What happens for people?

Recently someone asked me a very reasonable question, to which I had a rather unreasonable response.

The question(s): What happens for people in workshops, in coaching, who engage with the process of Soul Writing? How does their writing develop, how do their lives change? 

Just as it did when I first heard the question, my heart tightens behind my ribs. It’s contracting with hesitation, with a little defiance. Because the answer that emerges in response to that very benign, very obvious invitation doesn’t feel like it’ll help explain anything.

I see only two options: leave the page blank, or decorate with the tritest, most mysterious, most powerful, tiredest, most common, most upsetting, most inspiring, frustrating, freeing, honest phrase a person can utter: 

I don’t know. 

I don’t know! I don’t know what happens for people. They show up and write astounding things (that I do know, actually, and it is true 100% of the time). Some stick around, others don’t. They say kind things about the process. They talk about their souls being fed and the lightness they feel. Or they say nothing at all, but their faces tell it: a subtle shift from abject terror to “ooh, maybe I can hang out here, in my writer self, for the rest of this session. The rest of the day. The rest of my life.” Some tell me they appreciate the safe space. Some express longing to do more and then disappear forever.

There is no one thing that happens for people. Experiences, like our souls, are infinite, prismatic.

The camp

As I write this, as I surrender to the “I don’t know,” an image appears.

I’ve set up a little camp on the edge of a cliff. I’ve erected an adorable painted sign that beckons people over: drippy magenta lettering against a pastel background that says “Hey! Your story is down there.” A swirly turquoise arrow points.

Folks wander over. Some sashay, bound even, attracted by the mesmerizing scenery and how cute the sign is. The camp is inviting, with tents and pillows and fairy lights and blankets and snacks. 

Then they notice where we actually are: at the edge of the abyss of imagination. They stop short, get down on all fours, collapse onto their bellies, army-crawl to the edge. Some are bold enough to stay on two legs, bend slightly at the waist. Peer over. They glimpse the vastness of the space below, feel the first gusts of wind drying their eyeballs. The take in the violent infinity of it. There’s something resembling a bottom down there but they can’t be sure. 

Some, like I did upon first glimpsing the void, abruptly shit their pants. All good, there’s a tent for that. No shame, we’ve all been there, go clean up and get a fresh pair of bloomers. Others scootch back a few yards til they feel steady enough to stand. Once their feet are under them again, they gamely smile, wave, and make their way back to the road they were walking. 

A handful decide to stay in the camp for a few weeks, months. Some have been there since the day the sign was staked into the ground. Once a week or so, whoever’s around grabs the hands of the others, and we all sidle to the edge. We lower ourselves down to a seated position and dangle our feet into the void. We try to keep breathing as the vastness threatens, as is its wont, to swallow us. We wrap our arms around each other’s waists, shoot invisible roots from our tailbones into the ground we’re perched on to hold us fast to where we are. We let the wind that whips up from the impossibly deep canyon of our stories blow across our bodies, the air of it entering our lungs. 

We let our stories visit us. We grab the snippets of them that come to us. No matter how we’re feeling, whatever our hesitation, we give ourselves time here, gathering to us the infinity of what we have to tell, one molecule at a time. 

Sometimes the intensity of facing the truth of what we need to tell is too much. Sometimes, for the sake of keeping our nervous systems on an even keel, we need to look in a direction other than down, or turn around altogether. Sometimes we tell a story that’s a mirror of the truth, or we simply describe what we see in the moment because there is so, so much of that too. There is so much agonizing beauty around us, so much else to write about that isn’t a direct encounter with memory.

At the end of a session, when we stand and move away again, back to the tents, the snacks, our lives, we’re different—both lighter and more enriched. The words that have moved through us have changed us. We’re unburdened, having looked at a particular truth for a time. We’re nourished by what we’ve heard, what we’ve witnessed in our friends. And we’re proud, fulfilled even, that we’ve done this for ourselves and for each other. We’ve been brave enough to scoop a story out of the air and tell it, and to have cheered our companions as they did the same.

The hang gliders

Then there are the few loveable nut jobs who not only stay on their feet when they look over into the canyon, but reach into their backpacks, pull out these steel-and-canvas contraptions into which they strap themselves, take a few running steps and glide out over the pit, circling, swooping, diving. Some of these folks are bored by our tentative practice of holding tight to one another as we pay brief visits to the void. They pack up their gear and move on to a more exciting camp. (I hear there’s a camp even farther beyond that where people eschew even hang gliders, and simply jump.) 

Some stay and give hang-glider-building lessons to those who are intrigued. And we are intrigued. We wouldn’t be hanging out on this damn edge if a part of us didn’t want to move off into this wickedly inviting space. Into this juicy nothingness where a whole other, huger dimension of our being lives. The infinity of our creative selves. The abyss of our long-buried pasts, and the ultimate risks of living it all again. Healing, rewarding, cathartic as it may be, it’s the scariest, most overwhelming thing to consider. In many ways, once we leap, aided or not, there is no going back. And since we have lives to live, groceries to buy, dogs to walk, people to love, bodies to enjoy, Netflix to watch, it behooves us, at least for the foreseeable future, to spend most of our time on solid ground.

Sometimes I wish I was a hang glider, or even a jumper. I wish I could show you how to do that. Or better yet, that I have leapt, lived, returned to tell the tale. I wish I could invite you to the edge, take your hand as we take flight together.

But this isn’t the camp where that happens. Here, we take our time. We go at our own pace. Here is about the assurance that you’re not alone in this. You’re never alone. You are free to take off any time—head for a different camp, try out a hang glider, or simply return to your beautiful, solid life. You can stay as long as you like. You can trust that someone will always be here. I’ll always be here. And we’ll dip our toes into the cavernous truth on a regular basis for as long as we are. 

What’s in it for you?

Why, why would you consider visiting the cliff’s edge at all? Why not just stay on the path a safe distance back, get on with the making of dinners and the visiting with friends and the deadheading the rosebushes in the garden? 

Just like I can’t say what does happen for people when they do, I can’t predict what will happen for you, but I invite you to feel it. Picture the cliff in your own mind. Now make it a thousand times higher. The other side of the ravine is so far away it’s blurred by mist, even on a clear day. Feel, smell the grass underneath you—a bit flattened by others who have walked here—as you crawl to the edge of your own imagination, your own stories. What is happening in you? What longing is there? Is it to back off immediately? To hang out for a while and see what happens? To jump?

Here’s what’s wonderful, and here’s the point of Soul Writing: anything you choose to do is OK. Anything you feel is welcome. 

I know, here I am hunkering behind metaphor again, but it’s the best I can come up with for now in terms of what happens for people. I can’t assume to map another person’s inner landscape. But I’m keenly aware of what happens in the field—the shared space of our connected hearts each time we gather. It, like all of life, is non-linear. It is an unfolding scene and I, like you, like anyone, waits in rapt anticipation of what comes next.