Connect Your Mind With Your Body
To write a story with life and vitality you need to connect your mind with your physical self.
Flying over Greenland. Photo: Tanya Clarke 2017
A Bird’s Eye View
This week's picture, is a view from an aeroplane. Remember those?
The last time I took a flight was when I visited the UK in September 2019. Who knew then, a few months later, a viral pandemic would grip the world. Canada is still on the amber list. Travellers from the UK are advised not to travel to amber list countries. For international visitors to the UK, there is a ten-day quarantine for those vaccinated outside of the country. For Canada, the restrictions are tight. If you do not meet the exemption requirements you won't be allowed in. And now I hear in Australia, lockdowns are in place again. This virus is nothing if not formidable. Its ability to mutate and replicate has us humans struggling to keep up.
But this isn't a post about COVID. God knows there are enough of them about but I am left wondering how the pandemic is affecting our creative health. Creative activities are often suggested as a way to navigate our way through an increasingly disconnected world. Start drawing, read more, write more, learn to play an instrument, etc., etc. But I think our creative health is inextricably linked to our mental health. If we're struggling emotionally our creative health will suffer.
Keep in Touch
We rely heavily on our devices to stay in touch with friends and family. As an ex-pat, I try to stay in touch with my friends and family as much as I can taking into consideration different time zones and remembering various work schedules. Facetime calls require some organisation. Text chats have become a tiny touchstone with those I hold dear.
Lately, though, I've been sensing that the lack of physical interaction is leaving me feeling disconnected and drifting as if I've become unmoored. I'm wondering if writing can help ground me, bring me back into my body. I'm worried my brain is sending me into a loop of negative thinking and distracted activity. Maybe you are feeling this too.
Connect Your Mind and Body
For this week, let's bring our mind's back into our bodies. By that I mean let's write from our mind but through physical sensation.
Wherever you are while you read this, stop for a moment and close your eyes.
What do you feel around your body?
Can you feel the weight of your body?
Where are you?
What can you hear?
Are there any smells that remind you of somewhere else?
What can you touch?
Still with your eyes closed, what is the image that comes to you?
Open your eyes and write from there.
From where you are in your body and where you are in your head. Let's try and bring them both together.
Until next time.
