Writing at the computer, circa 1996 \u2013 one of the darker periods of my life. Writing helped get me through a difficult time.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>This is the third in an occasional series on spiritual practice techniques.<\/p>\n
I have practiced writing as a spiritual discipline for most of my life, far longer than I\u2019ve been a Pagan or a Unitarian Universalist. I think this is the engineer in me coming through: I had issues to deal with or religious questions to consider and my first impulse was to define the problem as clearly and objectively as I could. It helped \u2013 some times more than others \u2013 but it always helped.<\/p>\n
Writing as a spiritual practice serves three main purposes.<\/p>\n
Writing promotes objectivity<\/strong>. Our daily lives are filled with emotions and emotional reactions. This is a good thing \u2013 we are humans, not Vulcans. But many factors can influence how we feel about a given issue: what we were taught as children, old beliefs we haven\u2019t quite overcome, stress at work or at home, even things as mundane as what we had for dinner last night. Writing forces us to distill all those feelings into a few words. Once those words are on paper, they are no longer completely within us \u2013 we can evaluate them with more detachment. It becomes easier to realize that what we think is the problem may only be a symptom of a deeper problem. Once we recognize the root cause or the core issue, we can address it directly instead of constantly dealing with symptoms.<\/p>\nWriting provides records<\/strong>. In elementary school science class I was taught that scientists keep journals of all their experiments \u2013 the experimental hypothesis, elements, methods, test conditions, and results. Your life is an on-going experiment of one. Regular writing generates records of what you did, how it worked, and how you felt about it. There are many times when I face a problem I know I\u2019ve faced before. I can go back to my writings and see what I did in similar situations. Sometimes that tells me what I can do this time, other times it tells me what I shouldn\u2019t do. Memories are very fallible \u2013 don\u2019t count on remembering everything.<\/p>\nThere are times when I really wish I had found this spiritual path much earlier in life. But then I read some of the stuff I wrote in my 20s and early 30s and I realize I wasn\u2019t ready for it \u2013 I had to go down a lot of dead end streets before I was able to understand and accept that what I was yearning for wasn\u2019t what society was telling me I \u201cshould\u201d want. Sometimes you don\u2019t appreciate how far you\u2019ve come till you stop and look back at where you used to be.<\/p>\n
Writing promotes discipline<\/strong>. Unlike eating and sleeping and sex, there is no evolutionary urge for spiritual practice. There are so many demands on our time \u2013 we have to make time for doing the things that align us with our highest goals and beliefs. We can neglect to meditate day after day and think it\u2019s been a week when it\u2019s really been a month. But with writing, it\u2019s all there \u2013 quite literally \u2013 in black and white. The discipline we develop in this practice will carry over and help us in other techniques and practices.<\/p>\nKeeping this blog has been a tremendous discipline for me. I know that if I don\u2019t get something up at least once or twice a week, many of you folks will quit reading. So I\u2019m more regular with my writing than I ever was before.<\/p>\n
How should we write? My essays end up on the blog, while I keep my more personal notes in a plain text file \u2013 that makes it easy to keep copies at home and at work, and to search when I can remember \u201cwhat\u201d but not \u201cwhen.\u201d In the years BC (Before Computers) I wrote things out on notebook paper and stuffed them in a manila folder. In the Spiritual Practice workshop at Pagan Pride Day a participant said that physically writing on paper was a magical act for him.<\/p>\n
Whether you write longhand in a leather-bound diary or type into a word processor or anything in between, the important thing is that you write regularly \u2013 at least a couple times a week.<\/p>\n
Twitter and Facebook don\u2019t count \u2013 they\u2019re too brief and mostly too shallow.<\/p>\n
If you aren\u2019t already keeping a diary or journal, start. If you struggling with decisions or directions or beliefs, try writing through them. And look back every so often to see just how far you\u2019ve come.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is the third in an occasional series on spiritual practice techniques. I have practiced writing as a spiritual discipline for most of my life, far longer than I\u2019ve been a Pagan or a Unitarian Universalist. I think this is the engineer in me coming through: I had issues to deal with or religious questions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":2252,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-practice"],"yoast_head":"\n
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