Writing with your body

Introduction

This exercise helps you gently connect with your body and write from what you feel there. You begin by feeling, then you listen, and afterwards you write a dialogue with the body part that is asking for attention. This is how you get to know your inner signals better and give words to what lives within your body.

This is how you do the exercise

Before you start writing, it is good to first connect with your body.

• Bring your attention from the outside to the inside. Feel how you inhale and follow the breath through your body. Where does it expand, in your chest, your diaphragm, your abdomen? Do you perhaps also feel your back expanding? And then shift your attention to the exhale. Do you feel how your body deflates a bit again. Your shoulders, your ribs, somewhere else? Inhale and exhale a few more times.
• Then you bring your attention throughout your whole body. Scan your skull, your face, your throat, neck, your chest, your abdomen, your upper back, your lower back, your shoulders and arms, your hands, then to your pelvis, your thighs, shins, calves, and your feet. To scan your body, you can use your breath by moving along a different body part with each breath.
• Zoom in on your whole body. Is there an area that wants attention? How does this area feel? What sensations are you aware of? You can place your hand on it for a moment to connect with it. You can then ask this area what it needs. What does it need?

Writing assignment

Write a dialogue with the body part that drew your attention. What do you want to tell or ask the body part? What does the body part want to let you know? You can use two colors of pens for this. Conclude with a wish for each other.