Creative writing is something that comes easier now than when I first started. Before I would use backs of envelopes or torn scraps to capture the essence of an insight. Now, I lavish my environment with blank journals, easy flow pens and digital recorders.

Many of you who read my articles or schedule sessions with me know that I sometimes recommend keeping lists as part of your self-discovery or manifestation practice. I teach doing this in a certain way to help you open to deeper spiritual healing. It is not just a theory but something I test and use myself and develop with my master mind.

Creative writing for its own sake can also be one of the simplest pleasures of life. It might even lead to a new career, or help develop the one you have.

Creative writing to tell your story

Expressing yourself creatively for your own eyes – or to tell a story to others – can also be liberating in its own way. If you are looking for a method to quickly get your book written, you may want to try the novel-in-a-month approach. If so, click here for a good step-by-step course (my affiliate link). And if you seriously feel that you have a best seller inside you, take a look at some unusual ways for getting your book on the Amazon best seller list. Click here to learn more (my affiliate link)

How I create space for my creative writing

I use writing, including creative writing, for almost everything, whether it’s to be a fully developed article, event or other product, or for the manifestation of my desired experiences. My lists have evolved from shopping or to do lists to those I prepare as proposals for co-creation.

I support my creative writing process by keeping notebooks and MP3 recorders where I’m likely to reach for them:

• in my purse or day pack
• at my desk
• in a kitchen drawer
• on my coffee table
• on my nightstand

When I travel I always pack

• my largest capacity MP3 recorder
• its charger and carrying case
• some blank journals
• a few felt tip pens

I’m getting better at remembering to use my mobile phone or digital recorder to dictate on the fly. But I like longhand best for capturing what comes before it flees.

Usually I have soft world music playing while I write. Or I might prefer the ambiance of neighboring birds and insects outside. When it’s quiet enough I can sense the distant surf and catch a salt breath. I might even pack up my notebook, pen and recorder to keep my writing appointment at the park.

Scheduling your  creative writing when you’re focused

Two consistent times for my best creative writing are just before bed, and soon after I wake. I may also schedule other times when I have no distractions, and my energy is clear and focused for developing earlier musings.

Each writer has her own process for capturing the essence of creative thought, and these can vary. Angela Mayou tells about her seeming eccentric but focused creative writing process:

“I get up about five… I get in my car and drive off to a hotel room: I can’t write in my house, I take a hotel room and ask them to take everything off the walls so there’s me, the Bible, Roget’s Thesaurus and some good, dry sherry and I’m at work by 6.30. I write on the bed lying down – one elbow is darker than the other, really black from leaning on it – and I write in longhand on yellow pads. Once into it, all disbelief is suspended, it’s beautiful… After dinner I re-read what I’ve written… if April is the cruelest month, then eight o’clock at night is the cruelest hour because that’s when I start to edit and all that pretty stuff I’ve written gets axed out.” ~ from Creators on Creating (my Amazon affiliate link)

What is your creative writing process?

Do you use creative writing to manifest what you want or how you’d like to experience your life? Or do you use creative writing to heal or discover more about yourself? Does your writing inform, tell a story, or inspire?

And what do you do to inspire consistency? Do you have a special routine or private retreat for devoting time to your creativity?

I’d love to hear from you in the comments about your creative writing process. So feel free to share any methods you use, or how you use writing as a spiritual practice.

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“The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.” ~ Marianne Williamson

What does it mean to forgive? Volumes can speak to that. People most often associate it with forgiving others for a crime perpetrated against them or another. But what about self- forgiveness?

Self-forgiveness as a practice is how you happen to life. In other words, you come fresh and clean to your life experience after a spiritual self-forgiveness session. You are already in the state of non-judgment.

If you hold yourself innocent, you tend to see others as innocent. But more often it’s the other way around. Which is why to self-forgive is also divine.

But maybe forgiving yourself isn’t easy. Maybe there’s a whole lot of other junk in the way. Other things, people, events to forgive first. But then, there’s stuff in the way of that too.

How do you stop that train? Can you change the core of non-forgiveness? What is the best way to transmute the unwanted thoughts that bring about states of judgment? Psychologists have found that suppressing unwanted thoughts leads to — you guessed it — more of the same unwanted thoughts!

Which is why it is good to forgive, but not forget. Not just because you don’t want to forget the lesson and invite a repeat offense. That’s smart. But the other reason is because the more you tell yourself to forget, the harder your brain works to ensure you won’t forget.

What a merry go round. Just goes to show you how complex the human mind is, and how wily its subtle energy is when you try to go after it in the usual fashion. While there are simple mental techniques for helping you to release the thoughts, you may also wish to address their spiritual origins.

Meditation is one way to do so. Prayer goes along with that. But also, especially in the case of unforgiving thoughts, you may also want to take time out to think and feel with a pencil.

To really get to work and find out what the spiritual/emotional energy blocks are, try this:

Get out your yellow legal pad and jot down in one or two word lists the things or people you can’t quite get yourself to forgive.

Then, one by one, write to them — but never send it to anyone for heaven’s sake — and tell them why you can’t forgive them. You heard that right.

Don’t stop with people. Try to turn a situation or thing into an animate object for the purposes of this letter writing campaign: “Dear Mr. Computer, blah blah blah…” And, remember what I said about self-forgiveness. Add your name to the list, and when you’re ready, unload all that self-junk on paper too.

Now, why would I ask you to focus on the bad stuff? To release it. To get it out. To objectify it on something physical like paper allows you to then transmute it, by consigning it to the physical flame. Or in high fire risk areas, use the shredder.

In fact, use the shredder. It’s a great way to cut the energy of the paper that now holds the charge of your emotional ideas and energy.

But don’t stop there without doing the meditation or prayer technique. And then always follow by writing a “thank you for enlightening me so now I can I forgive and release you” letter.

As you write, feel what it would be like to actually forgive. Then feel what it would be like to have already forgiven. And then really do that. Forgive. And let go.

Again, I’m saying ‘let go’, not ‘forget’ — you don’t want to forget that it hurts to touch fire. So the same applies to forgiving hurtful experiences. The objective is for your memories to lose their charge. And they will if you do this technique correctly and thoroughly.

Next

Rinse and repeat, for each person or item on your list. But do this technique for only one at a time. Take a rest if you need to process things spiritually. You want to keep yourself from going faster than you can handle. And do see a practitioner or therapist if you need help to sort out the thornier issues.

Then, when done, fill in the empty space with celebration. Do something fun. Create a special place in your home that represents your new sense of freedom. Take a bath, and feel the energy of forgiveness changing your molecules while you soak.

By then you realize you’ve done this for yourself, not for those you’ve forgiven. Forgiveness is, after all, the old new way to make ‘you happen to life’. You can no longer afford to buy into the limiting belief structure that it’s the other way ’round.

The art of happiness is an inside job.

Being happy comes from within, not from the fleeting outer manifestations of life. But having the things, experiences and relationships you desire, is also your birthright. They go together.

How do you go, then, from inner happiness to outer manifestations of that happiness?

This is the question I ask in my spiritual healing practice when treating for abundance: When you focus on manifestation techniques, how much emphasis do you place on the feelings you desire in relation to the circumstances, things or relationships you want?

You can follow the best system on how to manifest what you want, but lasting results come when you first take time to clear yourself and then get to the core and truly know what you want. Not generally speaking, but specifically–down to the details that make you smile in pure joy.

You get the best results from your manifestation techniques when you clear any negative programming that form spiritual, mental, emotional or even physical blocks to creating happiness. You can do this with an energy clearance session. And if you want, prepare for a session by using self-inquiry to capture thoughts and ideas about what to release and what to attract.

I always advise that, before you set about learning how to manifest what you want, to first explore more about what you want to release and attract. Writing your ideas down is one of the best manifestation techniques: write to clear yourself of self-limiting or unnecessary blocks, and write to know, then attract, what you truly desire. Click here for a great course for a great course that teaches you more about this method (my affiliate link).

Here are some questions you can ask yourself when writing:

1. What have you been placing your attention on?
2. When something good happens for another, do you say you feel joy for them but later find yourself comparing yourself to them and maybe even indulge in a pity party?
3. Instead of revolving thoughts of why don’t nice things happen for me, how can you teach yourself to put your attention on the things that really make you feel good?
4. You can get to the place where you imagine good for yourself by transferring memories of past good times to your present time. Then bathe yourself in those good positive feelings and imagine yourself having what you want now.
5. The key word is “now”. It’s the only time that really exists and that your subconscious understands. The subconscious wants to give you whatever you ask. Your job is to be enlightened about what and how you request. Do this with good feelings in your body, higher emotions in your heart, and positive picture-thoughts in your mind.

It takes a bit of discipline to do this, but if you use that 5 minutes of writing and imagining while also feeling good about yourself, you are creating a new habit. Do this daily for 21 days, and you will have developed a positive habit of affirming the sense that you deserve your good, that you are worthy, and just generally feel good about yourself as you are now.

When you feel good about yourself, you energetically invite good things to you. You energetically invite others to feel good about you. But others who truly value themselves are not drawn only by your outer looks. So don’t use that as an excuse, telling yourself they won’t like you “because”.

Demonstrate your sense of worthiness and to reinforce the truth that you deserve good things.

A spa day or in-store makeover can do wonders to boost your spiritual-esteem. Do this out from self-love and self-respect.

Let it be only part of your internal happiness makeover and not a substitution.

When you consciously do all these things, clear yourself energetically and then imagine being and even becoming the person you want to be, you attract your new experiences, relationships, and all the other things you desire in life. From the inside-out.

Click here for more information on a course on writing and other techniques for manifesting what you want (my affiliate link). Or, if the link doesn’t show in your reader, copy and past this one:

http://instantmanifest.com/instant-manifestation.html

Related articles:

• How to manifest what you want: best manifestation secrets
• Using affirmations as part of your guided meditation experience
• Attract prosperity by being open to receive