Humility
Poems arrive ready to begin.
Poets are only the transportation.
~~Mary Oliver
I read this Mary Oliver poem this morning on my Live session on Insight Timer I didn't plan it; I just opened the book to that page.
It prompted a rather interesting conversation, not just about writing, but about life. Although to many of us, writing is life.
The poem made me think about the things we try to control. Things we believe we have to do one way, that right way, and we give ourselves little room for wiggle. Things like career, socializing, exercise, diet, and writing. Especially writing.
If you do as Mary Oliver suggests, you're in your heart. If you do it the other way, you're in your head. Trying too hard. Letting your ego run the show, and hold the pen and you're more likely to get writer’s block. You’re trying to write a specific thing, or write a certain way, you’re not trying to do the exercise (if you know you know), you’re trying to be good, or worse, perfect.
As Mary Oliver so eloquently puts it, you're not allowing yourself to be the transportation. Or the conduit. You are instead pushing to make the idea happen rather than receive it.
Ask yourself:
- How can I become the vehicle—the channel—for my writing?
- For my creativity?
- How can I create a vessel with the capacity to receive inspiration?
Writing is life.
I invite you to ask yourself these questions:
- Where do I hold back in life?
- Where do I hold back in my writing practice?
- What might change in my life if I were to let go and stop trying to be what I think (or was told) I should be? Would this affect my writing and my creative practice?
- And if I were to let go in my writing practice, not try to write about a specific thing or try and be perfect, but just be the transportation for the ideas, how would that change my writing? What might shift in my life?
When I teach Jack Grapes Method Writing© the second most difficult concept I teach after teaching you how to “go to Ralph’s and buy a chicken”** is called the transformation line. It’s an exercise that allows the writer to access a deeper place and thus, the deep voice.
It can be challenging, demanding, and scary even, because it brings the writer to a place of vulnerability. In the process, the writer learns something about herself. And, the reader goes along for the ride. "Oh," the reader might say to herself, "Wow. I get this place. I've felt this before. I am not alone." And the writing, well, that becomes oh-so good.
“It’s not called the transformation line for nothing.”
Writing is life.
The poem Humility suggests that ideas and words arrive and your role is to be open, become the vehicle for them—the transportation to the page. Ideas and words might already be inside of you, milling around, waiting for you to open to them. But if you’re in your head (ego) worried that you don’t know what to write, don’t know where the ideas are or when they’ll come, if at all, then you might find yourself blocked.
Instead, you practice opening up and allowing. You allow yourself to be the vehicle. Allow yourself to be the conduit. You allow yourself to become the channel for the ideas and the words. That's when the magic happens.
Writing is life. If you can allow yourself to practice this on the page, where else (in your life) can you allow for this practice?
Try it. See what happens. Let me know how it goes.
Today, when I write, my goal is to be the transportation for ideas. How? I’ll sit down and write. I don't know what scene I'm working on today. I only know I'm going to sit down and write. The ideas and the words will follow.
I'll do the same thing this week when I teach. My 5-week sessions of Found Voices™—Next Level Writing Support classes start today. My goal? Show up and be the vehicle for the ideas. That means I have to let go of my agenda and accept the fact that ideas that come to me, aren’t mine necessarily; they come from the light.
That doesn’t mean I don't study. That I haven't worked hard. That I don't practice what I preach and teach. I do. I have spent the last 12-plus years studying and learning. (More if you include college and Gestalt Practice and mindfulness meditation, creative mindfulness, and more). I have some knowledge. And I continue to learn and grow and practice.
I also know that when I teach, it's not just me, just like when I write. I allow and trust my best ideas are those that come from unseen and magical places. Often times they are the ones with the most significant and most profound impact.
My job is to tap into humility, open up, and be the transportation.
Writing Is Life!
Write On,
Carolyn
**Going to Ralph’s to buy a chicken means you just write. You don’g write about anything. You let go of story and you literally just write, with not one idea in mind. One word, then another, and so on until you have a sentence. Then you do it again and get another sentence. And so on and so on and so on until you have something.
