closer when you get chills,
When moods or memories or emotions start to come.
You might feel a bit tentative,
A bit hesitant,
Or a bit afraid.
That's okay,
Just be with this feeling.
Just sit with the self.
Keep breathing slowly in through the nose and out through the mouth.
If you need to move your body a little bit to get comfortable,
That's okay.
But just keep moving ever inwards,
Ever deeper,
Ever subtler.
Just embrace the totality of yourself.
And when you feel the time is right,
Just ask this space inside,
What do I need to know?
What is holding me back?
What are the limiting beliefs that I'm not aware of?
What do I need to let go of?
What do I need to embrace?
What do I need to know about myself to obtain peace?
So you can sit with this space longer if you desire.
And if there are any other questions that you feel the need to ask your inner self,
Just pause the audio and go ahead and do that.
But you'll have some very powerful answers written down upon the page in front of you.
And for me,
It was this feeling of inertia,
This feeling of restriction,
Of lack,
Of not moving,
Sludge sort of feeling.
And I decided to express that poetically.
Now,
Like I said at the start of this course and the start of this session,
We're not aiming to write something that's publishable,
We're not aiming to share this work.
All we're doing is writing to express the inner feelings and obtain peace.
So I'm going to let the audio go silent for a minute.
But you're welcome to take as long as you like.
And I just invite you to play with these words that are upon the page.
They might be a common theme that you want to express,
Or an analogy or symbolism.
Maybe there's a rhyme structure.
One of my favorite things to do is to do a monorhyme.
That's using the same rhyme structure at the end of each line.
We're using the same rhyme throughout the paragraph,
So to speak.
What do I want to say?
This day has gone astray.
I've lost my way.
Someone's going to pay.
Could be a small example of alliteration,
Using the word day as its base,
Expressing the emotionality of the desire for revenge,
Or anger,
Or annoyance at the self.
I'm sort of hesitant to go too deep into the practical poetry writing,
Because the goal is to attain peace.
But I also understand that to not give anything would be to leave you potentially out in the open.
And that's why I started this course with the idea of just free-flowing,
Free-writing,
And free expression of the words upon the page.
Because ultimately,
That's what poetry is.
So with all of that said,
I'm going to let the audio go silent for a minute.
And I just encourage you to play with the words that you've written down upon the page after that session of self-introspection and questioning.
Okay,
So as always,
If you need some more time with that one,
Please pause the audio and work on it for as long as you need.
Remember the goal is to write the poetry,
And ultimately to obtain peace,
Not to do the instructions in this course.
This is just a guide.
But regardless,
I invite you to share what you've written in the classroom,
If you wish,
And to ask any questions.
I'll be there daily to answer and to connect with you.
I'll see you in the next session.
Gotcha.
This track was taken from the course,
Finding Peace Through Poetry.
It's out now and available via my profile on Insight.
I encourage you to click through and check it out.
