Creative Writing Workshops – What Do You Gain!

As the authors of the stories we tell ourselves – about ourselves and everything around us – we have the power to recast, reframe, redirect, and reinterpret the action in our own personal dramas, whether we acknowledge this power of not. The most significant benefits to creative writing workshops such as Radical Writing are the power and focus they bring to our ability to act in the world. Radical Writing shows us how we have been serving, consciously or unconsciously, as the novelists of our own lives. The discovery of our fictions and their “re-visioning”  (i.e. revising by seeing differently) makes us conscious authors of scenes past, present, and future. Creative writing processes like Radical Writing offer power-building tools that enlarge our focus and make us more effective at applying our personal power.

Our subconscious minds record every thought and every feeling we have, whether mundane or profound, subtle or overt. The act of simple observation of these thoughts and feelings releases them into conscious awareness. Radical Writing enables us to return to a state of pure responsiveness within the sanctuary of the page or keyboard where we can express ourselves in uncensored abandon.

A sanctuary is a place for worship and cultivation of spirit. It is a place of safety and refuge. At times this means a place of order and tranquility, a retreat away from disharmony. At other times it means a place to indulge in creativity, to seek meaning in life, to do the work of transformation, which often calls for descent into pain and chaos. A sanctuary is a hallowed setting in which the work of transformation can be undertaken safely, a hallowed ground in which to embrace our shadows. Radical Writing provides just such a sanctuary.

When stepping from the world of one belief system into that of another, we must feel protected, enveloped in a climate of reassurance. Our old stories have provided us only with illusions of safety. Now you can look to your writing as a safe place to create new stories, unbound by the familiar restraints or old parameters. The process allows us to forego the expectations we typically have when we are talking or interacting.

The more we consciously cultivate awareness, the keener our instincts grow. We relax in making choices and decisions. We breathe easier. The resulting shifts in our tastes, interests, and perspectives erase “blocks” to creativity. We achieve a level of fierce focus that is instrumental in bringing about manifestation. Like all creative acts,  Radical Writing is full of surprises.

Learn more about Radical Writing and Laura Cerwinske’s other courses at http://www.radicalwriting.com

HOW WRITING GENERATES SELF-EXPRESSION

She Watches Her Words       Laura Cerwinske

Something potent happens when we put pen to paper and allow the hand, rather than the head, to do our thinking. We gain an immediate intimacy with our thoughts along with a detachment not usually available through talking.

In the act of writing, we process information differently than we do when thinking or talking. What’s more, the three actions do not produce the same results. Undirected thinking and talking perpetuate mental and emotional chaos because they further enroll us in our unconscious beliefs. On the other hand, writing out feelings in a free and exaggerated way is liberating. The writing stimulates awareness and thereby perpetuates release.

Stories are magic and medicine. They stimulate adrenaline and neutralize destructive energy. They have the power to comfort, heal, and transform. They invigorate the imagination and build spiritual muscle. They illuminate the path to the subconscious. The power of our stories launches us into galaxies of self-awareness.

In Western literature, traditional stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. In the writing process used in this book, our stories can go on eternally. They become vehicles for healing when we mulling them over, entertaining twists and turns, finding their sources, bestowing them with new meaning, and enlarging their possibilities. As our consciousness of our stories grows, healing occurs and our awareness of our inner power enlarges.

Today, “the age of technology has both revived the use of writing and provided ever more reasons for its spiritual solace,” the New York Times columnist Anna Quindlen tells us.  Since “the letter fell out of favor and education became professionalized, with its goal less the expansion of the mind than the acquisition of a job, writing began to be seen largely as the purview of writers. Writing at work also became so stylistically removed from the story of our lives that the two seemed to have nothing in common.”

On the other hand, when we write purely for self-expression, we alchemize our mental activity, and, our stories become the fuel for liberation, creativity, transformation, and healing.

Expressive writing teaches us ways of seeing ourselves as novelists of our own lives. The rediscovery of our fictions and their “re-visioning”  (i.e. revising by seeing differently) makes us conscious authors of scenes past, present, and future. The process is full of surprises.

Visit www.radicalwriting.com to learn more and sign up for online writing courses.  Start learning about yourself and expression!