Is writing the ultimate form of meditation?

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A Post By Jonathan

Hey ya'll (did I mention I moved to Virginia recently?)! It took me about an hour to find a good picture to put at the top of my post (I ended up with the symbol for mindfulness, being in the here and now), so this won't be the longest blog entry I've ever produced. But does it need to be? I mean, who has time to read super long blog posts these days?

Actually that's kind of what my topic is about today. Finding time (or at least creating capacity within yourself) to do more of what you enjoy on a daily basis. I doubt that's reading my blog posts, but you are here so there is that.

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been looking into the topic of Mindfulness quite a bit lately and I wanted to take a moment to expand on that. I'm sure a lot of you have heard about the Mindfulness movement, as it seems to be everywhere these days, but if not I think it's a concept that just can't be overlooked for writers. In my opinion, mindfulness and those really awesome writing sessions are very closely related. And I believe mindfulness concepts can help us identify why writing feels so great sometimes and even label the sometimes hard to pin down reasons why we love writing so much.

According to Wikepedia, Mindfulness is the psychological process of bringing one's attention to the internal experiences occurring in the present moment. Basically if you are able to do this you block out painful past experiences as well as future anxieties and are just focusing on the present moment.

Some people achieve this by sitting cross-legged on a beach while others (us) achieve it sitting at a keyboard, living moment by moment with our characters. And that's when the best writing sessions occur, isn't it? When we are lost in the present moment, with no thought towards the past or the future. We are just advancing from word to word, scene to scene, blocking everything out but what is occurring at that exact second in our stories. And it feels great-- so different than the craziness of our "other" lives.

A lot of times I don't write because I bring the past (preconceptions, questions about my ability, the business of my day) into my writing as well as the future (will I ever finish? will this be any good? am I just wasting my time?). But what I often miss --and what I'm working on-- is that the act of writing itself is, what I consider, the ultimate form of meditation and can just make me a happier and healthier person in general.

So keep that in mind the next time you sit down at your computer. Writing for the sake of writing To your health and wellbeing...

Thanks for stopping by!