Write of Passage 9 Christin's Mentor Session 1

Welcome to Christin’s Mentor Notes!

• Don’t worry if you missed the first session

I’m available for 1:1 chats, book here: https://tidycal.com/christinchong/30min

• Personalized help with your WOP journey
• Any questions about WOP
• Just to say hi

Session 1 Recap

Music to get into our feelings

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LwNU2Ez9Qw

• Reframe writer’s block from a “vague sense of blockage” to the surfacing of difficult emotions
  • Difficult emotions are like the heads of a hydra: the more we “slay” them the more they pop up!
• The most prolific writers from Write of Passage are those who are kind to themselves and learn to befriend their emotions

• 2X Your Potential through a wise, kind, and contemplative path

• Publish Quality Ideas: Uncover YOUR truths and personal monopoly - the “covering” here are layers of difficult emotions accumulated through…being alive and experiencing humanity
• Find Your People: In happy relationships, each partner puts in 60% of the effort (hence 60/60)
• Hold Sacred Space: Ask open-ended questions, avoid giving advice, hold tenderly

Exercises

How to Befriend “First Sentence” Fear

• Open Google Docs (type docs.new in browser)
• Write the first sentence of your FAQ assignment

• Do this in 1 min

• Where are your feet? Let yourself feel grounded and rooted to Mother Earth.
• Recognize WHERE your body feels discomfort, be as precise as possible

• Soothe that part of your body

• Write 2-3 sentences describing:
  • WHERE you feel discomfort in your body
  • How soothing it made you feel
  • Use colorful metaphors…
• Do this in 3 min

Breakout room:

• Introduce yourself + your most overused emoji
• Share what you wrote
• What surprised/didn’t surprise you, and why?

Befriend first sentence fear by recognizing and soothing your body

Science factoid:

• It is challenging for us to notice how “emotions” manifest in the body unless we direct our attention.
• It’s much easier to establish this mind-body connection if we use physical touch to acknowledge and allow the discomfort to be sensed, and then soothed.

Spiritual tidbit:

• Noticing our body the first step for establishing mindfulness and developing skillful states of mind.
• Then it is typical in Buddhist teachings to use the mindfulness of body to ground ourselves, so then we can be mindful of our emotions too.
• Together these practices establish a base of calmness that is conducive to the development of kindness and wisdom (satipaṭṭhāna.)

How to Make Self-Doubt Work With You

• Write 1 more sentence for your FAQ draft

• Do this in 1 min

• Change font to Italics, journal what you thought while writing your FAQ sentence
• Do this in 3 min

Large Group Sharing:

• Share what you wrote during this exercise
• What surprised/didn’t surprise you, and why?

Make self-doubt work with you by journaling while writing

Science factoid:

• Sometimes our subconscious mind interferes with our writing process, but we don’t know why.
• We can remedy this by listening to our subconscious mind through journaling while writing.
• Although our subconscious mind does contribute to our self-doubt, it also embeds gems of wisdom about our past and our potential paths for the future.
• These gems can help us develop nuance in our writing and amplify the “personal” in POP writing (Personal, Observational, Playful) - which you will learn in an upcoming live session!

Spiritual tidbit:

• Introspection through journaling is a powerful contemplative path.
• Through journaling, we can recognize that our minds operate through deep-seated patterns, and begin to understand and release ourselves from these patterns that cause stress and suffering (dukkha.)

Exercise Benefits According To Attendees

• Really helpful in refining my FAQ
• Just being present with my emotions today made this super worth it
• Writing out my feelings about writing while writing is extremely helpful
• Just has been a forcing function on the personal
• Every thought is valuable…just get it down on paper!
• Anxiety seems to hit more than one body part and I can write a lot more when I am writing about what I am feeling
• Use journaling to help get into flow
• Get raw emotions in your writing!
• I don’t know myself as well as I sometimes think!
• How to address writers’ block in the moment is so powerful. Every block is a microcosm of our greater limiting patterns.
• We face a lot of the same emotions
• Self doubt —> informative for how to dig deeper
• Ground myself and feel my feet on my ground before I start. This was so centering for me and a lovely reminder
• When you are stuck with how to start, write about how you feel (jounral) it instead
• Locating stress in our body is important to release it
• Being aware of the way self doubt manifests in the body is powerful for making the feelings more managable
• This helped me be aware of why I don’t write what I want to write about!
• The idea of journaling about one’s writing is interesting
• Look inwards while expressing outwards
• Writing your emotions down under time constraints helps you identify them
• Recognize the painful emotions and pay attention to them. It will help dispel them
• Writer’s emotional block imagery
• Journaling seems to help me find what I really need to be writing about!
• I’ve gone from (my typical) academic type perspective on things to recognizing some personal