The Writing Warrior by Laraine Herring

Author:Laraine Herring [Herring, Laraine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: writing
ISBN: 9780834823228
Publisher: Shambhala
Published: 2010-07-20T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 21

Self-Study

Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.

—Richard Wright

We have spent a good portion of this book engaged in self-study, even if you haven’t realized it. For example, our shaking practice helps us pay more attention to our inner and outer bodies. The Writing Warrior practice pulls us back to our breath and to the page when we want to stray. We’re learning to sit and face our inner selves without judgment. The more we uncover our authentic writing, the more we’re uncovering ourselves.

Why is self-study important? Can’t I write a best-selling book without doing any of this inner work? Can’t I do good things in the world? Of course you can. But why would you spend less time trying to understand yourself than you’ve spent earning your degree or working on the craft of writing? After all, you came in with you and you’re going out with you, nothing else. Wouldn’t it be pretty cool if you knew who that being was that you’re traveling with?

In my experience, writers are natural questioners. This might have gotten us in trouble in junior high, but it’s a great quality for someone wanting to explore the larger themes of the universe, or for someone who wants to solve the mystery of the clock tower, or understand more about black holes. Every book poses a question. Sometimes the writer is aware of this question in the beginning. Other times the question reveals itself as the writer writes. Part of the tension that keeps a reader wrapped up in a good book is a result of the reader wanting to know what happens next. The what, how, why, when, or where questions that propel a reader forward in a novel are the questions you use when exploring your own depths.

Last semester, a student said to me, “Laraine, I’m just not as deep as you think I am.”

“Poppycock,” I said.

We’re all vast and limitless. What limits us is our patterns and our perceptions of what we think we can be. We likely have had some personal experience to support our claims, and that experience, rather than being a memory, becomes a taskmaster. Our responses today are often based on our experiences of yesterday. A guard to our inner depths has been trained to tell us there’s nothing in there worth seeking, nothing in there worth exploring, and, most importantly, nothing in there worth loving. Over many years, we have learned to believe the guard is there even when he’s taking a lunch break. We simply stop taking the trip.

It’s frighteningly easy for our habits to become our facts, just like it’s easy for our opinions of people, groups, and cultures to seem factual. But the warrior is ever vigilant. When your imaginary guard tells you to turn back, you stand your ground. “Why? Why should I turn back? You’re not the boss of me!” And so you’re able to take another step inward. Think of how many habits can become rigid assertions about ourselves over the course of our lives.

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