Writing Down Your Soul: How to Activate and Listen to the Extraordinary Voice Within (Automatic Writing, Spirituality and New Thought, for fans of Opening Up by Writing It Down) - Softcover

Conner, Janet

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1573243566 ISBN 13: 9781573243568

Publisher: Conari Press, 2009

Synopsis

#1 Best Seller in New Age & Spirituality, Graphology ─ Write to Explore Your Deep Soul

“I am a writer. Today I write.” Those are the opening lines in the Writing Blessing that author Janet Conner has spoken daily since 2007.

Devine dialogue. Janet Conner is a writer, poet, and spiritual field guide─but first and always a deep soul explorer. Since she discovered how to activate a divine Voice by slipping into the theta brain wave state (the intriguing border between the conscious and the subconscious) while writing, Janet has dedicated herself to exploring and sharing what it means to live at the vibrant intersection of the visible and the invisible. In Writing Down Your Soul, Janet transforms journal-writing from self-reflection in the alpha brainwave state into divine dialogue in theta.

Life-changing power of writing. Of all the ways to get in touch with God, as you understand God, why take the time to write? One reason: it works. It works amazingly well. If you want to engage in a vibrant conversation with the wisdom that dwells just below your conscious awareness, write. Write every day, at approximately the same time, with passion, honesty, and the intention of speaking with and listening to the voice within.

Your healing inner voice. After hitting rock bottom while escaping a terrible situation of domestic abuse, Janet’s inner voice told her to start writing. As she wrote, her inner voice gained clarity and strength, and she felt an incredible connection to the divine. Miracles began to happen. Today, research scientists are providing peeks into what consciousness is and how it works. Their findings give us intriguing clues as to what is actually happening in and through our bodies, minds, and spirits as we roll pen across paper. Writing Down Your Soul explores some of this research and instructs how to access the power and beauty of our own deepest selves.

If you liked books such as Expressive Writing, Opening Up by Writing It Down, or Writing as a Path to Awakening; you’ll love Writing Down Your Soul.

About this title

About the Author

Janet Conner is a writer, soul-community creator, poet, and spiritual field guide─but first and always a deep soul explorer. Since she stumbled upon how to activate a divine Voice by slipping into the theta brain wave state while writing, Janet has dedicated herself to exploring and sharing what it means to live at the vibrant intersection of the visible and the invisible.

In her signature series, Your Soul Wants Five Things, Janet gently guides readers and course members as they embody the mystical practices of writing at the soul level, living sacred values, serving a divine purpose, expressing beauty, and creating fertile conditions that nourish an abundant life. Her highly regarded Unity Online Radio show, The Soul-Directed Life, regularly hosts internationally renowned spiritual authors and mystics.

Janet lives in as much silence and solitude as possible in Ozona, a tiny Florida town on the Gulf of Mexico, nurturing a global community practicing "The 9 Containers of Love," and welcoming the next adventures in the mystery.

Visit Janet at www.janetconner.com

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

WRITING DOWN YOUR SOUL

How to Activate and Listen to the Extraordinary Voice Within

By Janet Conner

Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC

Copyright © 2008 Janet Conner
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-57324-356-8

Contents

Before We Begin
How I Discovered the Voice—or Rather, How the Voice Discovered Me
What Is Writing Down Your Soul?
What Do I Need?
Who or What Is Listening?
Why Write?
How Do I Write Down My Soul?
Step One: Show Up
Step Two: Open Up
Step Three: Listen Up
Step Four: Follow Up
Before We Close
Resources
Recap of the Four Steps to Writing Down Your Soul
Books, Glorious Books
People and Organizations
Differences Between Writing Down Your Soul and Journaling
Thirty-Day Writing Log
Permissions
Acknowledgments

CHAPTER 1

Before We Begin

THERE IS A VOICE INSIDE YOU. There is a Voice inside everyone. Whether you hearit or not, the Voice is there. Whether you acknowledge it or not, the Voice isthere. Whether you ask it for help or ignore its guidance, the Voice is stillthere. Waiting. It is waiting for you to stop, if just for a moment, and listen.The Voice is always there, guiding you, encouraging you, loving you. This bookis about connecting with that Voice.

I'll let you in on a sweet little secret right here on the very first page:connecting with that Voice is easy. And why shouldn't it be? The Voice isn'ttrying to hide from you—it is seeking you. It knows the rich conversation thatawaits you both. It knows what you need and longs to give it to you. So it staysclose at hand, in your heart, your mind, your soul. The Voice is right there,barely below the surface, waiting for you to pick up your pen and penetrate thethin wall of consciousness that keeps you apart.

But why the pen? Why writing? After all, there are other ways to connect. Thereare powerful spiritual and religious traditions like meditation, prayer, andritual. There are rich body-mind-spirit practices such as massage, Reiki, yoga,and tai chi. For some, longdistance swimming or running are transcendentalexperiences. My son swears he finds the greatest peace and does his bestthinking riding his motorcycle late at night when he's the only one on the road.All these things are good. And all of them work.

Nothing in Writing Down Your Soul is intended to supplant or alter the practicesyou use or the beliefs you hold. Deep soul writing doesn't replace anything; itenriches everything. Writing focuses your attention so clearly on the wisdomwithin that you cannot help but feel guided and loved. A young woman in aWriting Down Your Soul workshop expressed her surprise when she discovered howlittle effort was required to make that connection. "This is so easy," she said."You don't have to listen to a CD or buy a program, or change your beliefs, orfix your diet, or anything. Just show up. Really that's it, just show up."

She's right. This kind of writing is easy. There's no one standing over yourshoulder judging your grammar or punctuation or determining if anything you'vesaid makes a lick of sense. But make no mistake, the practice of pouring yoursoul onto paper is profound, and, in the way of all things profound, it can—andwill—change your life. Before you turn another page, consider this carefully: ifyou like your world the way it is, if you don't want to (or need to) improveyour emotional, spiritual, or financial life, if you are content with yourrelationships, your family, your work, and your home, put this book down! Don'tread another word. I mean it.

Because once you open that door in your soul, you can't quite close it again.You can't pretend that you don't know where the door is or how easy it is towalk through. Once you start engaging in rich, deep conversation with somethinghigher, bigger, deeper, and wiser than yourself, you'll find yourselfcontemplating ideas you've never considered, saying things you've never said,and asking questions you've never asked. Once you open yourself to divinedirection, you will receive guidance, but—fair warning—it may not be theguidance you expect. Once you start asking for more, you will start receivingmore: more ideas, more intuition, more inspiration, more wisdom, moreopportunities, more challenges, and more questions. Always, there are morequestions. Because the answers, as you are about to discover, live deep insidethe questions.

And let's not forget miracles. Ask and you shall receive. Every spiritualtradition tells us that asking and receiving is the law of the universe, and theVoice is happy to comply. Pick up a pen with the intention of connecting withthat extraordinary Voice within, and your life will start rumbling, shifting,and moving. Awakening, as if from a long sleep, you will see your worlddifferently, and you'll find yourself changing, subtly at first. Then, as yourtrust in the wisdom of the Voice expands, you'll find you have the innerstrength and confidence to create your own brave new world.

Sound a bit scary? Well, the best ideas are. We all want safety, but safety, itturns out, is a paradox. To feel really safe, you first have to step out intothe unknown, experience the fear, and discover that all is well. I can tell youfor ten pages or ten hours that you are safe and loved, but until you feel it—feel it in the deepest place in your soul—you don't know it and certainly don'tbelieve it. You have to step out into that space between here and there, between"who I am" and "who I could be," between "what I have" and "what I want."Nothing new can happen until you step into that empty space. Like Indiana Jonesin Raiders of the Lost Ark, you have to thrust one foot forward into empty airand put it down firmly trusting that something somehow will prevent you fromfalling. And something will. Something will remind you to be not afraid.Something will encourage you to explore the possibilities. Something will talkyou through the scary parts, and something will definitely celebrate your joys.From here on, the Voice will guide you. It will let you know that you are safeand loved.

Are you ready to begin? Then, by virtue of intention, you are now officially thewriter of your soul. Welcome to the profound practice of entering your soul andrecording the messages you find there. Let the conversation begin.

How I Discovered the Voice—or Rather, How the Voice Discovered Me

IT'S A SURPRISE TO ME and everyone I know that I'm the author of a book on deepsoul writing. The truth is, I was never much of a journaler. Sure, when I wasupset, I'd grab a notebook and write furiously for a day or two, but neverconsistently and never long enough to resolve anything. Mind you, I loved theidea of having a rich spiritual life. I loved to imagine myself sipping tea andwriting profound thoughts in a tooled leather journal with morning sun dapplingthe pages. To bring this fantasy to life, I bought The Artist's Way by JuliaCameron, but it sat on a shelf alongside all the other great spiritual books Iwould read as soon as I had the time. Meanwhile, I had a consulting career. Ihad clients and projects and reports. I had appointments and lunch dates andspeaking engagements. I was a busy woman—a woman with no time to journal.

Until November 1, 1996.

I had caught my husband sleeping with his secretary the summer before. He movedout in September, but he didn't move on. On October 31, our Halloween-crazedseven-year-old begged me to invite his dad to join us for our annual Halloweenextravaganza. But after trick or treating, my husband wouldn't leave. He thoughtwe should have sex. When I refused, he shoved me out the door. He screamed thatI'd never see my child again. He drank. He broke furniture. He cried. He dranksome more. When he finally left at one in the morning, I collapsed into a dense,dark sleep. At dawn, my eyes shot open, five words rocketing to the surface: Iam afraid of you. Those five words changed my life.

I called my husband at noon and told him I wanted a divorce. He didn't say much.Too hung over, I thought. At five, he called back. In a flat, barely audiblevoice he told me he had a shotgun in his mouth and was calling to say goodbye.

My mind raced. What do I do? All I could think of were those movies with themain character frantically trying to keep the other guy on the phone. Keep himtalking. That's it—keep him talking.

I talked first. I talked about our son, our beautiful son. I asked questions. Iasked how he felt, what he'd eaten, what was happening at work. He began totalk—just a few mumbled words, but he was saying something. Suddenly, in themiddle of a sentence, he hung up. No goodbye. No grunt. No shot. No nothing.Terrifying headlines flashed across my mind: "Estranged Husband Kills Family,""Man Shoots Wife, Then Self."

I started calling friends. They all had perfectly reasonable explanations forwhy my son and I couldn't stay with them:I'd love to, but my husband doesn'tthink it's a good idea. We don't really have the room, you know. I don't thinkyour son would be comfortable here, do you? Are you sure that's reallynecessary? Maybe he's just trying to scare you. Can't you stay with a neighbor?

Well, no, I couldn't stay with a neighbor. I had called my neighbor first, andhe didn't want to "take sides." Desperate, I called another second grader'smother—a single mom I barely knew. Before I could finish, she stopped me. "Comestraight here," she said, "I'll back my car out of the garage. Pull right in.Don't worry about clothes or food. I'll take care of everything." I grabbed myson and our Great Dane puppy and hustled them out the door.

My husband did not kill himself that night, but from then on, my family waspretty sure he was going to kill me. His rages often made it look like they wereright. Overnight, my professional life disappeared. Clients have a hard timesticking around when you go into hiding every other month. Friends stop comingwhen they see you wearing a police emergency call button around your neck. So,did I start journaling? No, I did not. I sat and cried in the living room, withthe phone unplugged so I wouldn't hear his threats, and the blinds down so hecouldn't see me if he drove by.

My mother, like all good Catholic women of her time, loved to say, "God works inmysterious ways." Whenever something ludicrous happened, I'd say, "OK, Mom, howcould that possibly be God's doing?" And she'd say, "Well, dear, God works inmysterious ways." I always thought that saying was a complete copout.

Until Harley, our Great Dane puppy, took things into his own hands—or rather,teeth.

I was sitting in my usual position, sniffling and dabbing my eyes, when Irealized Harley was no longer resting his head on the ottoman and looking up atme with that consummate Great Dane blend of sadness and devotion. "Harley," Icalled, "where are you?" I could hear him in the hallway, and I got up to findhim. He was loping slowly toward me, struggling to carry something too heavy forhis scrawny neck. I pulled his burden out of his mouth—and laughed. It was TheArtist's Way—now decorated with ripped corner, teeth marks, and Dane drool.

I wiped it off, sat down, and began to read. On page 15, I stopped cold:

Anyone who faithfully writes morning pages will be led to a connection with asource of wisdom within. When I am stuck with a painful situation or problemthat I don't think I know how to handle, I will go to the pages and ask forguidance.

Julia Cameron was talking to me! I needed wisdom, I most certainly was stuck ina painful situation, and I sure didn't know how to handle it. It was prettyclear that sitting and sobbing was not solving my problems. I hunted up a cheapblack notebook in my office and an old brown fountain pen. The book said towrite three morning pages. Well, it was morning, and at long last, I had all thetime in the world to write.

But I didn't follow the directions—that is, not The Artist's Way's directions.Something happened when I read that passage. My soul's needle, which had beencareening madly around its compass for weeks, snapped to true north and pickedup some silent subterranean instructions that guided me to write in a uniqueway.

"Dear God," I began. I have no idea why I started that way. It just felt right—necessary,actually. Whenever my parents were frightened, they threw themselvesto their knees and begged God for help. I guess I was doing the same thing in myown way. Of course, they prayed rosaries. Me? I vented. Oh lord, how I vented! Ifussed and fumed at God. "Are you paying any attention? Do you see what'shappening here? Do you care? How are we going to live through this? How can Iprotect my baby? What am I going to do? Where are you?"

I didn't write three pages that morning; I wrote thirty. That was a clue that Ihad something to say and writing was somehow helping me say it. After an hourand a half of furious, full-speed-ahead scribbling, I didn't have any answers,but I did feel a little bit better, a little bit cleaner, a little bit lighter.

So the next morning I did it again. Day after day, I stabbed at the page inangry black ink. I told God every last little detail of every last little thingthat was happening: What my husband did or threatened to do. How I cancelled myson's birthday party because his father said he'd show up with a gun. Whathappened when he broke into our house. How it felt to protect my son with mybody. What happened when we called the police the first time, the second, thethird, and the fourth. How the school insisted I drop my son off late and pickhim up early to prevent scenes at school. How I moved from one coffee shop toanother until it was time to pick him up. How I couldn't eat. How my soncouldn't sleep. How he gnashed his teeth all night. How he crept into my bed andwould not leave. How we startled in the dark at every creak and crack. How hecrawled onto my lap and rocked silently for thirty minutes before he would leavefor visitations with his father.

After a while, I noticed something. Not the first day or the second, but oneday, there it was: a little bit of wisdom on the page. Not the answer to mylife's problems, but definitely guidance for the day's. Occasionally the answerwas what to do or what not to do, but most of the time, it was somethingsmaller, something subtler, and perhaps something richer: how to shift mythinking.

The first time it happened, I stopped writing and stared at the page. Huh? Thatwasn't my voice. I didn't write that. I'd never even had that thought before.But there it was. And I knew, somehow just knew, that this guidance wasimportant. This guidance was it. This guidance was my salvation. So I followedthat guidance. Like Hansel in the fairy tale, I didn't know where I was or whereI was going, but I followed those precious crumbs of wisdom. Step by step, dayby day, journal entry by journal entry, I inched forward.

Every morning I wrote, "Dear God," and every morning the Voice answered. OneSaturday morning, I wrote about how powerless I felt when I suddenly realizedthat the newspaper article I was reading about an unsolved road-rage crimedescribed my exhusband and his truck perfectly—and that the crime had occurredthirty minutes after he had picked up our son the day before. The Voice wrote tome about the true nature of power. I prayed and tapped into that power andbrought my son safely home without leaving my chair.

I wrote about the heartache of listening to a voicemail of my son strugglingunder his father's screaming command to "say it!" until his little voicesqueaked, "Mom, you are a lying sack of shit." And the Voice wrote to me aboutsize. It asked me which was bigger, this terrible thing or the divine? I knewthe answer and turned my problem over to the divine.

I wrote about having an enemy—a big scary enemy. I asked the Voice what I shoulddo about my enemy. The Voice told me to love my enemy. I didn't like that. And,I confess, I didn't do it—not for a long, long time.

I wrote about how scared and weak and helpless I felt, like a person riddledwith holes. What's wrong with me? I cried. And the Voice wrote about strength—truestrength.

I wrote about court. Twelve times I cried all over the pages telling the Voicethat no matter what evidence I presented—the road-rage incident, the voicemailrecording, four police reports, parents who testified to my ex-husband'sthreats, proof of guns in his house—the legal system insisted our son haveregular, unsupervised visits with his father.

The Voice listened, wiped my tears, and listened some more.

I told the Voice how my son cried before visitation. "Tuesdays," he sobbed, "Ihate Tuesdays, because after Tuesday comes Wednesday and on Wednesday I have tosee my dad." I told the Voice to protect my baby when he was at his father's.The Voice always did.

I wrote about my ex-husband's weapons. The Voice asked about mine. "Words," Iadmitted, "words are my weapons." And the Voice helped me put my weapons down.

I wrote a list of all the things I didn't want to do but had to do in mymarriage. The Voice talked to me about the difference between "have to" and"choose to." I wrote about how I disappeared into a secret waiting room in myheart when I couldn't bear what was happening. The Voice talked to me about thebeautiful language of no.

I wrote about all the dreadful decisions I'd made and how badly they'd allturned out. The Voice talked to me about forgiving myself.

I wrote about my frustration waiting for the judge to let me move back to myfamily in Wisconsin. And the Voice talked about being frustrated waiting for meto become who I really am. "Help me remember," I said. "Who is this frightenedwoman?" And the Voice said, "Unafraid."

(Continues...)

Excerpted from WRITING DOWN YOUR SOUL by Janet Conner. Copyright © 2008 Janet Conner. Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Conari Press
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1573243566
• ISBN 13: 9781573243568
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 253