Brené Brown, one of my favorite writers announced this week that she will be taking a fourteen-week sabbatical. She noticed she was no longer creating a space between stimulus and response.
This prompted me to revisit her 2010 book, The Gifts of Imperfection: Your Guide to a Wholehearted Life where she included a chapter on cultivating calm and stillness.
Brown also lists three elements required for creating the kind of space she believes is required for wholehearted living: a willingness to tell your story, feel the pain of others, and stay genuinely connected.
I sat up straighter when it occurred to me that Laurie Wagner’s Wild Writing, the group writing practice I am learning to teach, requires the same beautiful big-heartedness!
In Wild Writing, each person writes their own story for fifteen minutes, inspired by a poem chosen to elicit a response. Encouraged to write as fast as we can, saying yes to whatever comes to mind, keeping the pen moving is storytelling at its best.
The next step in Wild Writing is listening to others reading what they have written. No verbal feedback is allowed. Everyone simply sits and listens. This is where feeling the pain of others comes in. And sometimes, you feel your own pain more acutely when reading out loud to the group. All this creates space for growth.
Finally, in Wild Writing, connection with others is developed by staying present and accepting what has been shared. We show that we are listening by a simple hand wave when they finish reading. This creates a sense that we are all in this together.
I am very close to launching my first Wild Writing group. If you are interested in learning more or joining a group, let me know.
