About Free Form Writing

From John-Roger’s book Fulfilling Your Spiritual Promise

Free-Form Writing (Appendix 1)

The unconscious if one of our most powerful influences because, by its very nature, we cannot be aware of its influence until it surfaces. We may find ourselves thinking, feeling, and doing things that we cannot explain or experiencing illness or pain with an unknown cause. The vastness of the unconscious is impossible to fully explore. It marks the division between our walking awareness and our true spiritual nature, and to become aware of our Soul, we have to cross that line into the unconscious. As we do so, we lose something of our daylight awareness. That is why so many people talk about their spiritual nature but so few are aware of it as a living experience.

For years, I have used free-form writing to help clear my unconscious. It is very simple to do. I have described below the way I approach it, a way I know works.

How to do Free-Form Writing

1. Find a quiet place and sit down with a ballpoint pen and paper. I also recommend that you light a candle because as you write, emotional negativity may come up and release into the room. Since it tends to go towards flame, having a lit candle may keep the room clear and the negativity away from you.

2. Allow a thought into your mind and transfer it into the pen and onto the paper. You may not even finish a sentence before the next thought comes up. For example the thought “go to the restaurant together” arises. As you write “go to the,” you may have another thought, so you start to write that next thought. You do not need to finish the first one. The next word or thought that comes up may be “help,” and you may write “hlp”. That is fine because you know what you mean by it and you do not have to worry about spelling or punctuation. But do not write in shorthand because that was not the form through which the thoughts and images lodged into your subconscious or unconscious.

It is important that you do not do free-form writing on a computer or a typewriter, since typing it does not carry the same impact and there may be too much negative energy releasing for the type-writer or computer to handle. Also, do not do free-form writing on a chalkboard or white board and then erase it. The energy that you released may stay in the board itself.

Free-form writing is a kinesthetic activity. The neural impulses from the fingers are sent back to the brain so that the writing actually releases and records the patterns of the unconscious. I call them the “beach balls”, those things we have suppressed for a long, long time and on which we have expended energy to keep under the surface. They can carry tremendous emotion. So at times you may end up writing very forcefully. That’s why I recommend that you do not write with a pencil: the lead can break and you lose the flow.

In some instances, you will find yourself writing as fast as you can, and at other times you will be writing slowly. But throughout this process, you should be writing continuously because there are always thoughts in your mind — and you are to write them down even if they are “I don’t know why I’m doing this. What should I write next? Hmmmm.” And do not be concerned if only “junk” is coming up when you do free-form writing: this means that the free-form writing is working.

It is very important when doing free-form writing that you do not just let the pen write. That is automatic writing, a very different process in which you may be giving over your consciousness to something outside of yourself. Free-form writing is stream-of-consciousness writing, where you must just write whatever comes into your mind. You are not giving yourself over to anything in this process because you are in absolute control of what is happening. You also write with the hand that you normally write with, not your other hand; free-form writing is different from the technique of writing with the subdominant hand.

3. When you get through writing, do not read it over. Rip up what you have written and either burn it or flush it down the toilet. Some people still feel the energy of what they have released even after they have burned or flushed the paper on which they did the free-form writing. It is important that you stop the process when you stop the writing. Have a set amount of time to write, and when it is over get up right away, drink some water, move around, burn or flush whatever you have written right afterwards, and go on with something else. Also do not go back in your mind to what you wrote or anything you want through or felt when you wrote it. Let it all go.

If you keep the paper, the lower levels of consciousness will hold on to the pattern, and the release will not happen. For the lower consciousness or the subconscious to release and let go of the things it has expressed, that paper must be destroyed. And after you have burned or flushed it, fill the empty space where the images and words were with loving and God. Do spiritual exercises, and allow the healing and the peace of Spirit to fill you.

After you have done free-form writing for any length of time, you may start to get some beautiful inspirational wonderful prose that you may want to keep, but when you are through with your session, you may forget where the beautiful writing was and want to read through what you wrote to find it. Do not do this because the energy and negativity that you released onto the paper can return to you if you reread it. Instead, as you are writing and thoughts are flowing through, take the pieces of paper on which you write the inspirational thoughts and set them aside, separate from the other writing. When you finish your session, rewrite the sections you want to keep. Then you can rip up and burn or flush all the original pages.

4. Never share what you have written with anyone else.

5. Star slowly but work up to writing for at least an hour. Actually two hours per session of free-form writing is optimal. Each person is different, but to notice some real changes, I recommend doing free-form writing for a minimum of three times a week for a minimum of three months. With practice you can get to the point where you can do this in fifteen minutes, but it will probably take you a year or so to get to that point. You can start by doing fifteen minutes at a time; then increase it, the idea being to work up to sessions of one or two hours. Don’t let the fact that two hours is optimal get in your way. As with anything I suggest, try it out as best you can.

The Effects of Free-Form Writing

As you do this technique a wonderful thing can take place. Because your free-form writing is often a symbol of an inner disturbance, you may find that pressure leaves you as you write. Obsessive behavior or habitual patterns may suddenly disappear, and you won’t even know what it was that was inside you or how it managed to get there. You will just know that it is gone. Often, it will feel like relief or a sense that somebody has taken a weight off you. The strange thing is that you will probably not be aware that it was there until it is gone. Such is the nature of the unconscious.

When it goes, I would strongly advise that you not even question what it was because you might find it and reestablish it inside. We are powerful creators. Just by thinking about how glad you are to be rid of it, you could reactivate your own memory of it and – poof! – it’s in.

There is something crazy about our human minds. We say, “But is it really gone?” And in doing so, we can bring it back. It is as if we were to quit smoking and then smoke another cigarette just to see if we really quit. Then we are hooked again. My advice is that when you let anything go, do not be concerned about it. Just let it go.

I have seen some phenomenal things occur with free-form writing; it has released people from psychologically restrictive patterns and from physical and emotional pain. Free-form writing does not do a great deal for you spiritually, but if you are feeling clearer and better about yourself, there is a very good chance you will feel better about doing spiritual exercises, which will do things for you spiritually. With your unconscious free, you will be in a better position to be aware of your Spirit. As a stepping-stone to Soul, awareness, free-form writing is wonderful.

When I see people grieving over the death of their loved ones, I can get drawn into it in negative ways. So I will spend a lot of time writing to free myself from this restriction. You can have a tremendous amount of empathy for others without letting their grief drag you under.

Free-form writing is like taking an onion and cutting a wedge through to the center. Then you leave a space, cut another wedge, and so on. If you leave the onion exposed to the air after cutting several wedges and do no more, the sections of onion that were between the wedges will dry up and peel away. And after a time there will be just a tiny seed left. In the same way, by releasing some disturbances through free-form writing, others still inside of you will fall away.

When, after free-form writing, you realize that you had been carrying excessive weight or baggage, rejoice in the feeling of freedom. When something releases, immediately stand up, stretch, and move around physically to experience your new freedom. If you let the area get rigid or tense, you may have another problem to deal with. You will often feel a sense of diminishment taking place, as though you are moving backwards inside of yourself, away from things; they are getting smaller and smaller as you move back. Don’t be disturbed. That just means that you are moving away from the materiality of the world.

The CD set called Living in Grace has a CD that explains free-form writing and also has music you can use as background to your free-form writing if you like. It is a public CD set, ISBN: 978-1-893020-38-2.

Courtesy of John-Roger, Fulfilling Your Spiritual Promise, Published by Mandeville Press, pages 325-.