Author: Steve Swettenham

Dialogue Writing Strategy (December 2020)

This month’s strategy is credited to Ira Progoff who developed the intensive journal process.

The dialogue strategy involves having a conversation with some aspect of our life. For the purposes of this newsletter, a dialogue with your body is the assignment. Ask your body a sincere question. Record the question.

The strategy guidelines involve three steps:

• Using only phrases or short sentences, list a 8-10 individual events or periods of time that capture a brief history of your body. Refer to individual events or periods of time that suggest how your body has arrived at how it is now.
• Summarize your reflections, capturing your present relationship with your body.
• To begin the dialogue, sit in silence, perhaps with eyes closed. Begin to feel your body as if it has a separate identity, as if it is a person in and of itself. Say “Hello” to Body and listen for its response. Continue the dialogue, simply listening to each other (recording both participants – you and your body). When the dialogue seems to have gone as far as it wishes, let it rest.

Sit quietly. Reread the dialogue. Reflect on and record your reaction to what you and your body were discussing.

Be willing to resume the dialogue if it seems that the conversation will continue.

List Writing Strategy  (November 2020)

Lists may seem so ordinary, so mundane. Yet, writing lists can be enormously helpful in giving our lives direction, identifying targets of gratitude and recovering memories.

This month’s theme is “joy”. This month’s writing strategy is “writing lists”. As you experiment with one of more of the lists below, notice the interaction between the two. As you write lists about joy, past, present or future, notice how you body responds? Notice how you feel if take a moment with each item on the list. “Enjoy” your reflections on joy.

Answer any or all of the questions using lists:

What five moments of joy come to mind quickly?

What would bring you joy to write about?

What do you imagine would bring you joy that you have not yet experienced?

What photographs or images do you think capture joy?

To whom might you bring joy to today, how might you do it?

What task would bring you joy today if you re-framed it as a privilege, shifting from “I have to” to “I get to”?

If you were in charge of developing a “joy menu” for people in quarantine because of COVID, what would be on the menu for them to order?

If you really enjoy “lists” you might want to experiment with a journal that specifically uses “lists”. This is a link to 52 Lists for Happiness: A Weekly Journaling Inspiration for Positivity, Balance, and Joy by Moorea Seal.

Story Writing Strategy  (October 2020)

Think of a setting in which there is tension, adversity, or uncertainty. It can be in the past, the present, or even the future. For a few minutes write about the context. Take the potential reader to the situation. Where are you? Who else is there? What are you seeing? Pay attention to details of your senses. Notice color, shape, time of day? What if any, smells, are there? What sounds can you hear? What is happening that is a concern? What happens that changes what is expected? What twist occurs? What is it that is funnier, easier, or possible that wasn’t evident initially.

Your stories may or may not be private. If you want to share them, send them along to Prairie Wind or share them with a friend or member of your family. Invite others to share a story.