Expressive writing is a self-care journaling technique that allows a safe environment to deal with emotions. Free-writing and self-inquiry deals with expressing all that’s repressed without hurting ourselves or somebody else.

Writing to Awaken is a book that shows us how to awaken to ourselves through the use of writing.

At the moment I will only give a rating to the book and I hope it is possible for me to write down my reviews on Amazon. Barnes and Noble and Goodreads. I am very grateful to you because your publications are great, especially in the topics that interest me most. Thanks and blessings.

This was my first read of a Mark Matousek's book, I have had friends rave about his previous books and online courses. I found this book to be more of a companion manual on the journey of finding a deeper connection and self-awareness through my writing.

Writing to Awaken

A Journey of Truth, Transformation, and Self-Discovery



by Mark Matousek

New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

New Harbinger

Religion & Spirituality , Self-Help

Pub Date 28 Jul 2017

I am reviewing a copy of Writing to Awaken Through NewHarbinger and Netgalley:

In this book Mark Matousek reminds us that many writers begin looking inwardly as children, trying to make sense of the world around them.

Authors often ask themselves who they are, in trying to discover their writing voice. But our voice is so much more than who we are in name. There are excercises that encourage you to dive deeper.

The author points out too that their are falsehoods of self. We are reminded too that fear and desire are two sides of the same stick.

We are encouraged too let our true face show.

In the second section of the book the author talks about exploring the story. The author points out too that writing sometimes evokes resistance. The author points out too that “Writing helps us wipe away debris and distortion from our looking glass.”

As humans we will do our best to try to make sense of our life stories. We are reminded too of the power of choice.

The author points out too that love invents us, that without the ability to nurture or care would be drained of significance. We are reminded too that just as we need to be able to love we need to be able to forgive as well.

In Part Three Of this book the author talks about dropping the mask. The author points out too that we wear masks for the acceptance by our peers. The author goes on to show us that we learn from loss as well, and that writing allows us to explore our losses.

In Writing to Awaken we are reminded too that intention matters, and that we need to focus in order to support our intentions. The author points out too that denying desire is dangerous.

In the fourth section of this book Matousek talks about awakening. We are reminded too that it takes courage to surrender to passion and to accept our unique gift. The author goes on to talk about the role that our beliefs play in our writing.

I give Writing to Awaken five out of five stars!

Happy Reading!

Writing Exercises for Self-Discovery

** Trigger warning for client case studies that sometimes include disturbing incidents, including rape. **

“When I was a child and magic was afoot, the word abracadabra was synonymous with the power of manifestation. I could wave my magic wand over Doris the princess doll, or Boris the stuffed panda, and practically feel them come to life under the gravitas of the spell. Later in life, as a Harvard-trained scientist and researcher in the field of mind-body medicine, I discovered that abracadabra is more than magic-speak or a song by the Steve Miller Band. These Aramaic words mean, ‘I will create as I speak.”’

“Tell a story. Believe the story. And voila! It manifests in your cells, your brain, your heart, your behavior, and the choices you make…or don’t. We embody our stories quite literally, as these days we have the brain scans and hormonal assays to prove it. Mark Matousek, who is a writer rather than a scientist, knows this as well. He sometimes refers to us humans as Homo Narrans—the storytelling species. Stories slay and stories heal. Their transformative magic resides in our ability to identify them, learn from them, and—when necessary—change them.”

– Joan Borysenko, PhD (“Foreword”)

— 3.5 stars —

I picked up a copy of WRITING TO AWAKEN about the same time as GETTING GRIEF RIGHT; I thought that the two books, when taken together, might provide some guidance in using journaling and storytelling to cope with the recent loss of my husband – and perhaps figure out what comes next for me.

Divided into twelve chapters and forty-eight “lessons,” Matousek challenges the reader to dive deeper; to find the truth behind your life story, which is often unreliable, watered down for mass consumption, and altered to omit certain uncomfortable truths. Though I suppose the exercises could help to overcome writer’s block, you don’t necessarily need to be a professional writer to find value here. Rather, WRITING TO AWAKEN is for anyone interested in journaling with a heavy emphasis on self-reflection and radical truth telling.

WRITING TO AWAKEN turned out to be a weird combination the expected/unexpected for me. I found many of the exercises intriguing, but felt the writing to be a little grating. In keeping with the book’s cover art and copy, WRITING TO AWAKEN has a hippy-dippy, New Age vibe to it. Not necessarily/entirely a bad thing, though certain prompts had me cringing. (“Try to imagine your own conception. Conjure the primal scene in your mind, your parents’ bodies thrashing together. What are they thinking?” Really? What were they thinking? What was the author thinking? Thanks for an image I’ll never get out of my head.) Additionally, the rehashing of key concepts at the end of each section seemed like overkill, especially when each section isn’t all that long.

I also wasn’t too keen on the author’s judgey attitude toward a couple who survived the Holocaust only to instill a feeling of “paranoia” in their adopted daughter (because it’s not like Nazis are still a thing, amirite people?), while simultaneously insisting that it’s not his place to judge a client who just so happens to be a registered sex offender. Like, wtf? Maybe choose another case study?

I think what really rubbed me the wrong way, though, was trying to read the book cover-to-cover for review purposes, which turned out to be h*cka tedious. These prompts are really meant to be tackled over a period of weeks and months – if not years. Seriously, there’s a lot of heavy stuff in here!

Even though I stopped reading at the 50% mark, I did copy and paste all of the lessons into a Word file for later use. Probably I won’t bother with them all – see: parents having sex, above – but quite a few of them looked stimulating and incisive, at least at first glance.


Table of Contents

Foreword vii
Introduction 1

Part One: Who Am I?
1 Lifting the Veil 9
2 Touching the Shadow 27
3 Your True Face 45

Part Two: Exploring the Story
4 Demons at the Gate 63
5 The Question of Meaning 81
6 Love Invents Us 95

Part Three: Dropping the Mask
7 Social Persona 113
8 Learning from Loss 129
9 The Wisdom of Intention 143

Part Four: Awakening
10 Awakening Genius 159
11 Meeting the Sacred 177
12 Begin Again 193

Acknowledgments 212
Bibliography 213

** Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley. **

This is not the kind of book you speed through. It is something you dip into from time to time, and work through the writing exercises. The author helps you become authentic, on the page and to yourself. You see parts of yourself you didn't see before, and you realize that you are on your own unique journey, not to compete with or be like anyone else. Sometimes the language and style felt heavy and overly academic, but the message and intent was clear - peel back the layers and discover who you are underneath, and live more fully, more true to yourself.

You don’t feel driven to write.

You tag the experience as writer’s block.

And you’d be right.

The search to overcome the writer’s block curse begins.

You hate it. Annoying isn’t it?

Check this out:

What if you look at writer’s block as a gift, and love it.

The process is a beautiful mess.

Because even though it’s a wonderful gift, it’s simple, but not easy to deal with what writer’s block brings.

What’s This Post About?

The purpose of this article is to help you make expressive writing and self-inquiry a habit; therefore, you’ll overcome writer’s block because you have gone to the root of the situation and face it.
We are going to cover:

What Causes Writer’s Block?
What Expressive Writing Can Do for You?
How to Get Rid of Writer’s Block
Why Does Expressive Writing Work?

What Causes Writer’s Block?

Writer’s block, easier to identify, shows up as a lack of skill, for example, that needs to be accomplished as a writer, and there’s no other way than learn the craft.

More difficult to identify is writer’s block that has nothing to do with our writing, but blocks our creativity, and forces us to go deeper searching for the cause, because it’s hidden in our subconscious mind.

According to Dr. John Sarno, the subconscious mind is responsible for processing written and oral language, for instance, also to think, to reason, among other complicated processing.

Dr. Sarno explained the subconscious as “the place where all sorts of feelings may reside, not all logical, not all nice, and some of them downright scary.”

Don’t be scared:

Laraine Herring, author of On Being Stuck, states writer’s block is a “safety belt, keeping you from crashing through the windshield.”

Here is the point:

Whatever is causing your writer’s block begins and ends in the subconscious mind.

How to deal with it?

Different techniques give us access to the subconscious mind such as meditation, and writing journaling such as expressive writing and self-inquiry.

According to Janet Conner, author of Writing Down Your Soul, we have an individual subconscious and a collective subconscious. Furthermore, we have to deal with our personal history, and also the starving artist portrait for so long in our society.

You have to ask questions to retrieve the information from the subconscious mind, lots and lots of questions. Moreover, questions that lead to other questions with not right or wrong answers.

As you can ponder the process is endless, it up to you to make it a habit.


What Expressive Writing Can Do for You?

Mark Matousek, author of Writing to Awaken, conveys expressive writing has boundless amazing positive benefits that improve physical and mental health, such as:

Psychological empowerment
Emotional healing
Social Intelligence
Increased well-being
Creative growth
Spiritual awareness

Expressive writing helps us heal repressed emotions in a safe environment. Moreover, Dr. John Sarno advised to his patients not to repress their emotions specially anger, because tension and unexpressed emotions could cause back pain, literally.

Word of caution:

Expressive writing is therapeutic, and helps to deal with anxiety, depression, stress, etc. However, severe cases should consider professional advice. If you like this technique, some professionals use writing and/or art journaling as a way of healing trauma in their practices.

How to Get Rid of Writer’s Block

Expressive writing is a self-care journaling technique that allows a safe environment to deal with emotions. Free-writing and self-inquiry deals with expressing all that’s repressed without hurting ourselves or somebody else.

Good News, if you are looking for a muse:

Matousek refers to the subconscious mind as the muse.
Guidelines to expressive writing according to Mark Matousek:

Don’t pay attention to grammar, syntax or elegant prose.
Tell the truth.
Bring the desire to transcend your story.
Maximum one-thousand words per response, “to help distill the writing and train your mind no to wander too much.”
Breakthrough resistance. Stick with the practice even though you feel discomfort.
Write in the same place and at the same time every day, at least five consecutive days a week.
Enjoy your solitude.
Use meditation, yoga, any practice to help you to settle the mind. Five minutes is enough.
Show up. If you can’t write, write about not being able to write.



In Writing to Awaken, Matousek shares 48 writing prompts for you to evaluate what’s blocking your life and your writing.

To start you can use the first one practiced by Matousek, he calls this lesson “The Creation Myth.”

Mark Matousek’s father left him when he was four years old. In the sake to fill the gap that’s an absent father, he hired a detective. He hasn’t found out what happened to his father, but he began writing his experience, and inspired his book The Boy He Left Behind.

In ‘The Creation Myth’ Matousek explains it doesn’t matter how much it’s true; what’s important is how we remember it.

Exercise:

Imagine the moment of your own conception. “Describe the atmosphere in detail, including your parent’s emotional, spiritual, and physical lives.”

Look into your parent’s relationship, “How has your parent’s legacy impacted your story? Do you see yourself as a product of love? Accident? Obligation? Confusion?

Do you identify more with you mother or your father?…If it was possible for children to choose their parents, why might you have chosen yours?”

The story is in our subconscious mind,even if we are unaware. Furthermore, to uncover our story, our memories and the labels we associate with it, has an impact on “who we believe we are and place limits on our potential.”

When we uncover our story, we “become the story-teller, not the story.”


Why Does Expressive Writing Work?

Writing forces you to slow down and allow your mind and heart to open.

Even though Mark Matousek and Janet Conner wrote and talked about their experience, and shared their writing in a group, also they remarked, it’s no necessary to receive the benefits of expressive writing if you don’t feel ready to share what you find in a group, when you are ready, you’ll have the right people around you to understand your predicament.

By practicing expressive writing, we’ll get the gift of being more us, and to live fully in the present moment.

You could have setbacks, and it’s OK; it’s a sign of progress. Matousek acknowledges “the nearer we get to insight, the more our shadow will rise up to stop us.”

“You’ll see positive as well as negative stories concealed there, gifts as well as destructive elements.” Matousek recalls.

Listen:

If the subconscious is part of ourselves, we are dealing with it no matter what, better to access our deepest self and make friends there.

One effective way to overcome writer’s block is to work on your shadow self. If you refuse to deal with your psychological shadow, a projection will take place and you’ll end marrying, working or befriending it. There is no way to avoid inner work.


Summing Up

“As writers, we must learn to enjoy our own company.” Writes Matousek. Free-writing is cathartic and powerful to change our lives if we make it a daily practice.

As Matousek states, “you can always write your way back to center.” After all these practices, we find a long-lost friend.

What’s important to accomplish?

Heal your subconscious mind.

I have used three techniques with amazing results:

Meditation, expressive writing, and forgiveness.

Now you are ready to say bye to writer’s block.

The post Writer’s Block: 1 Simple and Powerful Way to Hate and Love it appeared first on rosaelenad.com

Why read this book? "Writing helps you explode your self-imposed limits and move toward the unknown equipped with the light of self-knowledge". Mark Matousek guides you gently through the process of digging deep to better understand yourself. Filled with valuable exercises and questioning your long-held beliefs through the pages. A definite addition to your library if you are on the quest for self-discovery. This book does not shirk the reader's ability to take responsibility for their own life, and that's what I found most valuable.

Excellent !