One Major Benefit of Writing We Don’t Talk About Enough
There are many benefits that come with keeping a writing routine. But there is one we don’t talk about nearly enough. And it just might be the most important benefit writers can enjoy, especially now.
I won’t write 1,000 words in this post before I tell you what one of the major benefits of writing is, which we don’t talk about nearly enough. It’s mindfulness.
Mindfulness is one of the major benefits writing offers, especially if you write every day.
Mindfulness is a state of being present and aware of one’s thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations without judgment. It involves paying attention to the current moment and accepting experiences as they arise. It fosters a more curious and less reactive mindset and attitude, even long after you sit down to write.
Practicing mindfulness via writing also reduces stress, improves emotional regulation, and enhances one’s overall well-being.
Essentially, the mindfulness set in motion by one’s regular writing practice has the potential to make them smarter, calmer, more creative, more focused, more tuned in to the world around them… and less of a jerk.
“Writing creatively allows me to unearth absorbed observations and patterns and sensual experiences that surround me every day over multiple yesterdays and potential tomorrows without too much sweat or effort. Creative writing exercises are akin to swimming in the pool of my mind… In this sense, creative writing stretches and heals my creative lungs and creative endurance over time.
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Above all, when I write creatively, I remain curious and exploratory, not judgmental and severe. And this heals the inner child within me, allowing them to write what they were never able or willing to express before. ” — Creative Writing Heals
Writing allows writers to be more mindful about anything and everything they decide to write about.
“I don’t know what I think until I write it down.” — Joan Didion
“I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.” — Flannery O’Connor
“Writing practice brings us back to the uniqueness of our own minds and an acceptance of it. We all have wild dreams, fantasies, and ordinary thoughts. Let us feel the texture of them and not be afraid of them.”― Natalie Goldberg
“Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” — Mary Oliver
There’s no denying how incredibly valuable it would be to have more people practicing mindfulness in our current reactive, always-on-the-go, anxiety-prone, volatile world. And what better way to do that than through writing?
We need more writers who write about things that matter with great focus and care, not those bits of regurgitated and skewed writing the algorithms feed us.
In a world where AI is starting to steal and commodify authentic human voices and experiences, we need more mindful and authentic human voices to thrive. Why? Because mindful writing is a window to the soul and offers a way for humans to connect with themselves, as well as one another and the rest of the world, across time and space in authentic and meaningful ways.
“... most writers who have been consistently toiling away for years know one thing for certain: Writing requires diligent, hard work that is full of intention. Words will never magically appear on the screen in front of you, as if you’re watching some sort of symbol-coded action film. The words on the screen that are painted on and painted over and erased and recovered from the recesses of things you have read and experienced and felt and thought via words or things that can and should and will be expressed via words are painted on the screen by you. You are the one who conjures up those words and puts them together in an intentional and meaningful way. Writing is something that you do, not the other way around. And that is what makes it one of the most powerful actions you can do, especially right now.”
“You wouldn’t expect an Olympic athlete to compete without first conditioning their mind and body through routine practice and training. In the same sense, you cannot expect a writer to write anything authentic … if they don’t condition their minds and bodies to write authentically via routine practice and training, especially not on a regular basis.” — Writing as Exercise
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