WRITER'S BLOCK: MINDFULNESS

Mindfulness is a meditative practice that has gained popularity in the west through the work of Jon Kabat Zinn (Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness).  His work was addressed to people who were having physical (medical) problems.  Yet, it was found that people with emotional problems benefitted from the techniques as well.

How does mindfulness apply to writers and the writing process?  The theme underlying both physical and emotional problems is stress.  That is, too much of it (whether good or bad stress).  Does stress apply to writers?  Without a doubt.  Either we writers stress ourselves by our own self imposed deadlines and expectations, or we have externally imposed deadlines and expectations (that we choose to accept).

A daily program of mindfulness, even for a short period of time, can infuse energy and direction into the writer's work.

Simply, mindfulness is paying attention to what is going on in the present moment.  In the now.  Because we often find it difficult to pay attention to the now, we need to set ourselves a deliberate task to accomplish mindfulness.  It can be as simple as paying attention to our breathing, our walking, an external source like a candle flame.  We do it for a specific period of time we choose based on what we believe we can manage.

We will notice our attention being pulled away from our focus.  And, mindfulness is about returning our attention to the focal point; e.g.,breath, walking candle.

A little bit of mindfulness is better than none.  For writers, doing morning pages (as per Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way : A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity) can serve as mindfulness as well.  Mindfulness is in the intention.

For more on mindfulness see Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness