Therapeutic Writing

Writing Your Stories
Write a book!  Write an epic or a vignette.  Just write. I have years and years of stories and I have learned to dignify the well lit ones that are full of delight as well as the darker ones that were work to live through.  I would no sooner discount them than I would fire my best teachers.
What are your stories?  What faces, rooms, smells, feelings, emerge with your stories?  Reflect on life at your home, at your table, in your community.  What was wonderful?  What was missing? 
What did you long for and who do you cherish?  Who inspired you towards freedom and love?  Where do you find your stories? 
 

Right - Left Brain Gymnastics 
The right brain works as the creative agent, recognizing new information.  A child’s curiosity is tuned to awe and wonder since much is brand new.  Our right brain registers images, understands without knowing, and takes in all stimuli without needing to organize it.  It is the home of the BIG picture.

The left brain is our personal archivist and coordinator.  It takes everything the right brain has already recognized and finds a place for it to make sense.  It grooves on order.  It integrates, catalogs, and allows for simple thoughts and actions to happen with relative ease.  Our left brain is often the voice that offers resistance to writing because it isn’t as comfortable with random associations and the questions of where to begin, what to say, how to end…. 

I chose the word "Writing" and wrote all these words.

  
CLUSTER
 Play                                                    Self Train
            Fun                                 Vehicle
                         Writing
            Chaos                    Cowgirl with words
Confusion       Freedom          Accessorize with images
                  Express
               Touch

Then I wrote my vignette.
VIGNETTE
Vignette (Little vine) – A small, graceful literary sketch.

Here’s my cluster transformed into a vignette. 
I never ride so fast as when I write.  I move at the speed of light and shadow.  I chase my thoughts; corral them until I find what I mean to say.  My chaos settles around the fire.  In the quiet, they touch me.  I sleep deep in moonlight, a cowgirl in soft moonlight.
 
Paulo Coelho in his book, "Warrior of the Light," gives us a vocabulary a personal legend is somebody's blessing, the path chosen for him. It gives satisfaction and passion that carries on day to day leading to the fulfillment of dreams. Write as a means of expressing what your life is all about, including your passion, beliefs and what you believe you were born to do.