Fire Your Shrink

In the book “Writing the Mind Alive” by Linda Metcalf and Tobin Simon, the authors propose a method for finding your authentic voice, called PW writing. At first, I thought, Oh, this is just good old-fashioned journaling in a new dress. Then, I realized that wasn’t the case. I get it. They’re talking about morning pages as described in the book “The Artist’s Way”. But that wasn’t right either. Okay. A form of writing meditation? Well . . . no, not exactly.

In PW writing, everyday, same time, same place, one begins in a ritualistic manner: lighting a candle, turning on music designed to alter your state of mind, settling in to listen to your thoughts with paper and pen ready. Once the mind starts to talk, write down whatever you hear. When a key word or phrase is heard and written (as identified by the hair rising on the back of your neck test), you ask “What do I mean by _______?” and write out your response. When you do this, you are inquiring (without judgement) into the emotional or psychological sense the word or phrase has for you.

The music suggested for this practice is Baroque, with the work of Bach highly recommended. Composers of the Baroque era wrote their compositions with reaching a higher power in mind, not such a bad backdrop for this type of work. Additionally, the steady beat tends to match the rhythm of the human heart. Thereby, helping you to connect the mind, body, and spirit as you write, not such a bad idea if you want to sound authentic.

After the session is over, four questions are reflected upon:

1. What thoughts were heard, but not written? (any student of therapy knows avoidance or resistance makes the existential alarm go beep, beep, beep)

2. How do I feel now? (and during the write)

3. What larger story is this write a part of?

4. What ideas came up for future writes during this session?

After committing to the practice of PW writing for one week, I see there is something that sets it a part from other daily sutras. During my very first session, I thought I was writing about giving back and contributing to world peace, and within minutes of asking the PW questions I was crying about a gift I’d given my parents as a child that was dismissed by them as unworthy. The bigger picture being that I was writing about rejection. Surprisingly, I thought I was over that stuff a long time ago.

That’s what the power of honest inquiry while connected to the cosmos can do for you. Let you know you’re So, So, So, Not Over It, that is.

Time to fire your shrink, improve your writing, and find your authentic voice. “Writing the Mind Alive” is just the book to help you with this.

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