Mindful writing means writing with introspection — looking inside and putting pen to paper on feelings, relationships, experiences, and thoughts — all with mindful awareness.

All you need is a notebook and pen, it’s as simple as that.

To begin mindful writing, we spend a few minutes writing about our immediate sensory experience and surroundings.

We jot down any sounds, sensations of touch (like holding a pen, or being seated, or feeling a warm), what we can see, any traceable tastes, any noticeable smells.

Writing is specific, descriptive, and done with mindful awareness.

What follows is a type of free-writing, where we respond to a prompt or allow whatever is on our mind to come to the forefront and we scribble it all down.

We don’t question it — we simply write it down.

This process might evoke strong thoughts and feelings as we retell the story of whatever is on our mind.

We might lose ourselves entirely to the conversations of the mind, to our internal dialogue. And that’s kind of the point.

We want to dive all-in, notice and note.

We want to get emotional and involved and to express whatever is going on for us. We should write freely and without judgement, accepting the truth of whatever we write, even if we feel uncomfortable, unsure, or overly excited.

When ten minutes have past — or when we have exhausted our free-writing, we pause and prepare to reflect.

The final few minutes are dedicated to reflection.

Here, we reread everything we have written. While reading, we observe the tone and emotion in our writing. We might make further written notes underneath or beside what is already written to aid our reflections.