My friend, Bonita Kay Summers recently wrote a column at her blog called Writing to Understand Ourselves  in which she said:
I have been a writer since I was 8 years old. It wasn’t a conscious choice.

Further on in the column, Bonita says:
What held me in thrall and kept me writing by choice was the amount of personal insight I discovered through the writing process. When I realized this was happening, I began to research right-brain writing techniques and other creative writing methods, with the intent to deliberately tune in to that wisdom.

I can SO relate to these two passages because, like Bonita, I have been writing since I could first put pen to paper then as I became adept at typing I started keying in my thoughts.  Writing wasn’t a conscious choice for me either.  I found the exercise liberating, freeing the stress I experienced growing up.  Writing became my release valve. spewing forth all the negativity around me.  Also as with Bonita, I found myself awestruck by the amount of writing I could produce in a short amount of time.

I’ve spoken here countless times of being in the Flow where time seems to stop and at the same time speed up.  Bonita uses her column to reference teaching a group of 16 year old students.  She says:
I stood before the class of 16-year-olds, encouraging them to take 10 minutes to write about anything they wished. After the short interval, when they handed in their assignments, the work they produced was self-conscious, and it was apparent that their intent in writing was not about self-expression, but rather on following the rules of sentence structure and grammar. Rather than being excited about having an opportunity to express themselves on any topic they wished, they were reticent, concerned about getting the exercise “wrong”.

 Over the course of the next few days, I introduced this group of high school students to a new way of writing, one that helped them unlock their inborn storyteller. At the end of two short sessions, the writing samples they produced were dramatically different. Each student had lost the cautiousness they exhibited on the first day. By learning right-brain writing techniques, they discovered not only their natural writing voice, but that writing intuitively creates a natural order and structure to their writing. Not only was the material they produced lively and interesting, very little editing was required of the finished work. By the end of our time together, every student knew how to tap into their innate ability to write well.

For myself, the above passage so reminds me of being in the flow.  This method of teaching is a wonderful way to lose your inhibitions and if more teachers took this under consideration when teaching, I imagine more students would find their love of writing cultivated.  Some of us are simply born with an innate desire to write and those lucky few that have that gift should teach others just as Bonita as has done.

Bonita mentions right brained people and MANY writers and artists are naturally right brained.  Are you Right Brained? Here is a list of SEVERAL brain traits from Suite101.  How many do you identify with?

Be Happy!  Be Well!  Be Positive!
Blessings to you.
—
Chris

Once you realize that life is eternal,
That our souls our eternal,
That we return to light and physical over and over;

We then lose all our distress
We then lose all our fear of dying.  For there truly is no end.