The Four Preparations

The Four Preparations

A few preparations can help you sustain your journey. These four preparations come from my twenty-plus years of challenges as a writer and from ten years of deliberately observing what works for me and for other writers and artists as our bodies and minds age. They also stem from fundamental complaints both aspiring and veteran writers and artists voice to me – “I’ve lost a connection to a deeper purpose,” “I don’t have time to create,” “I lack the fire I had when I was twenty,” and “I cannot focus anymore.”

# 1 - Put on the Robe: Write with Intention

Intention centers the mind and imagination without restriction. It also deepens your connection to writing’s deep purpose. An intention plants a seed, a suggestion that may manifest during the writing session or two weeks from then or two years later.

When I was a resident at the Zen Mountain Monastery, a head nun raised the question, “Of all the ways to spend your morning, why rise and put on the robe?” In other words, why sit and meditate? Good question. The same applies to writing, but I heard a differently phrased question, “What am I writing for?” It’s a less defensive phrasing. It puts me in a receptive mode. What are the fruits of this practice for?

Try this: Place your palms on the part of your body where you feel your center. Direct your breath and inner attention toward that space. Then ask, “What am I writing for?” And listen. Look. You might hear a word, a phrase, or rhythm. You might see a visual image flash. Heed it and imagine it riding the back of your breath.

Then write or create from that space. Do this every morning or evening for fifteen meetings with your muse.

# 2 - Show Up & Shape Time

One way or another, we writers must make peace with time, stop fighting it, and avoid bemoaning its apparent scarcity. There’s plenty of time to be had, and if we can’t change the way time works, then we can change the way we work with it.

Don’t wait for your muse to show up. Show up for your muse. And do so, as one writer and mother of three boys said to herself during a retreat, “No matter what!”

Do so regularly and in short intervals at first. Write down in your schedule your appointments with your muse. Don’t let distractions or other people break this appointment.

My yoga teacher Sri TKV Desikachar asked me, “How long do you practice yoga each day?” With puffed chest, I said, “Sometimes up to two hours if I’m on a roll.” He waited. I exhaled. “And, well, usually only 20, 30 minutes.” He smiled. “Thirty minutes, good,” he said. “After that, you’re doing something else.” So, set your intention, breathe or move through a few poses, and write for 30 minutes, 45 minutes at the most. And do so for 15 days straight – no matter what. Once you’ve established regular patterns, extend the time.

# 3 - Stoke Your Writer's Fire: Right Persistence

Tapas describes the fire in the belly that propels us to work well and to persevere in the world. It is the burning enthusiasm that excites us when we discover a blue-sky idea, a delicious image, a tapestry-woven plotline. The problem is, the flame wanes. Once we’ve tapped into our fire, how do we keep it burning? How do we avoid this intellectual, imaginative, spiritual burnout? Or if we’re burnt already, how do we rise from the ashes?

Genius isn’t born of neuroses, biographer and writer for The New Yorker Joan Acocella writes. It’s born instead, she says, of Sunday school-like virtues such as tenacity and the ability to be disappointed.

Try this: Don’t talk about what your going to write or create. Do it. Then talk about what you already have written or created. Talking out the creative fire indiscriminately can blow it out. An exception is a trusted colleague or coach with whom you wish to brainstorm ideas.

Try this: When doubt rises or physical energy wanes at the page, sit up straight. Relax your shoulders. Connect again with your writing intention. Rest your palms on your lower belly. Imagine you have a feather stuck in your nostril. To blow it out, jet your stomach back and exhale with vigor through your nose. Now, do that again five times. Now, try to do it again five times quickly, but catch a breath in each time. If you can, repeat ten times. Eventually you can build up to twenty times and then possibly three rounds of twenty.

And then write with more clarity and persistence.

This simple tool can clear brain fog. It’s been shown to increase oxygenated blood flow to the brain by up to 50%. A cup of espresso without the side effects. It also helps moderate the release of glucagon and adrenaline for optimal blood sugar levels and physical energy.

# 4 - Ride the Wave of Concentration

Concentration, simply put, may be the gateway to transformation and to authentic writing. With your faculties focused on one thing, then your to-do lists and yesterday’s frets slip away, your mind’s wheels slow down, and its little demons of distraction disappear. Concentration – it’s the one thing that distinguishes master surgeons, athletes, musicians, and chess players from others in their fields, according to neuroscientist Richard Restak. And I would add writers.

Try this: Set your writing intention. Then with an easeful breathing rhythm, count the length of your inhalation. Match the length with your exhalation. Try to extend the length of both by one second. Then by two seconds. Keep your focus on that even-length breath as you write. Any time a distracting thought surfaces or body tries to distract you with a run to the kitchen, return to the breath and just keep feeling and writing.

Try this if you have practiced yoga for a while: Come to the mat. “Put on the robe” and set your writing intention. Move mindfully through a few poses and breathing practices, frequently returning your inner awareness to your intention. You might close your eyes and observe any subtle insights or images that might link to your intention. Then sit and assimilate and breathe. Move to the page, and write with the same presence and focus.

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