Focusing on Our Needs & Desires

This is a prompt from the One Year of Writing and Healing:

What should people write about to enjoy the health benefits of writing?
The seventh chapter of The Writing Cure, an anthology by researchers in the field of writing and health, is written by Laura King, a research psychologist at the University of Missouri. Near the end of her chapter she poses this question: “What should people write about to enjoy the health benefits of writing?” Her conclusion is succinct.

“Writing about topics that allow us to learn about our own needs and desires may be a way to harness the positive benefits of writing.”

Writing about our own needs and desires, thinking about them, leaning into them, giving them permission to be, giving them space. Focusing: what comes into my body with this idea?

at first a slight tension in the chest area; a contraction at the words needs and desires, a shadow crosses into my heart space…inside the shadow i can sense something that implies (not said but whispered on a breath of air) needs and desires are not acceptable…saying hello to that…yes…fear comes…if you know your needs and desires then what if you can’t meet them…you will be disappointed…the shadow wants to protect me from what it perceives as the harsh light of reality…gently i acknowledge this…i am present to this perception and another something comes…a sadness…tinged with grief…whose life am i living if it is not motivated by MY needs and desires? it feels like a pool of water, still, dark. I lean over and cannot see myself in reflection…i wait…the shadow is lying across the pool that is why it is dark…i sit at the edge and i wait…i find my hand reaching out and my fingers trailing in the water…it is cool, soft water. something comes that says “you have to swim…you have to take the plunge…even if you can’t see the bottom you need to be in the water”….and i feel myself IN my body more for a moment…when i see myself in the water i feel more of my body…saying hello to that “more”…taste comes into my mouth…needs and desires are like tastes…when they are present they are distinctive and then they are not…needs and desires come and go…and a sure fire way to know if i am moving towards them is in my bodily response. a sense of relief comes…i realise i had been thinking i needed to come up with a definitive list and stick with it…now it seems more like a moveable feast…ah…something underneath that comes…deeper…like an undercurrent…yes…there is something there about a very deep current that is more stable…like a tendency…a being drawn towards, into…the current gives me general flow towards my deep needs and desires and my moment to moment checking in allows me to guage if i am life-affirming or life-denying consciously rather than habitually. there is something about the undercurrent being beyond thinking consciousness but more like a life force…it is strong and stable and comforting even in being “unknown”…no not unknown…not name-able.

It’s the kind of sentence that seems worth reading again, for emphasis: Writing about topics that allow us to learn about our own needs and desires may be a way to harness the positive benefits of writing. Learning about our own needs and desires…
Hmmm. How to do this? i return to the space near the pool…i check…i slide into the water and float on my back on the surface…still…my desire right now is for stillness inside…a cool rest…a cool mind…to float not paddle…to flow not swim…it is dark but not black…all is quiet and i rest.

i rest my thinking mind…a big sigh and time to sign off and rest…

Tagged as: Focusing