I was listening to this interview in which Chase Jarvis interviews Austin Kleon and this line jumped out at me. I thought Austin put it so beautifully, this feeling those of us have who love to write by hand. A paper notebook really is like a walled garden.
I wrote parts of The Empath’s Journey by hand in cafes and libraries. And when I first started writing many years ago, I did scores of writing exercises by hand. It felt magical, as if I was unearthing some undiscovered part of my own self or maybe even a self deeper than just me.
Images jumped out at me. Visuals crackled in my head. It felt as if my arm was an extension to an unseen realm.
This kind of writing felt so physical, as if it was coming from deep within my body. It also felt like a connection to my intuition, to my image-generating self.
If you have ever wanted to find a way to access your intuition, try journaling and writing by hand. And if journaling your feelings feels “too heavy,” try something fun.
Pick out a picture from a magazine or an image from a tarot deck and use that as a prompt. You might find that it’s not so hard to slip into the undercurrent of your imagination.
I know that both writing and typing have their place. I wrote the entire first draft of my next book for highly sensitive writers by hand. But I am doing the later drafts on my laptop.
But especially nowadays, as we’re caught from all sides by the buzzing of people’s opinions and feelings, a notebook is really a walled garden in which to grow our own thoughts, to water them, and to find that, ultimately, we are fed by the deeper stream of the universe.
Ritu Kaushal is the author of the book The Empath’s Journey, which TEDx speaker Andy Mort calls “A fascinating insight into the life of a highly sensitive person and an emotional empath.”
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