Ever try Free Writing?

Free writing, what is free writing you ask?......I call it the art of writing, without writing whaa taaa lol

the definition of free writing is The consequence [of writing] is that you must start by writing the wrong meanings in the wrong words; but keep writing until you get to the right meanings in the right words. Only in the end will you know what you are saying.” —Peter Elbow

Being a writer myself I never really came across this method of writing until recently, this morning my bestie asked me if I ever free write?, funny thing I remember about 6 months ago while speaking with another coach it was recommended I wake up at 5 in the morning and she called it by a different title however it was by right free write, on an A4 piece of paper just anything that came out of my head.

Now let me go through this Free writing, this writing strategy was developed by Peter Elbow in 1973, and is similar to brainstorming but is written in sentence and paragraph form without stopping.

In terms of self development doing this in the morning will allow you to read or see the type of thought energy your focusing on most in your subconscious, why is this helpful?

Here's the thing, most of us are not aware of how we choose to react to situations, and when I say aware in this moment I mean when they arise we choose a way to respond or react that doesn't necessarily benefit a positive outcome, that choice is the best choice that we feel we have in that moment, and in that moment that choice is the best choice because we don't know any better.

Because of our misunderstanding of the inside out nature of thoughts, as soon as we get into our heads we begin to struggle, our automatic reactions from a subconscious level of thought kick in, and our fight or flight mode is activated.

I'm not saying that its a wrong thing to go through this process we all do however, understanding where our feelings are coming from only means that when a situation does arise our self correcting system will give you exactly what you need when you need it to handle and deal with said situations more effectively and even if negatively is a choice that will work towards your benefit more than not.

As a writer I began to write my songs more from my head rather than write down on paper in similar fashion as writing on paper except my thoughts first came making no sense an then sense started be made.

Its really quite incredible to see what one's thoughts are from one's subconscious.

For song writing,

1. increases the flow of ideas and reduces the chance that you’ll accidentally censor a good idea.
2. helps to increase fluency second-language learners—i.e., the ability to produce written language easily (as opposed to accuracy, which is of course important but which is better addressed later in the process).

As in brainstorming,

• DO write down every idea you can think of about your topic, no matter how "crazy"; you can judge later! (And no one else is going to see it)
• DON'T worry about correct grammar or spelling;

Unlike in brainstorming,

• DO write in sentence and paragraph form;
• DO KEEP YOUR HANDS MOVING. If you can’t think of anything,  just keep repeating your subject (e.g., “busy trap, busy trap”) or something like “I’m waiting for ideas to come and they will, I’m waiting for ideas to come and they will,” over and over until they do come. (They will!);
• DO feel free to use an occasional word from your native language if you can't think of the English word, but don't overdo this;
• NOTE: In Peter Elbow's original formulation of free writing, designed to generate not only ideas but even a topic, the writer writes for a few minutes, chooses one idea or word from that free writing and then free writes about that new topic for several minutes, and then repeats that process again, successively refining their topic. This process can be a useful one if you are truly starting from scratch and are not even sure what you want to write your paper about.

So try this technique and unlike me you don't have to do it at 5 in the morning I have now found it useful to do at different moments in my day when I sit down so carry a note pad with you and give yourself maybe 5 min's to write.

And of course, if your struggling with any of this remind yourself that your not alone, many of us are right there with you working hard feeling better about ourselves, think more clearly and get our lives on track.

Drop me a message on my face book group Mind Blueprint to Your Reality

Truly caring for you