Writing Your Life Into Existence: Spell Casting for Your One Wild and Precious Life
Okay. So. You want something. You know you can make it happen. But you need that little push to get started. Well, my friend, have you tried writing your life into existence?
I’m not saying writing something down makes it come true. But I am saying your brain is overloaded and isn’t made to store a lot of information. It’s there to process and calculate, but if you use it like a filing cabinet, everything goes slowly.
That’s why you gotta write stuff down. Shopping lists, things you need to do, phone numbers, and even the shit you want to do to leave your mark on this world.
You know that Mary Oliver poem, The Summer Day, that says:
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
I think about that a lot. It may seem like she’s imploring you to divide and conquer. But her answer to that question was to take tons of little nature walks, notice everything she saw, write poems about it, and spend time with her lover.
Not exactly the sort of hustle culture vibe you might expect.
And to that end, Mary Oliver spent time writing her life into existence in the form of poetry that reminded us all to slow down and appreciate.
It’s almost like writing your life into existence can be slow and intentional and like a magic spell for calm.
Whether you want to have a more creative lifestyle, change your life completely, or live the life you want, writing it all out can be useful for making it happen.
Writing Your Life Into Existence Privately
Journaling is something I always recommend. and it’s a means of writing your life into existence. You can put down whatever intentions you have, and that journal becomes a place where you basically cast a spell.
Those spells can be for anything. Your journal can be a place where you set intentions for calm or write a list of things you’d like to do every day for better mental health.
I like to journal through my quarterly goals. It lays them out clearly, and I get a better sense of how to accomplish them by writing through them.
And, naturally, you can lay out big, lofty goals for yourself and your work. I’m sure everyone remembers Octavia Butler’s notebook, and how she laid out EXACTLY what she would do with her career.
Writing something down is powerful, and if there’s something you want, you can write it down and follow through with action. Maybe that’s not inherently magical, but it definitely feels like it is.
How to Write Your Life Into Existence Online
Luckily for us, notebooks aren’t the only option for keeping a record anymore. If you’d like to try writing your life into existence, you don’t always have to keep it private if you don’t want to. There are tons of options online for you to keep a journal-like record.
(If you’re a life writer, then all this is probably old news to you.)
001: Keep a blog.
Keeping a blog can be a great way to document your life. It can also be a way to set intentions. I’ve toyed with the idea of doing quarterly goal posts in the past, and then a wrap-up to document how I did. I don’t know if I ever will, but that’s a great way to set some intentions.
You can use a self-hosted website, or you can use a platform like Medium or Elephant Journal. Tumblr is also great if you want to do some shorter-form content.
002: Post to social media.
Keeping an Instagram feed of all your intentions could be a good way to make stuff happen. You could make this Instagram account as public or as private as you’d like.
If Facebook is more your jam, you could create a Facebook page or profile for all your intentions. Plus, a group may be a good way to have some accountability with other people who are also trying to set some intentions.
Any social platform you like is fair game. Just pick one that works for you and that you enjoy using.
003: Submit to publications.
Now, this is not exactly for everyone. But if you like to write fiction, submitting your work to publications can be a great way to write your life into existence. Sure, it’s not the same as clearly writing your intentions. But the act of crafting a story, writing a cover letter, and submitting it to a publisher is powerful and important.
There are also nonfiction publications like magazines you can submit to. So, if you’d like to write personal essays or creative nonfiction, that’s an option as well.
And when you’re done, you’ve been published. You’ve basically left a paper trail of your work!
004: Speak it into existence.
Now, I fully understand that some folks prefer to speak rather than write. So, why not make a podcast? It could be as big or as little as you’d like it to be. You could publish it to various platforms, or you could just share it to YouTube.
Do what works best for you. So, that could look like recording audio and putting it into Instagram Reels or TikTok videos. Maybe you just keep the audio files on your phone until you know what you want to do with them.
Regardless of what you choose, keeping a spoken record of your intentions can help you achieve your goals.
005: Make your own version of PostSecret.
If you like the internet, you know about PostSecret. Well, why not make something similar? Except, instead of secrets, make a blog where people share their intentions via postcard.
I’m not saying this would be easy, but it would definitely be fun.
How Do You Write Your Life Into Existence?
Are you actively writing your life into existence? Did you know there is no reset button in life, so you need to make shit happen when you want to? Do you like to share your goals online or in a private notebook? Have you ever kept a social media feed of your personal intentions, and if so, how did it go?
Originally published at https://marisamohi.com on October 3, 2022.
