The Radical Act of Self Care: Freestyling

“Beyond the reach of the Censon’s babble we find our own quiet center, the place where we hear the still, small voice that is at once our creator’s and our own.”

-Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

How many times has your inner censor or inner critic gotten in the way of you breaking out some lines, or speaking up in a meeting, or professing admiration for a nice dress that someone is wearing at a party? Oh yah, we all know this internal cross-examiner- we call it the shit-bird. The shit-bird has an eclectic repertoire of things it says, and like the ubiquitous ads on radio shows, it is always on. Some days the shit-bird might say, “What good is going to come of this?” “You, dancing? Nah! Come on, who are you kidding?” Some days it will say, “You sure this is a good idea?” To challenge this constant, nagging voice, Nirupa and I started a ritual called the Morning Pages, which Julia Cameron champions in The Artist’s Way. 

The premise is simple. Wake up, get your hygienic business done, and then sit down with a pen and paper and write three full pages of whatever rises to the surface. Free writing at its wildest, at its best and worst. What Julia asks you to bring to this exercise is the muscle and the will to move the pen on the page, nothing else. She does not talk about the import or intent of what gets done on those pages. 

At first, the practice was more of my cursive writing than anything else (who even uses script anymore??). The cramping in my arm gradually abated as the writing muscle strengthened itself again. I wrote of how I was feeling, how pretty the early morning light looked as it spilled onto the tan carpeting of the office, and the laundry list of chores I had to accomplish. Somewhere in the ramblings, an image would take hold. Maybe from a half-forgotten dream or a TV show the night before. But because the premise of the pages is to let everything flow, I let disjointed words flow from abstract pictures, not really going anywhere consciously, but definitely having forward momentum. And it is in this forward momentum that I have discovered a new joy in my free-ranging creative muscles. It has quietly opened an unpretentious door to free the flow within. 

Now, not all of the morning pages will become scripts or stories that will see the light of the day. But the pages have introduced an important way to commune, to  build a certain intimacy with all that is bubbling underneath, that never sees the light, often shut down by the shit-bird. In all their indigestible ambiguity, the morning pages give me the form for the rest of my day. The freedom of the pages helps me tap into the unadulterated joy of playing with the bubbling, babbling brook within.

It is in this spirit that we excitedly present our next salon on freestyling- a style of improvisation, with or without instrumental beats, in which lyrics or words or gibberish are recited with no particular subject or structure and with no prior memorization. Through play, community, and simply the act of showing up, our facilitating artist, David “BS” Bradshaw, will take you on a beautiful ride of freeing your flow within. 

Can’t wait to see you there.

— Kate Szekely, co-founder of SFL, actor, and teaching artist