The Writer Who Inhabits Your Body

The Writer Who Inhabits Your Body provides a comprehensive, step-by-step programme for writers to use their bodies to expand their creative capacity on the page and in their lives. It offers hands-on exercises, rooted in the disciplines of aikido and somatics, to help writers centre themselves and better access their authentic inner voice. This book helps writers confront obstacles like fear, doubt, and difficult emotions, transforming such subject matter into opportunities for creative exploration.

Writing is one of our most fundamental means of spiritual expression, yet the writing process can be challenging and imprecise, and both novice and experienced writers may struggle with accessing their innermost creative selves.

Taking an embodied approach to writing, poet and aikido practitioner Renée Gregorio offers a step-by-step experiential programme to help you centre yourself in your body and, in so doing, expand your creative capacity on the page and give voice to the writer within. She shares hands-on exercises rooted in the martial art of aikido and the practice of somatics—body-centred learning—to provide direct and detailed ways to help facilitate personal growth and tap into innate creative capacities.

Gregorio emphasises creating your own internal writing dojo to clear the mind and enable you to access the deeper currents of language. Exploring discomfort as a doorway to new writing territory, she reveals how to examine difficult topics, express the full range of emotions, and turn self-doubt, fear, and painful experience into courage. She also explores how to unearth the power and physicality in your own voice, using techniques like "re-visioning" to effectively edit your work.

Through immersive and physically focused experience, this book will help seasoned and aspiring writers alike work with the body as a wise teacher to better access, hone, and express their authentic inner voice.