May 8, 2024 • 46 mins
In this intriguing episode of Answers Network, Allen Cardoza discusses with Renee Gregorio how aikido and other body-centered techniques can be applied to writing.
Learn how focusing on somatic awareness can change your approach to storytelling and bring more emotion to your work. This episode is for writers looking to connect more deeply with their craft by exploring the physical, emotional, and mental aspects of writing.
Learn how focusing on somatic awareness can change your approach to storytelling and bring more emotion to your work. This episode is for writers looking to connect more deeply with their craft by exploring the physical, emotional, and mental aspects of writing.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:07):
Thank you for joining us, andwelcome to another edition of Answers Network.
I'm your host, Alan Cardoza,and you're watching or listening to Answers Network,
and we're going to talk a littlebit about writing. And for those
people that listen and that know me, they know that I'm one of those
people that if I'm watching TV orif I'm watching a movie, I'm going
(00:30):
to pause it. I'm going totalk about the writing. I'm going to
talk. I'm going to say,Okay, now, did you see how
they did that? That was suchgreat writing and the way in which they
did it. On the other hand, I'm also one that will also point
out when I feel like it's lackingsomething so and it could be that when
you're watching it that you realize thatyou don't really care what happens to the
(00:54):
main character, or that it lackedheart, so you might start not liking
something but you don't really know why. Well, these are some of the
reasons. But our guest new bookis going to tell us even more about
that. And the book is calledThe Writer Who Inhabits Your Body, And
it's not a book on how towrite, It's a book about how to
(01:15):
bring heart Body and Soul to yourWriting. Author Renee Gregario is also a
poet, longtime a Kido practitioner andmaster Synamic Somatic My Fault coach, and
she has published nine books of poetryand has won several writing awards and grants
(01:38):
for her work. She teaches bodycentered writing workshops across the United States,
but lives in New Mexico. Renee, Welcome to Answers Network. Thank you,
Ellen, good to be here.Well, one of my first questions,
as I mentioned about kind of theway that I watch watch things or
(01:59):
re things, what do you dowhen you were when you're watching or you're
reading something, do you find yourselfeither recognizing something and realizing that it's touched
your heart or at times wondering whyit didn't. H Yeah, yeah,
definitely. I just read. Iread novels a lot. I mean,
(02:22):
I read poetry a lot, butI really like ending my day with reading
novels. And I've just finished readingAbraham for Geesies The Covenant of Water,
and it's a seven hundred something pagenovel. It's phenomenal. And I used
(02:43):
to be, you know, alittle bit afraid of entering into such a
huge piece of anything right, Ididn't notice at all. And his characters
and their story stories were so compelling. I just so, I mean,
I that is certainly what I whatI long for, right, And as
(03:05):
a reader, is that place whereyou can just fully be swept into the
drama, the colorfulness that you know, it's just phenomenal gift when someone can
do that. You know, well, at what point did you start to
to realize that that you could placewriting beside body awareness and practices and that
(03:31):
it would help you. Yeah,I got very curious. I was a
poet before I was an Aikdo practitionerfor probably about a decade, and then
I then I started training in aikeitaand became immediately fascinated by the energetics of
(03:54):
that, the ways in which it'sa martial art of cour but it's much
more about learning how to blend withanother person's energy and get out of the
way of energy that may seem aggressiveturn it, you know, just fascinating.
And I became very pretty quickly curiousabout what I was learning about myself
(04:19):
by being across from another person onthe mats, and what became became an
exploration you know, of of reallyreally myself, how I respond to energy,
why I might react in a certainway, What did I need to
do to expand that way of beingright? And so I started seeing similarities
(04:46):
immediately in the in writing and inpracticing aikda, and so I started to
put them together, just experimenting foryears with I'm going to read a book,
I'm going to teach an akito class, but I'm going to start the
class by reading a poem. SoI did that for a while. What
does read what happens to you asan akita practitioner, as you as this
(05:11):
poem descends on you, you know? And so I just started playing with
that those energies. Yeah, andI love it. And I think,
as I was telling you earlier beforewe came on the air, that that
I really appreciate akto and and it'ssort of my favorite martial art. And
what I appreciate most is the conceptof using other person's momentum to our advantage.
(05:39):
How how is that aspect of it? Did that have anything to do
with how it made its way youknow, to you? In dealing with
it as something that a writer sortof inhibits your body, you know,
you know, you know, it'sit's akito is like it's our body,
(06:00):
but we're using the momentum a otherpeople's body. And I thought that was
very interesting that you had a connectionbetween the two of these, because I
had never thought about that till Iread it in your book. Yeah,
let me talk a little bit justabout the whole idea of and maybe I'll
(06:21):
get around to that question central questionyou have, but the whole idea of
settling in your system and learning howto move from center, you know,
learning ja that place below your navelthat is this physical center of your body,
(06:41):
and literally learning how to drop yourattention from your the head, the
overactive head, into the belly.And what a difference that makes in terms
of what you're able to receive fromanother. So like that energy coming to
or do and turn it? Andso I mean think of that in the
(07:04):
writing arena, right that we're oftenwell, what am I going to write
about today? Or what's it goingto be? How? You know,
what am I struggling with? Youknow, it's often a struggle. And
one of the things that I becamepretty early on aware of was that if
I did as a writer, ifI did drop my attention into my horror
(07:29):
into my belly. I was ratherthan trying to think through something, I
was feeling into something. And thatseems like such it is, I think,
a much more fertile place as awriter to feel into instead of scrunch
and get all constricted. And howwill I do this? You know?
(07:49):
And that goes right back to theakdo mets and how you learn how to
flow with another person's energy and neutralizean attack, right. Aikido's the art
of peace, right right? Yeah, so there's so many parallels I feel.
Yeah, you know, and asyou're saying that, I'm thinking,
(08:11):
and I know you talk about essentiallya person being able to drop into their
body. If I increase my abilityto drop into my body, explain how
that's going to make me a betterwriter? Yeah? Well, I mean
(08:31):
if you hear people talk about writer'sblock, you know, or don't.
I don't know. I can't findwhat I'm going to write about, right,
And I think, to me,that comes from a very constricted place
in us, right, and soif I can shift my attention, so
I think a lot of what thisbook, The Writer Who Inhabits Your Body,
(08:56):
what it talks about is how doyou shift your attention. How do
you literally change your state of consciousnessbefore you write, so you're not taking
well, we take what we havewith us to our desk, obviously,
but there are ways in which youcan shift your state of consciousness before you
(09:18):
begin to write. You can dropyour attention. You can do that move
of like I'm going to drop myattention into my belly. I'm going to
feel myself and I'm going to thereforefeel what's outside of myself before I attempt
to describe whatever it is, youknow that I'm writing about. So I
(09:41):
think that's mainly how it works.You know, the more we can settle
in ourselves, the more we canlisten both to what's going on inside ourselves
but also what's going on in theworld we're writing about. We have a
question that is coming in through instantmessage, and again I want to take
this time to thank those that sendus in questions. Sometimes they come in
(10:07):
ahead of time and my producer givesthem to me ahead of time, and
these are often from teachers or peoplethat are working in the middle of the
day and they'll say they'll say,you know, I received the press release
that you sent out. I don'thave the ability to listen in the middle
of the day. But please askthis question and we try to get to
(10:31):
all of those, so feel freeto send us questions at any time.
This one reads, I'm a twentyfour year old writer who wants to develop
their own embody writing practice other thanyour book. What are some of the
resources or tools that you would recommend? And this is from Candace in Denver,
(10:52):
Colorado. Great question, Candace,Well, definitely my book here we
are right, and because not justas a joke, but because I do
take you through a process and eachchapter has a topic that I discussed,
(11:16):
but then it also has a practiceat the end of it. So I
think that there's that, but there'salso, like I suspect Candice might already
have some body centered practices in herlife. That could be anything, right,
that could be walking, hiking,a yoga practice, tai chi,
(11:39):
whatever it is that you begin topay attention to how you are in that
practice. You know, what isit that? What do you take to
to say it's say it's yoga.What do you take to the yoga matt
you know what? Maybe you couldeven get curious about whatever it is you're
(12:03):
writing about, and how do Ibring that issue to the map today literally,
right, Yeah, I think Iwould start with the practices I'm already
in and get curious. Yeah,what would be a few other ways that
centering, as you describe it inyour book, that can help someone like
(12:26):
Candice being a a as she putsit, a very a young writer,
but also for someone who's had agreat deal of life experience, say an
older writer, or someone who's changingcareers, and this would be more like
me that, you know, justjust different ways that we can center ourselves
(12:52):
to be able to improve our writing. Yeah, there's there's a very fun
und mental centering practice that I presentin the book that comes from strosy Semantics,
which is the school that I wentthrough when I trained as a somatic
coach. And really it's central,I think to learning that centering in our
(13:22):
body is not just it's something thatasks us to really become more aware of
what's going on inside ourselves, butalso something that brings in. Brings in
the sense that we can feel intoour physical dimensions, so we can feel
(13:43):
into our length, our width,and our depth. And while we do
that, what we're doing is literallystarting that shift into a more centered place
in ourselves and curious about that,and we go, what is it like
when I feel more length? Youknow, what is it like? And
(14:05):
I notice, you know, okay, I rise up more, I have
more space in my vertebrae, betweenmy vertebrate, I feel my dignity more.
Well, what is that like tofeel the dignity of who you are
as you sit down to write,right, feeling into your with more feeling
(14:28):
into that place where you know,to the right and left of you,
How can I extend my energy outfrom this physical body out and what does
that? Do? You know?Oh? I start to see peripherally in
this space here, I start tofeel out into how maybe how I include
(14:52):
other people, how I include theenvironment? And then I feel into my
depth, which is you know,real both deeply inside myself but also where
am I headed? Where am Iheaded in my writing? This is for
any of us, right, anyof us seasoned writers, beginning writers.
I feel into what it is Iwant to write about. I feel into
(15:16):
my history, what's at my back, how I'm supported in that? And
that just that as a very centralpractice to land in yourself, you know,
to land in yourself and then tofeel out from a place of being
present and open and connected and thedifference that makes. Yeah. Well,
(15:43):
I also noticed that practices are abig part of your book, and I
like how you discuss, you know, you discuss a topic related to writing,
and then you provide at least ahands on practice for each chapter for
the reader to engage with. Howdo you envision or want to see a
(16:06):
reader to practice to get the verymost out of your book. Yeah,
I mean, my biggest hope wouldbe that body centered learning is as fascinating
to the readers of this book asit has been for me, you know,
and because it's a very rich placeI think of learning and of exploration
(16:30):
and discovery. So yeah, eachchapter has the topic. But also it's
almost like we have to if wewant to change something about how we are
being, how we are being asa person or as a writer or whatever,
that we have to start to practicesomething new, you know, in
(16:52):
order for that to take hold.So these practices are well, there's this
during practice I described briefly to you. There are other practices that largely come
out of Aikto and somatic work.And you know, there's, for instance,
one called the two step or theTangkon and Aiketo, and it's a
(17:17):
step turn, step turn, andit's basically taking that centering you know in
your body into action. And Igive reasons why that could help you,
as you say, go from maybea job where you have a certain you
know, responsibility and then you wantto then you come home and you want
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to write, well, how couldthe two step help you with that?
You know? And when we practice, and I talk about this in the
book, well, we have tobe aware of a couple things. And
one is like just being really curiousand not practicing to be write about something
(18:02):
right, because we're all going tobe clumsy when we first do anything right.
But getting curious about how am Iin this practice? Like what do
I notice about how I show upwhen I practice this new move? You
know, So that and having funwith it, but also why am I
practicing? You know? What's thepoint of doing this? So we want
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to bring in like some engagement withourselves emotionally to make the practice have that
kind of hef to it sounds great. What are some of the most memorable
or transformative experiences that you personally hadwhile writing this book or using the exercises
(18:48):
that you've put in it. Thankyou for that. I think, you
know, I think what led meto even write this book was because of
the memorable experiences I've had. Soone of the things about body centered learning
(19:11):
akito practice, however you approach it, is the importance of having an observer,
So having a teacher on the mats. I have learned so much from
letting in what someone else sees inmy movement. And one of the first
(19:33):
very startling to me at the timelessons was about using One of my clients
ended up calling it the habit ofeffort. So it's like, ah,
and she took this this idea ofwhen we get say, grabbed on the
ikto mats right, grabbed in life, whatever, what what do you?
(20:00):
What do we do? And alot of what we contend to do is
use our biceps, use our muscles, tense up right. And I learned
because of my really very good ikidoteacher observing in me that I was,
even in the very simple move onthe mats, I was using my bicep
(20:22):
and I didn't need to use mybicep. And he had a particular way
of letting me know that that waswoke me up, which was you know,
come over and kind of whack meand go you don't need to use
your bicep, you know. AndI'm like, well, okay, so
if I like go of using it, which is efforting. If I let
(20:47):
go of efforting, what takes itsplace is what comes back to one of
your first questions, Ellen, whichis that that momentum of energy coming at
us and joining that energy. Sothat was a really important piece for me,
that the effort and the not effortingand if we don't effort, what
(21:11):
then can come in? So let'syeah, let's tie that part into into
writing. And that was kind ofwhere my brain is going into because you
know, and I understand the partabout so you know, the momentum that's
coming against us, and you're rightin in so many things where there's a
(21:33):
physical situation, you know, itis our our initial thought to tense up
ors again, to use our musclesto keep this from happening. And the
part about the flow, you know, the person that's coming at you,
the flow to learn how to turnand then to make movement and sort of
(21:53):
help them past you or whatever.I thought that was so interesting too to
see that as writing or as youmentioned before about a writing block, How
can I get the flow? Andam I causing my own block because I'm
tensing up or I'm trying to workagainst something that's there right? Right,
(22:14):
So I think it's you know,it all comes back to that place of
practice. Right. So the moreand why I think the body is central
to this is the more that Ican understand, really understand not in my
mind, but through my whole systemthat what I'm doing is efforting or using
(22:37):
my bicep the metaphor of that rightfrom my desk, right and I'm and
I'm struggling with a poem, astory at whatever, this book, you
know, rather than first of allnoticing, oh, there I go.
You know, this is what Ido. Knowing what each of us does
(23:02):
something different, right, So,but knowing your own pattern of tightening and
literally you know, getting up anddoing a centering practice or doing a two
steper, walking outside or taking inwhat's separate from you, separate from that,
(23:22):
observing you know, the natural environmentand letting yourself feel it, all
those ways of like shifting again yourstate of consciousness. So it's not the
tightening, it's the it's the allowingthe flow. But knowing that in allowing
the flow at our desk might beOh, I'm open to receiving. I'm
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listening right, and I'm opening toreceiving whatever it is that wants to move
through me in the form of language. You know, so right, So
I'm gonna think of it. There'sa maybe one of my own issues in
(24:06):
the same sense of what you're saying, in a way of letting something flow
to go go through me, orthe metaphor of using my muscles. If
I'm stuck and I am working ona particular project in that project is is
fiction And then but I also havea nonfiction project. And what I'll find
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myself is is I'll be stuck onsomething and in my frustration anyway, I'll
think of something else, and thenall of a sudden, my attention will
focus to something else, and thenI'll start going in a different direction.
So now I'm on say, forinstance, now a nonfiction project, is
(24:56):
that me utilizing my muscle but goingin the wrong direction, And how do
I get that to where I letthat kind of flow through me so that
I can stay focused on the topicthat I'm trying to remain on. Yeah,
what I was going to say whenyou first started speaking, was that
(25:21):
it sounded like more of an issueof focus, you know, more of
an issue of Okay, I'm workingon this piece and then this other thing
comes in, so I'll go followthat. Maybe better to stay with where
you began, you know, Imean really following that through. And I
don't know, you know, notknowing enough about you, but I don't
(25:45):
know if it could also be aboutdirect being direct and developing a sense of
I'm going to really cut to thechase here, or I'm going to really
look at this completely straight on,you know, and I'm going to stay
(26:07):
with this until I until the wholethought is through or the whole you know,
and then I can move over here. Right, And kind of what
I was kind of what I wasgetting from it when you mentioned about get
up, tap pants, do somethingelse. You know, if if that's
the part that was allowing the flowor whatever it is that took me off,
(26:30):
you know, off subject at thatmoment, dance or whatever, is
that sort of metaphorically allowing that thatissue to pass, or or me not
muscling up to try to fight it, but get up, do that and
then come back when I can stayon that particular topic exactly fiction versus the
(26:55):
nonfiction, right, exactly, yeah, yeah, following yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah. So there wasanother thing that I'd gotten again from going
through the book. Because I'm someoneI read Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence, and
I know that we often think aboutintelligence as being mind based. But after
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reading his book, what is thesort of intelligence you refer to when you
wrote the phrase the belly is asource of knowing or the belly is a
source of knowledge. Share with mea little bit about that. How that
ties in with emotional intelligence. Yeah, I think that they're not. It's
(27:45):
not that they're operating vastly differently.Emotional intelligence and I might say this belly
knowing or you could say somatic intelligence, right, I mean, they're they're
They're both about being more cognizant ofour emotional life and being more self aware
(28:07):
and being compassionate and empathetic. Youknow, emotional intelligence talks a lot about
those qualities, and this more bellycentered somatic intelligence, all of those things
also come to the surface. Webecome more self aware and more open,
(28:30):
more permeable, more able to seewider, to get out of our own
way, and to be connected towhat's outside of ourselves. But we're doing
it through through the body, notthrough the mind, right, I mean
our mind is I think all overour body. Right, it exists everywhere,
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and as it's in our gut,it's in our heart, you know,
So that separation is it doesn't evenmake sense anymore, you know.
So somatic intelligence. I mean thatthe Japanese have have a term called haa
again being that center of the bodyhaa gay, which is the art of
(29:18):
the belly, so that you know, they have this whole belief system in
how much knowledge there is. Literallyif we drop into our belly, right,
drop our attention and focus there,something else is available to us.
In terms of intelligence, I feelyou and think of the ikito mats or
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or even a really good conversation.I feel you through belly to belly.
You know. The hiragay would saythat, right, I can tell what
you're going to do if I'm reallygood at that because I sense it.
So it's a much more deeply sensingintelligence. Yeah. Another thing came out
(30:07):
of the book, and as someonewho as a younger person spent quite a
bit of time in Dojo's you writea lot about dojo's in the book,
and you even suggest that the bookitself could be looked at as a dojo.
Share the correlation that you find inthis Yeah, so dojo being a
(30:32):
place of learning, a place ofawakening, a sacred space. You know,
I always remember walking into the Aikidadojo and literally crossing that threshold and
becoming, you know, changing myclothes, becoming ready to learn, you
know, ready to see something Ididn't see before, to feel something I
(30:56):
didn't know before. It's to me, it's a dojo can be anywhere.
It's a declared space. So it'ssaying, yeah, there's an akdo dojo
or many number of martial arts dojos, but also the dojo. I can
(31:17):
say, this writing space I'm inright here is a dojo if I treat,
if I declare that when I walkinto the space, I value it
in a particular way. I sayto myself, something's going to happen in
here. You know, I'm declaringthat this is a place where I'm going
(31:37):
to learn and grow and change andwrite my ass off, you know.
I mean, so it's a it'sa yeah, that's a dojo. The
book is a dojo because you know, we're learning. It's a learning community,
or that's the other piece of it, or together we're learning. In
the dojo of the book, they'rea press pices there are there's a teacher,
(32:04):
you know, so usually that's thecase with a dojo too well.
And another one of the things thatI also in getting from the book and
why I thought it was very interestingwhen you refer to it as a dojo,
is from the moment we would walkinto a dojo, there was structure.
Yeah, And what I felt inthe book was that from the moment
(32:27):
I started reading it, there wasstructure. And you know, again there
was structure, there was example,there were things that made me feel again
kind of that same feeling of Okay, when I sit down and when I
read this book, I'm going tobe in a more structured environment, which
also I felt could be very helpful. And it made me start thinking about
(32:52):
when I would be writing, becausein the past I've written in situations.
But it was and I could buytime because I was doing so many other
things, and I'd think somebody'd say, I've got this meeting. In that
meeting, and I've got thirty minutes, and so I would just kind of
grab the time, but it wasn'treally structured. You know. It was
(33:15):
because I thought I had thirty minutesor I thought I had an hour.
So the feeling that I got wasis that I think one of the things
that will improve my writing is tostay in structure and to structure the time
and say, you know, I'mgoing to write from this time to this
time, and I'm going to bein this environment. It's going to be
a quieter environment, you know,as opposed to you know, if I
(33:38):
was traveling or something like that andmy flight is delayed, and so I'd
go, Okay, this is agood time, and I'd pull out my
laptop, but the environment there wasso little structure there because I'm listening for,
I'm paying attention for when they're goingto announce something that might have to
do with my flight. And I'drealized that many of those times, I'd
(34:00):
look back at what I wrote andgo, I don't like it. Yeah,
I think it had to do withstructure. So again, that was
the feeling that I got, whichI really appreciated. I love that.
I love that, and it makesme also think about two words that used
to come to me in aikita dojo, but also in writing our writing dojo
(34:22):
rigor right, rigor? So wheredo we get to walk through a door?
And you know, have this sensethat, you know, demanding things
of us and moving us in aparticular way, we might not move ourselves.
And so there's there's rigor, andthere's beside that though compassion right,
(34:44):
A good aikita dojo, a goodwriting dojo. I think those qualities are
really crucial because we have to bekind of rigorous with ourselves to get words
down on a page, right,and then that and we also have to
be kind, you know, becauseit's a very challenging space, as you
(35:07):
know you've described, And yeah,I think writing is a challenging space.
Can you talk about what listening hasto do with writing and furthering how our
bodies can inform that type of listening. Yeah, I think that one of
the challenges for a lot of us, I know I had it is to
(35:30):
really be with our silence, reallybe with silence, be able to settle
ourselves enough to just be quiet.You know, our our culture doesn't really
teach us how to do that,I don't think, And I think that
a lot of writing isn't really recordings. It isn't so much I say this
(35:54):
in the book. It isn't somuch recording what we know, but it's
listening to what we don't know andto get that down on paper. So
it's like require I think writing reallyrequires us to settle enough to get to
this depth of ability to listen.And we're listening, and I've said this
(36:19):
earlier. I think we're listening bothinside ourselves and outside of ourselves, And
the skill is really about it's reallyabout like if we take a principle from
Aikido, which is extension, right, where we extend our energy. I
see my arms going out and I'mextending energy through my hand. I'm extending.
(36:45):
And if you think of extending asa kind of listening, so as
I extend right, I'm extending outto you know, the land beyond my
window there, extending so that Ican feel it more and listen in that
(37:06):
way, So that that's like notjust listening with our ears, right,
We're trying to listen with with ourwhole system right as writers. So yeah,
does that does that elucidate at allthe listeners? Yes? Yes it
does. Yeah, And again,as we were coming out of break a
(37:30):
message was coming in so and Ithink everybody will kind of see where I
may have made a little mistake.This one reads. As a single father
of two teenagers, I have hadgreat difficulty finding the time to relax and
write, which I love dearly.How do you balance the physical, emotional
and mental aspects of writing? Andhow do you deal with criticism or feedback
(37:54):
which I get at times from familymembers? And this is from Gregory in
Houston. Wow, that is aquestion. Yeah, I think there's several
questions in there, right, there'sat least two good ones. So so
(38:20):
let's go to dealing with criticism andand how that I'm trying to think of.
One of the things that I thatI do talk about in this book
is support and being able to feelwhat support what? First of all,
(38:40):
to ask yourself what do I needin terms of support? And then to
be able to bring in that fieldof support or those literal other human beings
who do support you're writing your whateverright and bringing them right in, you
know, like I had. Iremember having a client once who made a
(39:05):
made a group like a literal posterof her readers who supported her as she
was writing her book, you know, and she had them there, photographs,
whatever they were, with her inher writing dojo so that she could
readily refer to it. So Ithink that I think it's really hard to
(39:29):
receive criticism when you're trying to getsomething out. It's it's like that that
needs to be a critic free zone. I think the initial stages of expression,
and so I wouldn't show it topeople who were going to criticize me
at that point. Choose well,you know, choose well and feel that
(39:53):
support. I think that's a greatpoint. And before we go to his
other questions, I like to addto that because it said how do you
deal with criticism or feedback? Soyou dealt with the criticism part. I'd
like to deal with the feedback part. And the best way that I can
put that is is that with thefirst the first project that I wrote,
(40:16):
I showed it to friends and Igot really positive feedback. And then I
was on an airplane and the personsitting next to me was a very good
writer, somebody who had written fortelevision and movies, and we started talking
(40:37):
and I asked him if he wouldread my script, and he did and
in a very very nice way,he pointed out that what was wrong with
it, so he gave criticism,but he did it in a very nice
way, and we ended up becomingwriting partners from it. But the thing
(41:04):
it was was what I realized waswas that it's who's reading it, and
if they are criticizing it, dothey have the knowledge to even be critical.
So in this case, what Irealized was my friends didn't want to
hurt my feelings, so they toldme it was wonderful, and somebody who
(41:24):
really understood writing and what it tookto get something on the air or on
the screen was able to give feedbackon what was positive and where it needed
help and then eventually became a writingpartner with me that allowed us to now
make something much better. So ifthose are two things that you can take
(41:45):
from this, Gregory is you know, as as Renee is saying, how
to deal with criticism, but alsothere's ways to deal with feedback, I
think as well. So you don'ttake two, don't take put too much
into it that you get from friendsthat don't want to hurt your feelings either.
Yeah, I think, and feedbacktoo, it's so crucial, you
(42:09):
know, I think that I meanIn the writing of this book, I
sent chapters out to quite a largegroup of coaching friends who I knew.
As you said, you want someonewho has a certain take, who knows
the work, who can provide acertain kind of feedback, right, and
(42:34):
then it's always up to you asthe writer too. Yep. Yeah,
well, and I'm glancing at thetime. We've got about two minutes.
You can you give him a littlebit of advice on how to balance the
physical, emotional, and mental aspectsof writing. When you're in a situation,
(42:55):
in this case, a single fatherraising two teenagers. What's some advice
you could give them to be ableto set aside time. It sounds like
he's having trouble setting aside time andbeing able to feel relaxed to write intelligently.
Yeah. Yeah, it's such achallenge, and I think we're all
(43:20):
we're all so different in what werequire as writers to get the writing out.
And I know for me, Irequire a lot of solitude and quiet.
But I have had friends, reallygood writing writers who you know,
are raising children, who have saidto me, Okay, I dropped my
(43:42):
kid off at school and I'm inthe car and I have fifteen minutes and
I'm going I'm taking that time.I think that's very challenging, but I
don't think it's impossible. And Ithink the idea that the ideas we were
talking about earlier could so here withthis is my writing dojo, I'm stepping
(44:04):
oh you know, I mean anythingyou need to do imaginatively to say I'm
taking this time and maybe even havinga series of topics that could be dealt
with, or a series of questionsfor yourself, right that could be dealt
with in shorter writing spaces. Sowhen you that's all you have, you
(44:29):
can go there and feel like,Okay, I got ten minutes in and
they're actually very productive ten minutes.Yeah. And I'd also like to add
that I felt that you touched onsome of these areas as well in the
book, So for Gregory, Ithink that that could also be very helpful.
I'm glancing and realizing that unfortunately we'reout of time. So Renee,
(44:52):
I think that if anybody still hasquestions for you, what would be the
best way for them to get intouch with you? And am I correct?
And assuming that the book can bepurchased pretty much anywhere books are sold,
yes, it can be and it'sit's officially out tomorrow, so I
think any you know, perfect timing, yes, perfect, yeah, and
(45:15):
for me, I mean you canfeel free to My website is Renee Gregorio
dot com and my emails there andyeah, okay, well that would be
great. And again if you're drivingout there, we'll make sure we have
that information in the show notes inregards to the spelling and such, Renee,
(45:36):
thank you so much for not onlywriting a book that gives us another
way to look at our writing inanother way that we can improve our writing
and really make it more heartfelt.And I appreciate that very much, as
well as coming on the show andsharing with us. Thank you, Ellen,
Thank you. Enjoyed it all.Right, go out there, do
(45:57):
some things that you that you canpay forward to make a positive difference in
the world for other people. Andyou can do it by just being good
human beings. And we hope thatyou'll be with us again next week on
Answers Network.
Thank you for joining us, andwelcome to another edition of Answers Network.
I'm your host, Alan Cardoza,and you're watching or listening to Answers Network,
and we're going to talk a littlebit about writing. And for those
people that listen and that know me, they know that I'm one of those
people that if I'm watching TV orif I'm watching a movie, I'm going
(00:30):
to pause it. I'm going totalk about the writing. I'm going to
talk. I'm going to say,Okay, now, did you see how
they did that? That was suchgreat writing and the way in which they
did it. On the other hand, I'm also one that will also point
out when I feel like it's lackingsomething so and it could be that when
you're watching it that you realize thatyou don't really care what happens to the
(00:54):
main character, or that it lackedheart, so you might start not liking
something but you don't really know why. Well, these are some of the
reasons. But our guest new bookis going to tell us even more about
that. And the book is calledThe Writer Who Inhabits Your Body, And
it's not a book on how towrite, It's a book about how to
(01:15):
bring heart Body and Soul to yourWriting. Author Renee Gregario is also a
poet, longtime a Kido practitioner andmaster Synamic Somatic My Fault coach, and
she has published nine books of poetryand has won several writing awards and grants
(01:38):
for her work. She teaches bodycentered writing workshops across the United States,
but lives in New Mexico. Renee, Welcome to Answers Network. Thank you,
Ellen, good to be here.Well, one of my first questions,
as I mentioned about kind of theway that I watch watch things or
(01:59):
re things, what do you dowhen you were when you're watching or you're
reading something, do you find yourselfeither recognizing something and realizing that it's touched
your heart or at times wondering whyit didn't. H Yeah, yeah,
definitely. I just read. Iread novels a lot. I mean,
(02:22):
I read poetry a lot, butI really like ending my day with reading
novels. And I've just finished readingAbraham for Geesies The Covenant of Water,
and it's a seven hundred something pagenovel. It's phenomenal. And I used
(02:43):
to be, you know, alittle bit afraid of entering into such a
huge piece of anything right, Ididn't notice at all. And his characters
and their story stories were so compelling. I just so, I mean,
I that is certainly what I whatI long for, right, And as
(03:05):
a reader, is that place whereyou can just fully be swept into the
drama, the colorfulness that you know, it's just phenomenal gift when someone can
do that. You know, well, at what point did you start to
to realize that that you could placewriting beside body awareness and practices and that
(03:31):
it would help you. Yeah,I got very curious. I was a
poet before I was an Aikdo practitionerfor probably about a decade, and then
I then I started training in aikeitaand became immediately fascinated by the energetics of
(03:54):
that, the ways in which it'sa martial art of cour but it's much
more about learning how to blend withanother person's energy and get out of the
way of energy that may seem aggressiveturn it, you know, just fascinating.
And I became very pretty quickly curiousabout what I was learning about myself
(04:19):
by being across from another person onthe mats, and what became became an
exploration you know, of of reallyreally myself, how I respond to energy,
why I might react in a certainway, What did I need to
do to expand that way of beingright? And so I started seeing similarities
(04:46):
immediately in the in writing and inpracticing aikda, and so I started to
put them together, just experimenting foryears with I'm going to read a book,
I'm going to teach an akito class, but I'm going to start the
class by reading a poem. SoI did that for a while. What
does read what happens to you asan akita practitioner, as you as this
(05:11):
poem descends on you, you know? And so I just started playing with
that those energies. Yeah, andI love it. And I think,
as I was telling you earlier beforewe came on the air, that that
I really appreciate akto and and it'ssort of my favorite martial art. And
what I appreciate most is the conceptof using other person's momentum to our advantage.
(05:39):
How how is that aspect of it? Did that have anything to do
with how it made its way youknow, to you? In dealing with
it as something that a writer sortof inhibits your body, you know,
you know, you know, it'sit's akito is like it's our body,
(06:00):
but we're using the momentum a otherpeople's body. And I thought that was
very interesting that you had a connectionbetween the two of these, because I
had never thought about that till Iread it in your book. Yeah,
let me talk a little bit justabout the whole idea of and maybe I'll
(06:21):
get around to that question central questionyou have, but the whole idea of
settling in your system and learning howto move from center, you know,
learning ja that place below your navelthat is this physical center of your body,
(06:41):
and literally learning how to drop yourattention from your the head, the
overactive head, into the belly.And what a difference that makes in terms
of what you're able to receive fromanother. So like that energy coming to
or do and turn it? Andso I mean think of that in the
(07:04):
writing arena, right that we're oftenwell, what am I going to write
about today? Or what's it goingto be? How? You know,
what am I struggling with? Youknow, it's often a struggle. And
one of the things that I becamepretty early on aware of was that if
I did as a writer, ifI did drop my attention into my horror
(07:29):
into my belly. I was ratherthan trying to think through something, I
was feeling into something. And thatseems like such it is, I think,
a much more fertile place as awriter to feel into instead of scrunch
and get all constricted. And howwill I do this? You know?
(07:49):
And that goes right back to theakdo mets and how you learn how to
flow with another person's energy and neutralizean attack, right. Aikido's the art
of peace, right right? Yeah, so there's so many parallels I feel.
Yeah, you know, and asyou're saying that, I'm thinking,
(08:11):
and I know you talk about essentiallya person being able to drop into their
body. If I increase my abilityto drop into my body, explain how
that's going to make me a betterwriter? Yeah? Well, I mean
(08:31):
if you hear people talk about writer'sblock, you know, or don't.
I don't know. I can't findwhat I'm going to write about, right,
And I think, to me,that comes from a very constricted place
in us, right, and soif I can shift my attention, so
I think a lot of what thisbook, The Writer Who Inhabits Your Body,
(08:56):
what it talks about is how doyou shift your attention. How do
you literally change your state of consciousnessbefore you write, so you're not taking
well, we take what we havewith us to our desk, obviously,
but there are ways in which youcan shift your state of consciousness before you
(09:18):
begin to write. You can dropyour attention. You can do that move
of like I'm going to drop myattention into my belly. I'm going to
feel myself and I'm going to thereforefeel what's outside of myself before I attempt
to describe whatever it is, youknow that I'm writing about. So I
(09:41):
think that's mainly how it works.You know, the more we can settle
in ourselves, the more we canlisten both to what's going on inside ourselves
but also what's going on in theworld we're writing about. We have a
question that is coming in through instantmessage, and again I want to take
this time to thank those that sendus in questions. Sometimes they come in
(10:07):
ahead of time and my producer givesthem to me ahead of time, and
these are often from teachers or peoplethat are working in the middle of the
day and they'll say they'll say,you know, I received the press release
that you sent out. I don'thave the ability to listen in the middle
of the day. But please askthis question and we try to get to
(10:31):
all of those, so feel freeto send us questions at any time.
This one reads, I'm a twentyfour year old writer who wants to develop
their own embody writing practice other thanyour book. What are some of the
resources or tools that you would recommend? And this is from Candace in Denver,
(10:52):
Colorado. Great question, Candace,Well, definitely my book here we
are right, and because not justas a joke, but because I do
take you through a process and eachchapter has a topic that I discussed,
(11:16):
but then it also has a practiceat the end of it. So I
think that there's that, but there'salso, like I suspect Candice might already
have some body centered practices in herlife. That could be anything, right,
that could be walking, hiking,a yoga practice, tai chi,
(11:39):
whatever it is that you begin topay attention to how you are in that
practice. You know, what isit that? What do you take to
to say it's say it's yoga.What do you take to the yoga matt
you know what? Maybe you couldeven get curious about whatever it is you're
(12:03):
writing about, and how do Ibring that issue to the map today literally,
right, Yeah, I think Iwould start with the practices I'm already
in and get curious. Yeah,what would be a few other ways that
centering, as you describe it inyour book, that can help someone like
(12:26):
Candice being a a as she putsit, a very a young writer,
but also for someone who's had agreat deal of life experience, say an
older writer, or someone who's changingcareers, and this would be more like
me that, you know, justjust different ways that we can center ourselves
(12:52):
to be able to improve our writing. Yeah, there's there's a very fun
und mental centering practice that I presentin the book that comes from strosy Semantics,
which is the school that I wentthrough when I trained as a somatic
coach. And really it's central,I think to learning that centering in our
(13:22):
body is not just it's something thatasks us to really become more aware of
what's going on inside ourselves, butalso something that brings in. Brings in
the sense that we can feel intoour physical dimensions, so we can feel
(13:43):
into our length, our width,and our depth. And while we do
that, what we're doing is literallystarting that shift into a more centered place
in ourselves and curious about that,and we go, what is it like
when I feel more length? Youknow, what is it like? And
(14:05):
I notice, you know, okay, I rise up more, I have
more space in my vertebrae, betweenmy vertebrate, I feel my dignity more.
Well, what is that like tofeel the dignity of who you are
as you sit down to write,right, feeling into your with more feeling
(14:28):
into that place where you know,to the right and left of you,
How can I extend my energy outfrom this physical body out and what does
that? Do? You know?Oh? I start to see peripherally in
this space here, I start tofeel out into how maybe how I include
(14:52):
other people, how I include theenvironment? And then I feel into my
depth, which is you know,real both deeply inside myself but also where
am I headed? Where am Iheaded in my writing? This is for
any of us, right, anyof us seasoned writers, beginning writers.
I feel into what it is Iwant to write about. I feel into
(15:16):
my history, what's at my back, how I'm supported in that? And
that just that as a very centralpractice to land in yourself, you know,
to land in yourself and then tofeel out from a place of being
present and open and connected and thedifference that makes. Yeah. Well,
(15:43):
I also noticed that practices are abig part of your book, and I
like how you discuss, you know, you discuss a topic related to writing,
and then you provide at least ahands on practice for each chapter for
the reader to engage with. Howdo you envision or want to see a
(16:06):
reader to practice to get the verymost out of your book. Yeah,
I mean, my biggest hope wouldbe that body centered learning is as fascinating
to the readers of this book asit has been for me, you know,
and because it's a very rich placeI think of learning and of exploration
(16:30):
and discovery. So yeah, eachchapter has the topic. But also it's
almost like we have to if wewant to change something about how we are
being, how we are being asa person or as a writer or whatever,
that we have to start to practicesomething new, you know, in
(16:52):
order for that to take hold.So these practices are well, there's this
during practice I described briefly to you. There are other practices that largely come
out of Aikto and somatic work.And you know, there's, for instance,
one called the two step or theTangkon and Aiketo, and it's a
(17:17):
step turn, step turn, andit's basically taking that centering you know in
your body into action. And Igive reasons why that could help you,
as you say, go from maybea job where you have a certain you
know, responsibility and then you wantto then you come home and you want
(17:40):
to write, well, how couldthe two step help you with that?
You know? And when we practice, and I talk about this in the
book, well, we have tobe aware of a couple things. And
one is like just being really curiousand not practicing to be write about something
(18:02):
right, because we're all going tobe clumsy when we first do anything right.
But getting curious about how am Iin this practice? Like what do
I notice about how I show upwhen I practice this new move? You
know, So that and having funwith it, but also why am I
practicing? You know? What's thepoint of doing this? So we want
(18:26):
to bring in like some engagement withourselves emotionally to make the practice have that
kind of hef to it sounds great. What are some of the most memorable
or transformative experiences that you personally hadwhile writing this book or using the exercises
(18:48):
that you've put in it. Thankyou for that. I think, you
know, I think what led meto even write this book was because of
the memorable experiences I've had. Soone of the things about body centered learning
(19:11):
akito practice, however you approach it, is the importance of having an observer,
So having a teacher on the mats. I have learned so much from
letting in what someone else sees inmy movement. And one of the first
(19:33):
very startling to me at the timelessons was about using One of my clients
ended up calling it the habit ofeffort. So it's like, ah,
and she took this this idea ofwhen we get say, grabbed on the
ikto mats right, grabbed in life, whatever, what what do you?
(20:00):
What do we do? And alot of what we contend to do is
use our biceps, use our muscles, tense up right. And I learned
because of my really very good ikidoteacher observing in me that I was,
even in the very simple move onthe mats, I was using my bicep
(20:22):
and I didn't need to use mybicep. And he had a particular way
of letting me know that that waswoke me up, which was you know,
come over and kind of whack meand go you don't need to use
your bicep, you know. AndI'm like, well, okay, so
if I like go of using it, which is efforting. If I let
(20:47):
go of efforting, what takes itsplace is what comes back to one of
your first questions, Ellen, whichis that that momentum of energy coming at
us and joining that energy. Sothat was a really important piece for me,
that the effort and the not effortingand if we don't effort, what
(21:11):
then can come in? So let'syeah, let's tie that part into into
writing. And that was kind ofwhere my brain is going into because you
know, and I understand the partabout so you know, the momentum that's
coming against us, and you're rightin in so many things where there's a
(21:33):
physical situation, you know, itis our our initial thought to tense up
ors again, to use our musclesto keep this from happening. And the
part about the flow, you know, the person that's coming at you,
the flow to learn how to turnand then to make movement and sort of
(21:53):
help them past you or whatever.I thought that was so interesting too to
see that as writing or as youmentioned before about a writing block, How
can I get the flow? Andam I causing my own block because I'm
tensing up or I'm trying to workagainst something that's there right? Right,
(22:14):
So I think it's you know,it all comes back to that place of
practice. Right. So the moreand why I think the body is central
to this is the more that Ican understand, really understand not in my
mind, but through my whole systemthat what I'm doing is efforting or using
(22:37):
my bicep the metaphor of that rightfrom my desk, right and I'm and
I'm struggling with a poem, astory at whatever, this book, you
know, rather than first of allnoticing, oh, there I go.
You know, this is what Ido. Knowing what each of us does
(23:02):
something different, right, So,but knowing your own pattern of tightening and
literally you know, getting up anddoing a centering practice or doing a two
steper, walking outside or taking inwhat's separate from you, separate from that,
(23:22):
observing you know, the natural environmentand letting yourself feel it, all
those ways of like shifting again yourstate of consciousness. So it's not the
tightening, it's the it's the allowingthe flow. But knowing that in allowing
the flow at our desk might beOh, I'm open to receiving. I'm
(23:45):
listening right, and I'm opening toreceiving whatever it is that wants to move
through me in the form of language. You know, so right, So
I'm gonna think of it. There'sa maybe one of my own issues in
(24:06):
the same sense of what you're saying, in a way of letting something flow
to go go through me, orthe metaphor of using my muscles. If
I'm stuck and I am working ona particular project in that project is is
fiction And then but I also havea nonfiction project. And what I'll find
(24:33):
myself is is I'll be stuck onsomething and in my frustration anyway, I'll
think of something else, and thenall of a sudden, my attention will
focus to something else, and thenI'll start going in a different direction.
So now I'm on say, forinstance, now a nonfiction project, is
(24:56):
that me utilizing my muscle but goingin the wrong direction, And how do
I get that to where I letthat kind of flow through me so that
I can stay focused on the topicthat I'm trying to remain on. Yeah,
what I was going to say whenyou first started speaking, was that
(25:21):
it sounded like more of an issueof focus, you know, more of
an issue of Okay, I'm workingon this piece and then this other thing
comes in, so I'll go followthat. Maybe better to stay with where
you began, you know, Imean really following that through. And I
don't know, you know, notknowing enough about you, but I don't
(25:45):
know if it could also be aboutdirect being direct and developing a sense of
I'm going to really cut to thechase here, or I'm going to really
look at this completely straight on,you know, and I'm going to stay
(26:07):
with this until I until the wholethought is through or the whole you know,
and then I can move over here. Right, And kind of what
I was kind of what I wasgetting from it when you mentioned about get
up, tap pants, do somethingelse. You know, if if that's
the part that was allowing the flowor whatever it is that took me off,
(26:30):
you know, off subject at thatmoment, dance or whatever, is
that sort of metaphorically allowing that thatissue to pass, or or me not
muscling up to try to fight it, but get up, do that and
then come back when I can stayon that particular topic exactly fiction versus the
(26:55):
nonfiction, right, exactly, yeah, yeah, following yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah. So there wasanother thing that I'd gotten again from going
through the book. Because I'm someoneI read Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence, and
I know that we often think aboutintelligence as being mind based. But after
(27:21):
reading his book, what is thesort of intelligence you refer to when you
wrote the phrase the belly is asource of knowing or the belly is a
source of knowledge. Share with mea little bit about that. How that
ties in with emotional intelligence. Yeah, I think that they're not. It's
(27:45):
not that they're operating vastly differently.Emotional intelligence and I might say this belly
knowing or you could say somatic intelligence, right, I mean, they're they're
They're both about being more cognizant ofour emotional life and being more self aware
(28:07):
and being compassionate and empathetic. Youknow, emotional intelligence talks a lot about
those qualities, and this more bellycentered somatic intelligence, all of those things
also come to the surface. Webecome more self aware and more open,
(28:30):
more permeable, more able to seewider, to get out of our own
way, and to be connected towhat's outside of ourselves. But we're doing
it through through the body, notthrough the mind, right, I mean
our mind is I think all overour body. Right, it exists everywhere,
(28:55):
and as it's in our gut,it's in our heart, you know,
So that separation is it doesn't evenmake sense anymore, you know.
So somatic intelligence. I mean thatthe Japanese have have a term called haa
again being that center of the bodyhaa gay, which is the art of
(29:18):
the belly, so that you know, they have this whole belief system in
how much knowledge there is. Literallyif we drop into our belly, right,
drop our attention and focus there,something else is available to us.
In terms of intelligence, I feelyou and think of the ikito mats or
(29:42):
or even a really good conversation.I feel you through belly to belly.
You know. The hiragay would saythat, right, I can tell what
you're going to do if I'm reallygood at that because I sense it.
So it's a much more deeply sensingintelligence. Yeah. Another thing came out
(30:07):
of the book, and as someonewho as a younger person spent quite a
bit of time in Dojo's you writea lot about dojo's in the book,
and you even suggest that the bookitself could be looked at as a dojo.
Share the correlation that you find inthis Yeah, so dojo being a
(30:32):
place of learning, a place ofawakening, a sacred space. You know,
I always remember walking into the Aikidadojo and literally crossing that threshold and
becoming, you know, changing myclothes, becoming ready to learn, you
know, ready to see something Ididn't see before, to feel something I
(30:56):
didn't know before. It's to me, it's a dojo can be anywhere.
It's a declared space. So it'ssaying, yeah, there's an akdo dojo
or many number of martial arts dojos, but also the dojo. I can
(31:17):
say, this writing space I'm inright here is a dojo if I treat,
if I declare that when I walkinto the space, I value it
in a particular way. I sayto myself, something's going to happen in
here. You know, I'm declaringthat this is a place where I'm going
(31:37):
to learn and grow and change andwrite my ass off, you know.
I mean, so it's a it'sa yeah, that's a dojo. The
book is a dojo because you know, we're learning. It's a learning community,
or that's the other piece of it, or together we're learning. In
the dojo of the book, they'rea press pices there are there's a teacher,
(32:04):
you know, so usually that's thecase with a dojo too well.
And another one of the things thatI also in getting from the book and
why I thought it was very interestingwhen you refer to it as a dojo,
is from the moment we would walkinto a dojo, there was structure.
Yeah, And what I felt inthe book was that from the moment
(32:27):
I started reading it, there wasstructure. And you know, again there
was structure, there was example,there were things that made me feel again
kind of that same feeling of Okay, when I sit down and when I
read this book, I'm going tobe in a more structured environment, which
also I felt could be very helpful. And it made me start thinking about
(32:52):
when I would be writing, becausein the past I've written in situations.
But it was and I could buytime because I was doing so many other
things, and I'd think somebody'd say, I've got this meeting. In that
meeting, and I've got thirty minutes, and so I would just kind of
grab the time, but it wasn'treally structured. You know. It was
(33:15):
because I thought I had thirty minutesor I thought I had an hour.
So the feeling that I got wasis that I think one of the things
that will improve my writing is tostay in structure and to structure the time
and say, you know, I'mgoing to write from this time to this
time, and I'm going to bein this environment. It's going to be
a quieter environment, you know,as opposed to you know, if I
(33:38):
was traveling or something like that andmy flight is delayed, and so I'd
go, Okay, this is agood time, and I'd pull out my
laptop, but the environment there wasso little structure there because I'm listening for,
I'm paying attention for when they're goingto announce something that might have to
do with my flight. And I'drealized that many of those times, I'd
(34:00):
look back at what I wrote andgo, I don't like it. Yeah,
I think it had to do withstructure. So again, that was
the feeling that I got, whichI really appreciated. I love that.
I love that, and it makesme also think about two words that used
to come to me in aikita dojo, but also in writing our writing dojo
(34:22):
rigor right, rigor? So wheredo we get to walk through a door?
And you know, have this sensethat, you know, demanding things
of us and moving us in aparticular way, we might not move ourselves.
And so there's there's rigor, andthere's beside that though compassion right,
(34:44):
A good aikita dojo, a goodwriting dojo. I think those qualities are
really crucial because we have to bekind of rigorous with ourselves to get words
down on a page, right,and then that and we also have to
be kind, you know, becauseit's a very challenging space, as you
(35:07):
know you've described, And yeah,I think writing is a challenging space.
Can you talk about what listening hasto do with writing and furthering how our
bodies can inform that type of listening. Yeah, I think that one of
the challenges for a lot of us, I know I had it is to
(35:30):
really be with our silence, reallybe with silence, be able to settle
ourselves enough to just be quiet.You know, our our culture doesn't really
teach us how to do that,I don't think, And I think that
a lot of writing isn't really recordings. It isn't so much I say this
(35:54):
in the book. It isn't somuch recording what we know, but it's
listening to what we don't know andto get that down on paper. So
it's like require I think writing reallyrequires us to settle enough to get to
this depth of ability to listen.And we're listening, and I've said this
(36:19):
earlier. I think we're listening bothinside ourselves and outside of ourselves, And
the skill is really about it's reallyabout like if we take a principle from
Aikido, which is extension, right, where we extend our energy. I
see my arms going out and I'mextending energy through my hand. I'm extending.
(36:45):
And if you think of extending asa kind of listening, so as
I extend right, I'm extending outto you know, the land beyond my
window there, extending so that Ican feel it more and listen in that
(37:06):
way, So that that's like notjust listening with our ears, right,
We're trying to listen with with ourwhole system right as writers. So yeah,
does that does that elucidate at allthe listeners? Yes? Yes it
does. Yeah, And again,as we were coming out of break a
(37:30):
message was coming in so and Ithink everybody will kind of see where I
may have made a little mistake.This one reads. As a single father
of two teenagers, I have hadgreat difficulty finding the time to relax and
write, which I love dearly.How do you balance the physical, emotional
and mental aspects of writing? Andhow do you deal with criticism or feedback
(37:54):
which I get at times from familymembers? And this is from Gregory in
Houston. Wow, that is aquestion. Yeah, I think there's several
questions in there, right, there'sat least two good ones. So so
(38:20):
let's go to dealing with criticism andand how that I'm trying to think of.
One of the things that I thatI do talk about in this book
is support and being able to feelwhat support what? First of all,
(38:40):
to ask yourself what do I needin terms of support? And then to
be able to bring in that fieldof support or those literal other human beings
who do support you're writing your whateverright and bringing them right in, you
know, like I had. Iremember having a client once who made a
(39:05):
made a group like a literal posterof her readers who supported her as she
was writing her book, you know, and she had them there, photographs,
whatever they were, with her inher writing dojo so that she could
readily refer to it. So Ithink that I think it's really hard to
(39:29):
receive criticism when you're trying to getsomething out. It's it's like that that
needs to be a critic free zone. I think the initial stages of expression,
and so I wouldn't show it topeople who were going to criticize me
at that point. Choose well,you know, choose well and feel that
(39:53):
support. I think that's a greatpoint. And before we go to his
other questions, I like to addto that because it said how do you
deal with criticism or feedback? Soyou dealt with the criticism part. I'd
like to deal with the feedback part. And the best way that I can
put that is is that with thefirst the first project that I wrote,
(40:16):
I showed it to friends and Igot really positive feedback. And then I
was on an airplane and the personsitting next to me was a very good
writer, somebody who had written fortelevision and movies, and we started talking
(40:37):
and I asked him if he wouldread my script, and he did and
in a very very nice way,he pointed out that what was wrong with
it, so he gave criticism,but he did it in a very nice
way, and we ended up becomingwriting partners from it. But the thing
(41:04):
it was was what I realized waswas that it's who's reading it, and
if they are criticizing it, dothey have the knowledge to even be critical.
So in this case, what Irealized was my friends didn't want to
hurt my feelings, so they toldme it was wonderful, and somebody who
(41:24):
really understood writing and what it tookto get something on the air or on
the screen was able to give feedbackon what was positive and where it needed
help and then eventually became a writingpartner with me that allowed us to now
make something much better. So ifthose are two things that you can take
(41:45):
from this, Gregory is you know, as as Renee is saying, how
to deal with criticism, but alsothere's ways to deal with feedback, I
think as well. So you don'ttake two, don't take put too much
into it that you get from friendsthat don't want to hurt your feelings either.
Yeah, I think, and feedbacktoo, it's so crucial, you
(42:09):
know, I think that I meanIn the writing of this book, I
sent chapters out to quite a largegroup of coaching friends who I knew.
As you said, you want someonewho has a certain take, who knows
the work, who can provide acertain kind of feedback, right, and
(42:34):
then it's always up to you asthe writer too. Yep. Yeah,
well, and I'm glancing at thetime. We've got about two minutes.
You can you give him a littlebit of advice on how to balance the
physical, emotional, and mental aspectsof writing. When you're in a situation,
(42:55):
in this case, a single fatherraising two teenagers. What's some advice
you could give them to be ableto set aside time. It sounds like
he's having trouble setting aside time andbeing able to feel relaxed to write intelligently.
Yeah. Yeah, it's such achallenge, and I think we're all
(43:20):
we're all so different in what werequire as writers to get the writing out.
And I know for me, Irequire a lot of solitude and quiet.
But I have had friends, reallygood writing writers who you know,
are raising children, who have saidto me, Okay, I dropped my
(43:42):
kid off at school and I'm inthe car and I have fifteen minutes and
I'm going I'm taking that time.I think that's very challenging, but I
don't think it's impossible. And Ithink the idea that the ideas we were
talking about earlier could so here withthis is my writing dojo, I'm stepping
(44:04):
oh you know, I mean anythingyou need to do imaginatively to say I'm
taking this time and maybe even havinga series of topics that could be dealt
with, or a series of questionsfor yourself, right that could be dealt
with in shorter writing spaces. Sowhen you that's all you have, you
(44:29):
can go there and feel like,Okay, I got ten minutes in and
they're actually very productive ten minutes.Yeah. And I'd also like to add
that I felt that you touched onsome of these areas as well in the
book, So for Gregory, Ithink that that could also be very helpful.
I'm glancing and realizing that unfortunately we'reout of time. So Renee,
(44:52):
I think that if anybody still hasquestions for you, what would be the
best way for them to get intouch with you? And am I correct?
And assuming that the book can bepurchased pretty much anywhere books are sold,
yes, it can be and it'sit's officially out tomorrow, so I
think any you know, perfect timing, yes, perfect, yeah, and
(45:15):
for me, I mean you canfeel free to My website is Renee Gregorio
dot com and my emails there andyeah, okay, well that would be
great. And again if you're drivingout there, we'll make sure we have
that information in the show notes inregards to the spelling and such, Renee,
(45:36):
thank you so much for not onlywriting a book that gives us another
way to look at our writing inanother way that we can improve our writing
and really make it more heartfelt.And I appreciate that very much, as
well as coming on the show andsharing with us. Thank you, Ellen,
Thank you. Enjoyed it all.Right, go out there, do
(45:57):
some things that you that you canpay forward to make a positive difference in
the world for other people. Andyou can do it by just being good
human beings. And we hope thatyou'll be with us again next week on
Answers Network.
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