Many writers are well known to have been avid walkers – Lake poets like William Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge come to mind. Charles Dickens and Virginia Woolf were both keen city walkers. More recently, poet Simon Armitage has also written about his long treks on the Pennine Way and in the South West of England. Are walking and creativity linked? The answer is yes!

Research at Stanford University shows that people who go for a walk have 50% more creative ieas than people who do their thinking sitting down. What is more, this high creativity continues after you have finished your walk. Surprisingly, the study showed that it doesn’t matter whether you walk outdoors or on a treadmill indoors – ideas flow more freely in either case. While it may be true that beautiful scenery is inspiring, the mere act of walking will stimulate creativity no matter where it happens.

So the next time you are stuck for some new ideas – get up from that desk and take a hike!

Reading in groups has special therapeutic effects, according to The Reader Organization. This doesn’t just mean a book group where you read alone at home and come together to discuss it – it is about shared reading. That’s people coming together to read aloud poems and stories. Social connections are made, thoughts may be discussed, and works of literature are shared by all.

Writing in groups has a similar therapeutic effect, as I have seen in my Writing for Wellbeing workshops. At a recent workshop at Merchant City Yoga in Glasgow themed to Change and Growth, we were grounding ourselves with the activity of writing about our personal achievements. In the discussion afterwards, one participant commented that she could never normally write about her own achievements. But it was easy to do in the workshop because she had been given ‘permission’ to do so, and what is more everyone else in the room was also writing about their achievements at the same time. She found it very liberating and enlightening.

Others have commented that having dedicated time to write in a group makes it easier to leave outside stresses and concerns behind, and just focus on personal expression and exploration of self. It’s a little time to achieve some clarity and calm, facilitated by the fact that everyone there is doing the same thing, too.

That’s the beauty of Writing for Wellbeing workshops — it’s the chance to come together with like-minded people using their creativity to expand their personal awareness, increase feelings of positivity, and find paths forward by means of their own inner wisdom. Keeping in mind that we never have to read aloud anything we have written, the very act of writing together in a group creates an atmosphere where it feels okay to write whatever you need to write on that day.

It’s World Smile Day! I remember one day I was feeling particularly grumpy about something, but a friend said something to me that I found very funny. Later when I was walking through the streets of Durham city, I noticed that a lot of people were spontaneously smiling at me as I walked past them. Why should this be, I wondered? Then I realized – because I had been thinking about this funny thing my friend said, I had been walking along with a smile on my own face. It seems smiling is contagious, because so many people were smiling back at me. So, thanks to my friend who made me smile, a wave of good cheer was spreading through the streets of Durham. And of course, I entirely forgot to feel grumpy anymore.

How many people can you give the gift of your smile to today?

‘Write a short story every week. It’s not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.’
— Ray Bradbury

I posted that quote on Twitter today, and a large number of my followers have shared it, Liked it, engaged in conversation about it, and have even said they are going to do it. How about it? What a brilliant challenge – to sit down and write one story a week for a year. It’s absolutely possible – if we let go of our limiting thoughts about how our writing ‘should’ be, and instead let the words flow and just find out what happens.

What if we don’t know what to write about? Try opening a book at random, putting your finger on a sentence, and start writing a story about whatever that sentence said. Of course, this will work better if you choose an interesting book, as opposed to a technical manual or some such! You could choose a work by Shakespeare, a book of poetry, a sacred text, a favorite novel. Or you could check out my Twitter feed @write4wellbeing – I post lots of interesting quotes and links to my Facebook posts, as well as retweeting fascinating stuff. I have recently discovered a wonderful Twitter account @PastPostcard, which posts fragments of messages from real postcards – lots of possibilities for inspiration there.

Ray Bradbury certainly knew how to write short stories – he wrote every day of his life since the age of 12. He published nearly 600 short stories, and that’s not counting his novels, poems, essays, and plays. I think he sounds like a writer from whom we could take some encouragement.

So, what do you say? Anyone up for a story a week challenge? This time next year, you’ll have 52 stories!

PODCAST INTERVIEW FOR WRITING FOR WELLBEING! I’ve been talking with radio presenter Steven Hesse about – oh, everything! Mindfulness, and poetry, and recovering from depression, and benefits of Writing for Wellbeing, and going to Mongolia, and Horatius at the Bridge, and cherry Coke. Sound interesting? Then have a listen – the interview starts at about 4:00:00, that is 4 minutes into the podcast. Click here: Laura’s podcast interview

Sometimes great beauty is found in small, seemingly insignificant things. All we need to do is to stop following all those thoughts running in our head, and take a moment to look around us. And when that beauty is in nature — it’s free! We all know that spending time in nature is good for our health in every way — physically, mentally, emotionally. It’s especially good to spend that time mindfully, by really noticing what is there. Focusing on small things has a wonderful way of relaxing the mind, and simply reminds you of the wonder of beauty in the world.

In my case, I took a few moments to look down at me feet yesterday while spending a stolen hour by the sea near Souter Lighthouse on the Durham coast. Look what I found.

I was interviewed for a podcast in Newcastle earlier this week and we talked a lot about mindfulness, and dealing with depression and various emotions. Yesterday I needed to remind myself about what I had said during the podcast, as I was feeling some dark emotions — probably arising just from being overtired. So I mindfully reminded myself that there really are no negative emotions — there are just emotions. Some of them certainly feel better than others, but emotions are not who I am. Deep down inside, I am always okay in that place where I find balance and peace. That’s where I find my authentic self. If I accept emotions for the transient state which they are, then — like the UK weather — there will always be a change. And indeed, this week we’ve had a deal of sunshine and light after a dull and cold period. And the sun always rises, even if it is sometimes behind clouds from our vantage point.

Today I wish for anyone reading this that you may look for the place where the sun rises inside you, that place where there is always light. That’s where you can find your authentic self. Shine the light!

At my recent writing workshop at York Yoga Studio, I mentioned a book called Anam Cara by John O’Donohue.

It is a beautiful and gentle book of Celtic spiritual wisdom. We worked with a poem by John O’Donohue during my workshop, and although this book is mainly prose – with some poetry – I recommend it highly for anyone on their own spiritual path. It is impossible to select the ‘best’ quotes from his book, as there is so much of value in it. But here are a few samples:

‘If there were a spiritual journey, it would be only a quarter-inch long, though many miles deep.’

‘We need to have greater patience with our sense of inner contradiction in order to allow its different dimensions to come into conversation within us. There is a secret light and vital energy in contradiction. Where there is energy, there is life and growth.’

‘It is invigorating to meet a wild old person who has remained faithful to their wild life force. … there is still a place in your spirit that time can never get near. You are as young as you feel. If you begin to feel the warmth of your soul, there will be a youthfulness in you that no-one will ever be able to take away from you.’

‘When you feel nothingness and emptiness gnawing at your life, there is no need to despair. This is a call from your soul, awakening your life to new possibilities.’

John O’Donohue, Anam Cara (London: Bantam Books, 1997)

Writing for Wellbeing is in the news! Hexham Courant has done a feature article about Writing for Wellbeing.
There is both an online version and a newspaper version (available now in Hexham shops). The paper version has some lovely lovely photos from the recent workshop at Dilston Physic Garden. Many thanks to Pauline Holt for her fine article. For the online one, have a read by clicking here: Writing your Way to Happiness