You’ve tried prayer and meditation. Both seem to move you forward on your spiritual path. Yet, you still struggle with what you can’t quite put your finger on. You carve out precious time to write in a journal that you specifically chose because it spoke to you. You heard it call your name.
After a while, you realize you are writing and recording events and also troublesome situations. You find time to make sure you get your thoughts out of your head and onto the page. Sometimes, you realize a common theme when you re-read what you have written, but you can’t quite connect the dots.
There seems to be a lack of connection between you and your written voice. You sense there must be something more.
Fortunately, there are several gifted professionals available to guide you in your search.
Writing in a journal is an excellent place to explore essential parts of life that have meaning for you. However, when looking for profound spiritual transformation and spiritual healing through writing, working together with a professional writer can help develop your work and insights.
You will receive faster and more satisfying results when you work alongside a writer and their work. Their purpose and intention are to help you accelerate your spiritual growth through the process of writing.
A spiritual writing coach is like a personal trainer keeping you on track
Like exercise, you can do it yourself and get some results when you are disciplined and motivated. Possibly though, the day-to-day distractions will keep you from achieving the original goals you had envisioned for yourself.
With a personal trainer, the commitment to yourself and your exercise goals is closer to better fitness results. You have the professional support to help keep you focused on your desired outcome, or at least closer to it, had you not enlisted the aid of a knowledgeable pro.
When you compare exercising to keeping and faithfully writing in your journal, you realize that with the support of a teacher, coach, or in this case, a spiritual writing teacher, you can have better results to accelerate spiritual growth.
Great writing coaches are experts. They are exceptional at what they do.
And what they can do with you. These experts know how to coax, with skill and creativity, the hidden out of anyone at any writing level. And those who believe they have nothing meaningful to write.
Writing coaches vs. spiritual writing coaches
There are writing coaches whose focus is on helping you to achieve your goals so you may get your book- be it a novel, a book of poetry, a memoir, or a non-fiction book out into the world. As writers, these coaches will assist with grammar, style, syntax and teach the creative writing process to help you complete the book that you always wanted to write. With direction and honest feedback, you will most likely have the support you need to finish your project.
Unlike a writing coach, who focuses on the process of writing, a spiritual writing coach will help you with personal self-expression, so you understand yourself more fully and who works with you to heal, awaken and find the freedom to become a better version of yourself. The process of this type of writing will be different. The emphasis will be on developing you, not your written work.
Explore Yourself
These writers and their unique coaching methods offer an excellent opportunity to explore the self. To inquire within, you then have to express what’s within earnestly. And when you mindfully put your words onto paper, through journaling, with gentle guidance and support, something magical happens. You get to see yourself and your story in a different way.
A writing coach with the skills to help develop, at your own pace, your inner strength and your reason for being is a treasure, with a treasure trove of tools.
There is a process that the teacher/coach takes you through; instructions, specific questions, guided lessons, detailed prompts, or activities to keep you focused and on track and help you dig deeper for spiritual and personal growth as well as healing and transformation.
With a guide by your side, you increase the potential for spiritual healing through writing.
A few of the many ways that a writing coach will assist your spiritual transformation:
Your Story:
- Unravel the pieces of your past; re-write any stories that you have told yourself that are untrue, and write a new and better story
- Gain valuable insights about who you are with a new perspective
Your Gifts:
- Discover your gifts and abilities are yours only and that they are yours to be developed to be a more empowered version of yourself
- Learn the process of self-exploring for greater insight into who you are to live a better life and be of more service to the world.
Your Patterns and Beliefs
- See where there are self-sabotaging patterns and limiting beliefs that have been keeping you stuck.
- Authentically learn how to speak your truth
- Learn how to tell the truth and come out of the “darkness into the light.”
- Gain a better understanding of how everything in your life from “loss and disappointment” has transformed you.
Present Moment Awareness
- Appreciate how the present moment is all we have. Writing with a professional spiritual writing coach, learn how to understand that more.
- Learn how to become grounded in the here and now.
- Integrate an ongoing writing spiritual practice permanently into your life for more self-realization and spiritual healing.
Heal Yourself- Empower Yourself- Awaken Yourself
When you engage with writers interested in helping others develop, grow, heal, and awaken, working with them is an excellent way to go beyond the personal journal. The authors listed below are widely known and well respected.
They are spiritual teachers, leaders, mentors and have publications to accompany their coaching process. Each has a strong presence online. They all offer courses, some online freebies, and it goes without saying, a solid and compelling introduction to how they can help you on your journey. Check their websites periodically and often for new and updated information.
Meet 5 of the Best-Beloved Spiritual Writing Coaches who will help you heal on your spiritual journey:
Mark Matousek
Mark Matousek, an award-winning author, spiritual teacher, speaker, and inspirational leader in transformative writing. His book, “Writing to Awaken” brilliantly guides you through the process of self-inquiry and deep reflection through his use of 52 targeted and thought-provoking questions and prompts for each week of the year. This book and the inner work you will participate in requiring an openness that may be unfamiliar to you and possibly uncomfortable if you are not accustomed to being honest with yourself.
He will guide you through a form of therapeutic journaling called “expressive writing,” a process that begins to peel away some of the stories and untruths you have unknowingly told yourself. By honestly answering the questions, approached in a foundational way, you will gain better insight and clarity about your life and the personal narrative you have created throughout the weeks. If authentic self-awareness is what you hope to learn, in the end, you will feel the freedom to know, love, and understand yourself better and with an open heart.
Mark Matousek offers an abundance of opportunities for transformational healing, personal growth, and development. Here you will find the Writing to Awaken online classes for enrollment, home study courses, retreat, and workshop schedules. There is also an invitation to join the Seekers Forum, a members program, and an ongoing program where you will receive weekly and monthly sessions “focused on the art of self-inquiry as a path to a more awakened life.”
Learn more about Mark Matousek and his work at: https://www.markmatousek.com/
Kathleen Adams, one of the most prominent people in therapeutic writing, has taught and helped thousands transform themselves personally during the last several decades. She is a writer, licensed psychotherapist, journal therapist, teacher, and speaker. Along with other publications, “Journal to the Self, is “the classic at the forefront of the journal therapy genre.” She is “a visionary whose gift and life mission is sharing the power of writing with all who desire self-directed change.”
(Kay) as she is known, has certified instructors who teach the “Journal to the Self” course throughout the world. Her website provides information on the twelve-hour course and all instructor information for you to connect with an instructor either online or possibly in a nearby community where you live.
Additionally, Kay offers poetry prompts and an invitation to an online learning community called Journalverse, “a gathering place for those who know the power of writing to heal, change and grow.”
“Writing is a profound spiritual practice that can guide the seeker toward awakening. When used as a path of self-realization, reflective writing has the power to bring insight, healing, and personal freedom through the exploration of our thoughts and feelings. When we learn to ask the right questions, we can uncover what’s true for us and the extraordinary.”
Learn more about Kay Adams and her work at: https://journaltherapy.com/kathleen-adams/
Mark Nepo has been an inspiration to readers and spiritual seekers worldwide and is considered “one of the finest spiritual guides of our time.” “The Book of Awakening: Having the Life you Want by Being Present to the Life You Have,” a #1 New York Times bestseller published over twenty years ago, has helped to heal and inspire many. He is a prolific writer, an award-winning author, poet, spiritual teacher, and philosopher, sharing his gifts for over thirty years.
“The Book of Awakening,” one of his earlier books, is a 365-day book and is exquisitely written. Each short written passage offers an opportunity for reflective contemplation. After reading the selection for that day, do one or more of the exercises with your journal.
You do not need to begin at any one page. The index will quickly direct you to any human emotion or experience where you might like to start doing some contemplation and self-reflection. The index can also act as a spiritual guide for inspiration and motivation if you choose not to start on January 1.
Using this book as a companion tool and writing in your journal, if you remain with this practice throughout time, you will most likely recognize the healing benefits of your writing.
You can follow Mark and all of his many offerings online. Available on his site is a listing of more than twenty of his written publications, which continues to be ongoing. Anthologies and audio projects are included as well, along with a beautiful selection of his poems. A listing of his yearlong courses as his lecture/teaching schedule will keep you well informed.
Learn more about Mark Nepo and his work at: www.marknepo.com.
Michael A. Singer is the author of The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself and the Surrender Experiment, both New York Times bestsellers. In 1975, after his own earlier awakening, he founded Temple of the Universe, a well-known meditation and yoga center outside of Gainesville, Florida. Written more than twenty years ago, “The Untethered Soul” has reached more than a million readers. His many programs are easily accessible ways to apply his teachings to living your best life.
Sought after, respected, and an early teacher in the process of going within, he offers multiple ways to go beyond the journal. A few of his offerings are video programs, a guided journal with passages from “The Untethered Soul,” to also be used in conjunction with the journal, and a free miniseries.
In addition, he has audio recordings, lecture series, and songs that accompany his work. His latest offering is “The Going Deeper Series, ” an opportunity to go further for transformation and spiritual growth.
Learn more about Michael A. Singer and his work at: https://untetheredsoul.com/
Albert Flynn DeSilver, author, poet, spiritual teacher, speaker, and workshop leader, uses a combination of writing and meditation to help awaken you. In his book, “Writing as a Path to Awakening,” he offers structured ways to express yourself throughout the months of a year.
With specific prompts and mindful exercises, he will guide you to find your inner creative voice, journey to the center of yourself, use your senses, and dare to tell the truth, as just a few examples. Albert DeSilver’s own awakening story, woven throughout this book, is an authentic example of how he has used his writing skills as a process to heal himself.
Albert Flynn DeSilver’s approach is a combination of writing and mindfulness. “When we truly commit to both practices- we have a way of keeping us in check- keep us scrupulous and honest. Meditation is a way of being truth. Writing is a medium for telling the truth.”
He believes that “practice, consistency, and belief” are essential. “Devotion is the key.”
Albert DeSilver teaches his popular writing courses by the same name at many well-recognized institutes and retreat centers. On his website, you’ll find online writing courses- even one for free. Featured also are tips and valuable resources on writing and meditation for writers. Those who awaken to their inner gifts and are eager to heal, consciously grow, and write truthfully will learn the tools and techniques to awaken their inner written voice successfully.
Learn more about Albert DeSilver and his work at: https://albertflynndesilver.com/
The desire to search within, know yourself, and better empower yourself is a valuable and sustaining process. With the correct instruction and an expert writing guide by your side, your journal can be more.
It will no longer be the place to write to get stuff out of your head. You will learn to write from your heart and get it onto the page. Through your own words, and with the help of others, you will feel honored and privileged to document and witness your spiritual growth and transformation.