Is anyone familiar with Proprioceptive Writing? I'm sending a suggestion to our
facilitator training group in Los Angeles (led by the indomitable Edward "Fast
Eddie" Zawidowski, who's finally gotten over his jet lag from Germany to lead
this motley crew for these first 3 weeknds in January.) I thought I would
share it on CT because of its value as an excellent concentration exercise for
Constellation work. Thomas____________________________________ In the last 3
weeks, Annalea and I have been practicing on a daily basis a form of process
writing called "Proprioceptive Writing," as developed 30 years ago by Linda
Metcalf and Toby Simon, then both English and writing teachers at Pratt
Institute in Brooklyn. The process involves putting on Baroque music, lighting
a candle, listening to the voice of your body-mind thinking and then writing
down what you hear for 25 minutes. Here's the website
http://www.pwriting.org/ The book is called: WRITING THE MIND ALIVE The ;
Proprioceptive Method for Finding Your Authentic Voice.by Linda Trichter
Metcalf and Tobin SimonBallantine Books, NY, 2002 The writing can be done
individually or even better with couples or in a group, and we find it
absolutely spot on for developing and --- even more importantly ---trusting the
Voice to speak the right statements that need to be spoken in a Constellation.
Since all constellation work derives from the Proprioceptive senses of the
representatives, i.e. inwardly perceiving emotions and somatic states, then
Proprioceptive Writing (PW) might be called Constellation Writing since it is
tuning in to the same soul stuff. I even refer to PW as doing "Constellations
of the Mind" The three rules of PW are:1. Write what you hear.2. Listen to what
you write3. Ask the Proprioceptive Question (PQ) The PQ is critical because it
allows you to reflect on your thinking. Its form is "What do I mean by
___________." you fill in the blank with a word or phrase that you have
written and which may be troubling to you, or charged with some kind of deeper
emotion. This PQ in writing to me is the equivalent of the question asked by a
Facilitator to a Representative, e.g. "How does the Father feel?" The
Representative is being asked to reflect on his/her somatic state/emotion and
to express that feeling to the facilitator. Similarly, if I were doing a Write
("a Write" is the term used to designate whatever writing you complete in the
25 minute period), and let's say I was hearing thoughts about my father and
writing them down. But the point is not to express the thoughts as in "stream
of consciousness" writing, but actually to interrupt the flow of thinking by
asking the PQ. Let me give you an example: "And I remember back when I was 9
years old when my father didn't come home that night and my mother was so
worried that she broke a glass in the sink and cut her finger really badly and
my younger sister suddenly went hysterical at the sight of all Mama's blood and
then the phone rang and it was the police and I freaked out and ran out of the
house. What do I mean by 'freaked out'? I mean the feeling that I couldn't take
it any more, that I had to get away, that my life was ending because my father
might be dead and what will happen to me and I knew at that moment that my life
would never be the same again and I never got over that night. What do I mean
by 'never got over'? I mean my father was OK. He was just in a minor accident,
but that night I knew that someday both my parents would die and so would I and
that experience changed me forever. I could never be a little boy again. I had
to grow up. What do I mean by 'grow up'? . . . " I hope that captures some of
the flavor of PW. To me, asking the PQ is very similar to the experience I've
had so many times as a representative when the facilitator brings in a new
person or element and asks me how I feel now. "Has anything changed for you
since I brought in this new element?" Whatever was my previous flow or track of
feeling is suddenly shifted by the new element and then I have to find words to
express the new feelings or somatics. For our little group, I could see us
doing a group Write first thing in the mornings, Saturday and/or Sunday, even
before Check-in. The only hardware it requires is: pens, paper, candles, our CD
player with lots of Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Corelli, Mozart, etc., and our
infamous and alarming stopwatch. With 25 minutes for the Write itself and an
optional reading out loud of several Writes afterwards, we could fit it all
into a 45 minute time period. Check it out and see what you think. On second
thought, hear what you think and let us know. See you Saturday morn!
Thomas._____________________________________
