FREE WRITING.

Free writing means setting a timer and letting your thoughts flow, unedited and unscripted, onto the page. Or you can set a goal to write continuously for a specified amount of pages.

Free writing is all about keeping your hand moving and not pausing to go back and edit or construct a perfect phrase. If you run out of ideas, you just keep writing whatever comes to mind.

Whether that’s describing your surroundings, thinking about your grocery list or brainstorming a brilliant new idea, free writing is a journaling technique that’s all about letting whatever emerges in your head flow onto the page without letting your inner critic silence you.

What’s the point? Won’t it all turn into an inconsequential ramble? Some of it will.

The power of free writing

But free writing is incredibly powerful to unpack a confusing dilemma or make sense of your mixed emotions. It also helps you unlock suppressed emotions you’d otherwise abashedly skip quickly over. But when you’re just looking to fill those pages, you’ll grab on to anything – including those pesky feelings you’d normally try to stash away.

Getting things down on paper puts you in touch with your honest, uncensored self.

It also helps with self-acceptance. The more you free write, the more accepting you’ll become of your own thoughts and let them spill out without judgement.

Free writing is all about getting things out – not about making yourself sound acceptable or polished.

TIPS FOR FREE WRITING:

• start small and aim for a page a day, or 10 minutes of continuous writing, in the beginning.

• start with writing about how you’re feeling. Do a brief check-in and write about what’s bothering you and what’s going well. Jot down any worries or anxieties currently on your mind.

Use free writing in the morning to gather your thoughts, during the day to re-energize or at night to reflect. How and when you write matters less than if you write at all.