What excites me more than anything is what I like to call “juicy practices for getting present.”  By this, I mean practices that arouse my curiosity, teach me to accept myself and the world as I find it and encourage me to experience moments of delight available right now—moments where I feel present and connected.

Today, I want to talk about one of these, called “Write Now Mind.”  Write Now Mind is a (free) online free-writing practice that I have led during Covid. It is a practice that requires only ten minutes of writing to a simple prompt per week, along with a commitment to offer encouragement and support to at least one fellow participant. Each session, a group of strangers from around the world gathers virtually and anonymously. Each participant works on their schedule. We don’t see each other or even know each other’s names.  Nonetheless, by the end of a 4-6 week session, we have forged an inexplicable sense of community reflecting our shared humanity and a feeling of potential.

This simple practice encourages us to express so people will listen and listen so people will express. The secret to this practice comes down to a combination of authenticity and anonymity. Anonymity may sound like we are hiding something–but the exact opposite is true. Anonymity has the power to allow us to unleash authenticity, which naturally engenders compassion.

We probably all desire to share our “truth.” But, too, often our “truth” contains the seeds of our uninvestigated conditioning. We strive to maintain a particular image and harbor a strong desire to be right. We daren’t be vulnerable for fear of looking weak. We avoid exploring our messy interior. The result is that our truth becomes watered down and morphs into an agenda or a potential resume.

I want us to get back to a raw truth deeper than any agenda, deeper than any image. I want to encourage us to share our authentic, imperfect selves–not our polished ideas, but our raw feelings, our unreasonable hopes, our secret desires, our hidden frustrations. I want us to share both our moments of delight and despair without the adrenal rush of either taking credit or fearing recrimination.

Ultimately, we want to feel true to ourselves, while connecting with others. We need to see ourselves in others and let others see themselves in us.  When we do, we tap into our shared human experience.

To experience shared humanity, though, we must first be willing to honestly reveal both our messy and beautiful thoughts and feelings, without cleaning them up for a social media post, without cherry-picking our “best” response. We have to dare to share whatever comes up–our broken, ignorant, and mediocre selves and our accidentally poetic, brilliant, and wise selves–to discover the unbroken greatness within and to see it is something we all share.

So, how do we do this? We need to practice.

The best way I’ve found is to allow our words to flow unedited without thinking—to ‘free-write.” To free-write, all we need to do is set a timer and write to a simple open-ended prompt such as “I notice…” or “I feel…” We write without stopping or correcting or “improving” what we’ve written.  We don’t worry if we go off-topic or stray into taboo territory. We just write whatever comes to mind. This writing is raw, but also fresh and immediate. I call it naked writing.

Second, we share that writing with others.

Just for a minute, imagine sharing an unedited, naked piece of writing that exposes messy feelings.  I bet it sounds scary. But, the thing is, this is where the energy for connection lies: in its vulnerability and honesty.  “Vulnerability,” Brené Brown tells us in Daring Greatly, “is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity.”

I’ve discovered that one trick to opening to this kind of vulnerability is to share anonymously with others who are writing to the same simple prompt. This practice reduces the inhibitions we have about sounding “stupid,” imperfect, or (goddess help me) ineloquent.

Likewise, when we read someone’s raw anonymous writing to the same prompt, we open to how we resonate with that person. Without the overlay of a label or visual cues or expectations, we let go of our preconceived ideas.  Maybe it is our best friend responding, maybe it is a stranger from across the globe.  We don’t know, so we meet them through the words that have flowed. When we meet each other label-less we more easily see ourselves in another. We listen carefully for what the person is trying to communicate about how they feel, rather than judging the way they have communicated. We naturally support and encourage them.

Invariably, we get it.  We feel connected because we, too, have felt the same way. As we witness the ups and downs of feelings and desires, of people who may come from a radically different station in life, we tap into the flow of humanity itself.  Each of us has good and bad days. Each moment might have the seeds of delight and despair. Any one of us might feel elated or grief-stricken, energized, or depleted. We just never dare to share these. But when we do, we feel the commonality of being human. We feel connected.

And, it takes hardly any time at all.

Repeatedly participants from vastly different backgrounds, who have engaged in this kind of practice, report a sense of community and connection in just ten minutes per week  (and without Zoom!)

Regardless of any other things happening in our world, we are part of shared humanity. Touching into that underlying commonality and oneness–that sense of presence that comes when we tune in to right now by paying attention to the moment at hand without any coverings–is what I want to foster.

Visit my Write Now Mind page to learn more and sign up!  it’s free.

Photo by Hello I’m Nik on Unsplash