Guided Writing Session Directory
Below, you will find recordings for each Guided Writing Session dating back to August 2021 when the sessions were began.
Take a moment to review the Usage and Guidelines Folder below for information on how to post work and use the directory.
Use the Independent Entries Folder for submissions not specific to a monthly program or Guided Writing Session.
More About Guided Writing Sessions
Guided Writing Session: October 6
Thanks to all that joined the session.
Writing Prompt 1: What have you learned (or gained) from the losses in this pandemic. Be specific.
Writing Prompt 2: How have your attitudes toward safety and security changed this year? Be specific.
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I've known for some time that safety is an illusion and yet I still found myself clinging to relationships thinking they were something they weren't, or that they could never be. During the pandemic, though, I was forced to see things as they really are with certain people and I ended those relationships. And I'm at peace with that. The only security I can truly experience is belief in myself, trusting myself and my intuition, accepting things as they are, and being compassionate to others and to myself. Security is honoring who I am and not hiding parts of myself in others' company. From that position of understanding, anything life throws at me can be dealt with. The wisdom of insecurity shows me where I need work, places I can grow, things I can change, where I've been wounded, and patterns I've learned or things I've been taught. Insecurity leads to investigation, for those brave enough to be willing to seek and to find.
What have you gained from the losses of this pandemic?
The pandemic has slowed me down in some ways, and speeded me up in others. I was slowing down anyway, adjusting to retirement. Then coping with cancer, and the aftermath of surgeries. Reminders of my mortality, and the limits of procrastination. You can’t always count on tomorrow to be there.
These precursors to the pandemic were solitary experiences, tied to my one small life. The pandemic has amplified their reminders with its collectivity. Everyone has been affected, in a way. Even denial is a response.
The world I live in has slowed down. I remember, early on in quarantine, noticing its silence. That peaceful, cozy feeling, like a snowstorm can bring. The stillness. The drone of everyone, in their busyness, now hushed.
This quieting felt meditative, as if the external world was mirroring my own internal slowing. As if it supported taking pause and thinking of my choices. It endorsed a switch from living life as a reaction, focused on what comes at me. It made a space for me, in my own life. This creates a sense of agency that can open into more considered and balanced action. I needed that.
My former daughter-in-law and my granddaughter were diagnosed with Covid in early spring. The potential loss of them brought up my history with death and dying. All the why me and/or mine.
Having a space of tranquility made looking at them possible. Having a place to try out my understandings has added to my healing.
This community of Seekers Forum has become a place to speak the understandings I form from looking at my puzzlements. The ways I have been frozen. There is comfort in the sound of other voices. I’m less alone in my wanderings.
I noticed what I suspected was bravado in my granddaughter’s face, during a zoom contact. She was so, so, tired, but with a brave face on. I wondered if this was bravado. That seemed familiar to my self. but it didn’t occur to me to ask. I was in one of my blind spots. Mark helped me see this was what I needed to do. I’m so glad I did. It was healing for both of us.
Now I see that I’d entered my interaction with Emma hiding my own fears as well. Naming them felt like stepping out of a spell. The I must be brave one. We two are speaking more authentically, these days. Her world is peer oriented, as it should be, but she continues to make space for FaceTime with me. We exchange news and share feelings. We sing together. She knows many of the songs from my days of youth. I’m learning new ones, too.
Last spring, we figured out what I could do for her. Something she could enjoy, despite our lack of physical contact. She has always liked being told stories of herself, and enjoyed the flow of bedtime rituals— book time, day review, back rub, lullabies. So I wrote memories of those times to her. It gave me a way to say my caring. She liked it, and I did too.
The topics of mortality and living continued with the death of my friend. Diane died from a brain tumor, not Covid. Still, her final days were impacted by its isolation. I did not get to say an in-person goodbye. I was once removed from her passing. But for once, I mourned in present time, instead of putting it off. I was aided in this process by support from my friends from Mark’s Writing Naked class. Another instance of community.
The oddity, and the irony of Pandemic isolation is that it is connecting me to more of a sense of community. Another of those magical oppositions. My aloneness is my membership. Go figure.
Dear Tara,
Thanks so much for these thoughts. I like what you say about how insecurity "leads to investigation, for those brave enough to be willing to seek and to find." When pain prompts curiosity over despair there's a chance for healing and evolution (thank God). The pandemic has given us an amazing opportunity to do this deep work with ourselves and others, choose whom we trust and belong with (and those we don't), and get real in our relationships.
Have a great week. I'm glad you're a part of The Seekers Forum!
Mark : )