The Gospel of Writing According to Marilyn: Chapters 3

Chapter 3: Expressing What's In Our Hearts and Minds is a Direct Way to Access Your God, No Matter What Name You Use to Describe Him/Her

Writing is a deceptively difficult art. It takes time, perseverance, patience, desire, and did I say, perseverance. Only write if you truly want to. As a writer I know put it, there are easier ways to be miserable. However, the rewards are great.

Writing brings a feeling of power and freedom. And if you do it regularly and with consistency, you will get better.

Through writing, we access the inner landscape of our soul. Writing is about learning to pay attention, and then to communicate what you see in the environment around you and how you perceive what you observe. As a writer, it's your task to see people and things as they really are. To do this, you have to know who you are. This requires you to keep bringing your mind back to what is really there to be seen. To be a writer, you have to be awed by what's going on inside of you, and then open yourself to the world around you. Think of those times when you've read something that truly moves you, where you have a glimpse of the writer's soul.

One purpose of spiritual or personal development (what I call human potential) writers is to help others find meaning in their life. To do this, a writer must record what they see in a way that transforms the reader's ideas, their beliefs, and their universe. And when all is said and done, what a reader really wants is to know the author better. That's why I always tell my clients that what you write reflects, and oftentimes reveals, the process you are in right now. Let me give you an example. I worked with a client who was writing about leadership from the heart versus the head. When I saw his first draft, it was uninspired, dry, and boring. I called him up and said, "Bob, what are you writing about?" He replied, "Leadership from the heart, not the head." I asked him, "And where do you think you are writing from?" There was a long pause, and he finally said, "From the head." I told him to go back to the writing and this time, to use a paper and pen and to tell the story, not try to explain it. Just write until he couldn't write anymore, until the story had been told.

He agreed to try it, and another draft arrived the next week. I started to read it, and said to myself, "He's got it! He understood what I was saying, and he's writing from his heart." About three pages into the draft, the writing shifted. I called him up and asked him, "What were you doing on page three when you went from the story into an explanation?" He laughed and said I'd busted him. He had stopped to "think" and decided he needed to refer to a file about a client. The tone of the writing changed from one of storytelling to one of explanation. And I, as a reader lost interest.

You will be writing from your own experience, and most likely from the process you are currently experiencing. To become a truly great writer, you must learn to trust that experience.

How does this help us access your god? Words come through your mind, but they originate in your heart. It is this heart center that becomes the channel through which your source, your god, your spirit, inspires you to share your messages. You become what my spiritual teacher refers to as the hollow bone. The style, words, and emotions you write are yours; however, the message and your need to write it is encouraged by energy from Source. When you understand how to allow yourself to become the vessel, you will be guided by forces that will take you on journeys into the depths of your imagination. The key is in learning how to step out of your ego-brain and tap into that heart-centered source. When you can consistently do that in your writing, you will become a powerful writer.

A true writer is driven to put some part of their experience on paper. What holds the reader is your enthusiasm, your emotions, how it changed your life, what made you want to write in the first place. The source of all of what you convey through your writing is your connection to spirit, to your god, however that appears for you in your life. One of my writers referred to it as becoming the flute that allows the breath of understanding to flow through. Allow the message to move through you from that source.