9 Creative Writing Prompts for Self-Care

Marie Forleo:

Today, we're actually going to talk about the power of writing. Of finding your voice. Of not censoring yourself. And of using the tool of creative writing to support yourself in not only self expression, but also healing, and also connecting with other people. It's so challenging at a time like this, for some of us, speaking the spoken word and connecting with others through voice is not always the easiest way to communicate, especially when there are challenging emotions, or different stories that you might want to tell, and not sure where you want to go with them. But creative writing can be an incredible way, whether it is writing short stories, writing in your journal, working on a manuscript, working on a screenplay. There's so many different ways to express yourself, and it can not only be really fun and energizing, but it can also be really healing. And with that, let me see if I can bring on my very special guest for today.

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This is my dear friend, Laura Belgray. Laura and I, my goodness, we've known each other for how long now? Like over 20, close to 20 years.

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Laura Belgray:

Yeah. Oh, almost. 

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Marie Forleo:

So for those of you who don't know Laura Belgray, she's amazing. Not only is she my dear friend, but she's an incredibly powerful writer and speaker and teacher. We'll go on about her career, but she's also my co-creator in a course that we have called, The Copy Cure. If you're interested in it, you can go check it out at thecopycure.com. It's amazing.

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But today we're going to talk about writing. Tell me what's been happening with you. Tell us a little bit about your history in terms of writing. Where did your writing start? Who were you writing for, let's say, 10, 15 years ago. What did that look like for you?

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Laura Belgray:

Yeah, well, I started my writing career, first of all, I always knew I wanted to do something with writing, but I didn't know what. And I was scared. I was so scared coming out of college, and in my early years after college when I was just bartending aimlessly, or sleeping till noon and eating corn flakes in front of the TV. Because I had no idea what I could do with my writing that wasn't, I was like, I don't think I have a novel in me. So that was one thing. I was like, that seems like too much and I'll be sitting in an attic with a beret on weeping.

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Marie Forleo:

Yeah.

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Laura Belgray:

And then I was like, I don't want to be a journalist, that wasn't my kind of writing. And everything seemed like too much and not what I had in me.

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And so I was so happy to discover that there was this thing called TV promos, which were writing little things, like little messages from the network to advertise their own shows. Because I loved watching TV, and I loved writing little things. So I started off by doing that for many, many years. Writing for networks like, Nickelodeon, Nick at Night, TVLand, HBO, all kinds of networks. And after a while, and you knew me at this point…

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Marie Forleo:

Yes.

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Laura Belgray:

I was in a little bit of a creative rut. Because I loved what I was doing, but it was a little bit of, been there, done that. And I also, I knew I had more to say. And I remember sometimes, often I was able to put my own voice into that, and my own point of view. But I remember reading one script out loud at a writer's meeting and my boss said, "What is this? The Laura Belgray Show?"

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And yeah. And I was like, oh, I guess I can't put so much me into it. And I felt really frustrated at that point. I was like, I have more to say, but I don't know what, and I don't know in what form. And so it was kind of a miracle that I was friends with you. 

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Marie Forleo:

Yes.

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Laura Belgray:

And you said to me, and I was creating a website to get more TV clients, even though I wasn't sure that was what I wanted. And you said to me, "You're going to put a blog on your website, right?" And I was like, "Isn't it too late to have a blog?" This is in 2009. And you were like, "No, you moron." I don't think you called me a moron, but that was the gist of it.

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Marie Forleo:

That was the gist of it.

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Laura Belgray:

Yeah, that was the energy. And I appreciated that. And so you convinced me to start a blog, and you convinced me to also have an opt-in on my site to build an audience, to build a list of people who would appreciate my blog. 

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Marie Forleo:

Yes.

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Laura Belgray:

And that's how I started weaving. And then I started taking on private clients in the entrepreneur world, and writing emails to them. And that's how I started weaving my own voice into what I do for a living. And it is like a miracle to me that I get to do that. I get to write my own stuff and get paid. So that's where I am now.

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Marie Forleo:

Yeah. It's amazing. Right?

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Laura Belgray:

Mm-hmm.

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Marie Forleo:

I love that story and I love the fact, I don't think I ever knew that you kind of got squashed when you put a little bit of yourself. I don't think I ever heard that detail before. That's so interesting. 

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Laura Belgray:

Yeah.

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Marie Forleo:

How our voices get tamped down by experiences, and all of a sudden we get scared to express ourselves. Especially now, I think in the age of social media, and in the age of where everybody is gonna get offended about something in a hot second…

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Laura Belgray:

Yeah.

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Marie Forleo:

…and want to tear you a new one. It's understandable that people are like, "Gosh, what is my voice? How do I find my voice? How do I express myself so I don't sound like a carbon copy of everyone else?" I'll tell you this, we're working on some new stuff in my company and in my business, and you know me as a human that I'm kind of heads down. Sometimes you will ask me, you'll call me, you'll be like, "Oh, did you hear about so and so?"

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Laura Belgray:

Yeah. No. You're like, "I don't pay attention to those people."

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Marie Forleo:

I don't pay attention to those people.

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Laura Belgray:

No.

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Marie Forleo:

And the reason I'm telling you this is because my team put together a whole presentation for me and they're like, "Oh my God, do you want to see how many people copy, use your voice?" And it was slides and slides, of slides of all the stuff that we've been saying for years. And I'm not mad at it, it was just hilarious. But my point is, is that I think people get scared and they try and copy someone else's voice because they don't know what their own is. So I'm curious. 

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What is your perspective on just finding one's voice? You know what I mean? If you're like, if someone watching right now is insecure, how do they start to find their voice on the page?

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Laura Belgray:

Yeah. Well, you weren't saying it to relate to this, but when you were talking about keeping your blinders on, not looking at what everyone else is doing, that is one way that you can do that. If you start to find yourself copying somebody and you're like, "I'm too influenced by this person. Their voice is the voice I want. They said everything the way I want to say it." Sometimes it's time to turn them off. And it doesn't mean you don't like them anymore. You might want to turn them off for a little bit and stop letting them get in your head. Like, wonderful that you've gotten something from them. And now, be you. And we get this notion from watching, like from watching people like you, Marie. That is because you are so authentic and you come across as so, you, in everything that you do, we get this notion that you are what it means to be authentic.

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So therefore we have to have your voice in order to be authentic. Like, oh, we have to use hip hop references, and we have to be sassy, and say, “Yaaaas,” and blow an air horn. (Air horn blasts) And that's your version of authentic. That is you. That's not someone else's version of authentic. So I think the way to find your voice and be more you, is first of all, think about what do you like, what do you have to say to your friends? What do you have to say to yourself? Your voice is about what you have to say, not what somebody else said. So we're talking about writing. I think writing for yourself for starters is a great way to find your voice. Because writing without the intention of somebody else reading it, or hearing it, or being an audience. Writing for yourself, seeing what comes out and what you have to say, what you want to say. Often when we write for ourselves, we start writing the things that we wish we could say to the rest of the world. And let it go.

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Marie Forleo:

Let's talk about that. Let's talk about that. Because one of my favorite things that we have in The Copy Cure, and that you and I created together, was this tip. And I think that it's so perfect for everyone listening right now, if you're interested in finding your voice, one of the things that Laura and I suggest, is when you are working on your draft, whether it's just in your journal, or you've opened up a new Google document and you're working on copy for your website, or even a program, or maybe it's a novel, or even a how to nonfiction book, write it rude.

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Laura Belgray:

Yes.

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Marie Forleo:

One of my favorite things. So when I practice writing it rude, and there's so many times that I do this, and we're going to explain what this means. We're also going to explain that you don't need to leave it rude, but you need to get it out on the page. And I know because Laura and I have like written together. We've been in restaurants, and I've had my computer and she's had her thing, and we love playing together. And it's like, well, okay. Like Laura said to me, "Marie, okay, what would you say if you were not going to publish this? Just actually say it right to me?" And I f**king let it rip, right?

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Laura Belgray:

Yes.

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Marie Forleo:

We just go for it. And then we're like, okay, we're going to write that down. And then we write it down and it literally, almost always, takes like one or two light edits to make it, oh, well, how do I reconnect that with my sense of compassion, and my sense of honoring all people? But it is so effective for getting to the reality of what you want to say quickly.

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Laura Belgray:

Yeah. Because often, you are, first of all, I think an empath. So you really feel you, I think you pre-feel the things that people are thinking when you say something. And you're like, I think you, there are ghosts around you that you pick up on that are saying, "Well, I don't like the way you said that.” Or, “Well, what about me?" You know, “This didn't apply to me.” And so you tend to get really careful when you're listening to those voices. And then often I'll get you started, but just with something I said. Just as an aside being distracted while we're writing, did you know so and so said this thing, this rude thing? And you're like, "What? That motherf**ker, boop. Bleep."

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When you get mad, that's when the gold comes out. And I'm like, "I'm taking down everything you're saying right now." So, just let yourself be rude. And that is the best stuff. Like when I was working with clients, I had a questionnaire that I'd send them in a Google doc. And one of the top questions was, what do you do? And then the next thing is, what would you say you do if you didn't give a crap what anyone thinks? And that is always the best stuff. Just writing for yourself, just letting it out and not thinking about that audience.

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Marie Forleo:

Yes.

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Laura Belgray:

So important.

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Marie Forleo:

It's, I think, important too because what we're talking about are stages of writing. And so many people feel a sense of writer's block, or they feel like they don't know what to say, or they don't know how to say it. Or they're already jumping kind of to the end product, which might be the finished manuscript, the printed book, the copy that's actually on the website, the copy that you send out in your email. They're looking at the end and going, like, "How do I get there?" Not realizing that there are so many steps in between.

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I think one of the other things that people have to realize, especially about writing. And then I want to kind of shift gears and go into creative writing and the healing qualities of it…

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Laura Belgray:

Yeah.

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Marie Forleo:

…and telling stories and all that good stuff. But I think all of us have to realize, and I'm going through this now because I'm actually working on my next book. And you know, what's great is that I'm close enough in to Everything is Figureoutable that I have energetic and emotional memories. Do you know how, if you get so far away from an experience, you almost either always just remember the good parts.

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Laura Belgray:

Yeah.

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Marie Forleo:

Or you almost always remember the bad parts, but you kind of miss some of the nuance of how it actually went down? And for me, I remember very viscerally wanting to bang my head against the wall writing Everything is Figureoutable when I was in the messy middle.

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Laura Belgray:

Yeah.

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Marie Forleo:

Torturing myself. Because, and I want to say this, writing MarieTV for me, when I sit down to write that, it's not always easy by any stretch, but I'm trained to sit down and to write, and to complete and to produce. And a book is a very different thing. And I think that remembering there is the messy middle, and it is so uncomfortable to have uncertainty. When all of your material, and I want you to talk about your proposal. I remember being on the phone with you with the book that you're working on right now. And you're like, "Marie, I have so much. I have so much." And you're like, "I don't know if it's a book, is it a book?" It's just like, that's how I felt. I was like, "How do I talk about this big idea?" And it's messy and it's uncomfortable, but you have to hang out in that uncertainty in order to get to the end product. Whether it's a website, an email or a book.

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Laura Belgray:

Yes. A couple of things about that. One, is yes, I very much feel like I've had, or did have first book syndrome, FBS. Feeling like I have to put everything into this, but not everything belongs in it. So what do I do? And I finally trusted myself and trusted the process enough to just start writing. Like, write the part that's fun right now. Write the thing that I remember right now. Write every story I want to tell. And it's kind of like getting mad at a buffet because you can't eat everything. You know? You don’t get… How dare this buffet exist? It should only be the things that I want right now.

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Marie Forleo:

Yes.

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Laura Belgray:

No, that's the point of a buffet. So when you're writing everything, don't start getting mad that you're writing too much and not everything is going to go into it in the end. Be okay with that.

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It's a buffet. And later you can pick from the stuff that's really good. And maybe take a new plate and go back for seconds, but stop being overwhelmed at that. And then also, this wonderful woman that I work with named Suzanne Kingsbury, she's been helping me with my book. She's an editor and also teaches book writing. And I was on a group call and somebody on the group calls echoed everyone's feelings, basically. She's like, "I'm writing all this stuff and I'm really worried that it's not going to come together in any way. There's not going to be any theme to it all."

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And Suzanne said, "Well, basically keep writing because everything in nature, everything in the world, has a pattern. And you might not see the pattern yet." She was like, "But slice open a pineapple and you will see a pattern in there." And it's the same with your writing. You're not going to find it by just writing one thing. You've got to keep going, keep going, keep going. And eventually the pattern will emerge, but just trust that. And don't think that everything is going to come out perfectly, because it never is from the start. It's going to come out in one big mess. And then you're going to find the theme later. You're going to find what's there later.

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Marie Forleo:

If you want even more strategies to create high converting content, then you need to get your butts in The Copy Cure. It’s my flagship writing program, the doors just opened, but only for a limited time. So to get started, go to GetTheCopyCure.com. Now, let’s get back into it. 

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I think it was back in maybe 2010, 2011, we were having all these conversations. I was starting to train tens of thousands of entrepreneurs, and I would see just smart business people who had great products and great services, yet they were falling down. I was like, "What are they missing here?" And it had all to do with their messaging, and their copy and the way that they were communicating about their incredible products or services. And they weren't able to bridge that gap. So Laura and I, once we taught a live session together at a conference we used to do in New York City. So I used to do this conference in New York City. It was so amazing.

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Laura Belgray:

It was so good.

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Marie Forleo:

Oh my God. I had a wheel of dance. Remember we would spin the wheel of dance and people would come on stage and dance?

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Laura Belgray:

Yes

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Marie Forleo:

It was just amazing.

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Laura Belgray:

I'm feeling very nostalgic. Yeah.

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Marie Forleo:

I am feeling very nostalgic too, because I'm like, you know what? We will have an event like that at some point in the future again. 

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Laura Belgray:

Yeah.

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Marie Forleo:

When it is safe for everyone to come together. I want to talk now about the power of creative writing. And one of the things we promised folks, for this Self-Care Saturday, was giving them some journal prompts.

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Laura Belgray:

Oh yeah.

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Marie Forleo:

Because the more that you write, and whether you write in an actual journal by hand, because that feels good to you. Or, you want to take some of these prompts and use them to just get your writing flowing for more professional-oriented projects, you can do whatever you want with them. But Laura, let's set this up. Tell me more about how you've been so passionate about creative writing these days and why.

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Laura Belgray:

Yeah. Well, first of all, I always have been passionate about it, like in the abstract. Like, I want to do more creative writing. And I took classes that were great, that taught me a lot. But where the assignment would be, write just for 10 minutes every day. And very simple, very gentle, you know? And I couldn't even do that because I think I felt overwhelmed and it had to be something. And for some reason, I don't know why it clicked when it did. But one day, a couple of years ago, it clicked for me that I should write every day, just free write every day. It might have been from reading The Artist's Way by Julie Cameron, or something else. But I discovered, I don't know how I came across it, but this 750words.com. And so it's 750words.com, and it’s just, and it's a journaling website, it's free.

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And you just write in it, whatever you want to write, every day. Or if you can go every day, it doesn't punish you if you don't. And it counts your words as you go, and it lights up green when you reach 750 words. Which may or may not be some magical number, for me it is. It makes me feel like I have written that day. And when I'm doing it, so this is journaling. This is free writing. When I'm doing it, I put no pressure on myself to write anything good. I might say, I might start out writing, “I have nothing to write. I have nothing to write. I have nothing to write.” I might write that for a while, and that's fine too. Writing, “I have nothing to write,” is writing as well. But it always turns into something. I always get on a roll.

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Sometimes it's arduous to like, “Okay, here I am still writing my words. I'm almost at 750 words,” is actually what I'm writing. But often I will get in a writing groove. And as I write, a couple of things happen when you write. One of them is that you generate new ideas. Just the act of writing, the physical act of writing starts creating new connections in your brain. So you start getting ideas as you're writing. And when you write them down, those create more and more ideas. It can almost get overwhelming, but you just keep going and writing them down. And you also get in a mindset. I think you train your brain to shut off the critic, the inner critic, that this is no good. Because it doesn't have to be good, no one is going to read it.

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And when you're able to do that, you write so much better when you are indeed writing for somebody else. For an audience. If you're able to shut off the critic, everything that comes out is going to be so much better, and so much more authentic and genuine. And things come out of you that you don't know were there. It's almost like a dream state, right? Like your subconscious, they're all kinds of thoughts and pictures and ideas inside your brain, or inside your heart, wherever they are, wherever they're lodged, that you don't know are there until you start writing and they come out. And then also, I feel that you find the answers to your life on the page. The act of doing it. It creates meaning. If you're looking for answers to something, if you're writing about something that you can't figure out, or that's bothering you, or that you feel you're stuck in, sometimes you'll find an answer to it. Here's why I'm that way. Or, here's what this means. And it's kind of miraculous.

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Marie Forleo:

You know, I so agree with that because I think that each of us, my position that I've always taken as a coach, has been, hey, I don't have all the answers, but I'm here to help you find your own. And I think that writing is one of the most brilliant ways to dig deep and discover that wisdom that you already have inside, that is sometimes hard to perceive, or to hear with so much noise in the world around you.

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Laura Belgray: 

Yeah.

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Marie Forleo:

And the demands of everyday life, and responding to emails or texts, or taking care of your family and making meals, and just doing the normal things of everyday life. But there is something incredibly transformative about writing and being with yourself and your own thoughts, that we don't even, usually in our culture right now we don't take time to do that very often. 

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Laura Belgray:

Right.

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Marie Forleo:

It's like the moment that there's downtime, it's like we pick up a device and consume rather than create.

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Anyway, you know what I'm going to do is add some prompts into here. So these are actually some prompts you guys, that we have from The Copy Cure, which is amazing. And this is from a list that we share, 121 writing prompts, and 24 selling segues. What that does is help your brain start to think more creatively so that you never show up at the blank page and go, "Oh goodness, I don't know what to write about today." Or if you have a great story to tell, and then you need to transition into an offer, or something that you want to share. It can be a campaign. It can be a fundraiser. It can be anything where you want to inspire people to take action. How do you actually bridge the one story you're telling, or the beginning of the narrative, into something else? So I'm going to choose a couple. Let's see. What was your favorite grade in school? What was your favorite grade in school, Laura?

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Laura Belgray:

That's good. My favorite grade, I think, was senior year, 12th grade.

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Marie Forleo:

Why?

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Laura Belgray:

I think that's when I felt the most confident about who I was, and I knew who my friends were. And I think also we had electives that year. And I did some creative writing actually. I think that was, yeah. But I also just enjoyed senior year. And I remember also driving around with my friend, Anna, in her car, because she could drive. And we would just drive barefoot, well she was barefoot, through the city. And I just remember we'd park in whatever, her dad owned garages, and we would park in whatever garage her dad owned and walk around in the city and get froze fruits and go shopping.

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Marie Forleo:

Imagine you in the city as a senior. I just can't even. You're just such a fun troublemaker. I love you.

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Laura Belgray:

That was pretty innocent.

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Marie Forleo:

It was pretty innocent?

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Laura Belgray:

Yeah. I have some prompts that are good for right now, if you want me to read them.

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Marie Forleo:

Bring it.

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Laura Belgray:

Because I think people, like, what's on our minds right now is quarantine, pandemic, and all that. So one thing if you want to get in a positive mindset is, three things that made life better this week. And it can be just one thing, but just writing. Even creating a list is a great writing exercise. So it can be three things, it could be as many things as you want. Another prompt is, this time last year, finish the sentence. Continue it.

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Marie Forleo:

This time last year. What is this? This is like May something, we're in the middle of May. Wow.

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Laura Belgray:

Yeah, middle of May.

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Marie Forleo:

This time last year.

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Laura Belgray:

Starkly different world. Right? And by the way, I will say that I think that there is incredible value for all of us right now in writing down what's happening in our lives.

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Marie Forleo:

Yes.

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Laura Belgray:

Because you think every day is the same and you think your life is the same as everyone else's, but it is starkly not. And so writing on the details. Also, you think you will remember, and you will not. So you're doing a huge service to yourself if you start recording your life. It'll be incredible to look back on.

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Marie Forleo:

Yes.

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Laura Belgray:

And a gift to other people. When you tell stories of this time to your kids, your grandkids, people who weren't here for it, you will have this record of things that you never would've remembered. So that's another one. This time last year. 

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One thing that's changed about you during the pandemic.

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Marie Forleo:

So what's one thing that's changed about you during these past couple of months?

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Laura Belgray:

Yeah. Yeah. Let's see. And one thing that hasn't changed about you, that maybe you thought would have. Here's one that is for any time, if I could wave a magic wand over my life, here's what would happen. And that might have nothing to do with how things are right now during the world. But you can use that anytime. Another thing for anytime, one thing I'd like to say that I haven't.

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Marie Forleo:

That one sounds good. One thing I'd like to say, but I haven't.

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Laura Belgray:

Yeah, so. Yeah. So that might be to somebody who came too close to you yesterday not wearing a mask, or it might be something you want to say to the world. Or it might be something that you didn't say to your friend on the phone that you wanted to say. But that's always good. And probably most of us, especially as women, have something to say that we didn't say, pretty much every day. There's always something that we wanted to say and we didn't. So that's a really good one. Here's another one, good for any time, I'm nervous to admit this.

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Marie Forleo:

I love that. I even feel like I'm nervous to admit this, it's actually also a great subject line.

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Laura Belgray:

Yes. That is a great subject line. I would open that all day long.

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Marie Forleo:

Yep.

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Laura Belgray:

And that might be about something you're ashamed of, or embarrassed about…

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Marie Forleo:

Yep.

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Laura Belgray:

…but it might also be about something that you want. Because aren’t we ashamed…

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Marie Forleo:

Or something that you have. Because our culture is so adept at shaming people if they're even feeling good, right? 

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Laura Belgray:

Yes. Exactly. 

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Marie Forleo:

You're like damned if you do, damned if you don't. Yep. I love that one.

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Laura Belgray:

Yeah. Yeah. And here's one, like a great creative writing prompt to get you in the mindset of using details, concrete details, painting a picture with your words, describe a room or area of your home growing up. In detail that you can see, any area. It could be a closet, it could be your bedroom. It might be the clutter on your mom's desk. Any area of your house. And you will find so much. You'll discover so much about yourself and your family, and how you grew up, in just writing that.

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And then when you're at a loss for prompts, our prompts are amazing in The Copy Cure. These are going to also help you write for an audience. But anytime you just want an easy, go-to prompt for your creative, your own writing, open a book or a magazine, or whatever you see in front of you, and pick the first word that jumps out. And let that spray you. Just write anything that comes to mind. It doesn't have to remain about that thing. So it might be the word urgent, or it might be the word secret, or it might be the word soap. We all have stories about that.

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Marie Forleo:

It feels like improv.

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Laura Belgray:

Yeah. It is.

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Marie Forleo:

It’s like a version of, It's like writing improv. It's like someone throws out something, or you just latch onto one word and you're like, okay, we're going to go with this. Boom.

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Laura Belgray:

Yes. Yes, exactly. I think soap and I think of so many different things and different stories that I could go with. So you can attach any meaning to it that you want. And then, okay, there's this really cool thing that I want to share that I got from our friend, Dani Shapiro.

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Marie Forleo:

Yes.

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Laura Belgray:

Whose workshop I went to. So she's a bestselling author and she's amazing. She also teaches writing. And she taught us this sort of, it's sort of a meditation, sort of a journaling technique, that she likes to start with every day. And I love it so much. So you take a piece of paper and you draw a quadrant, you draw across. 

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Marie Forleo:

Yep.

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Laura Belgray:

And in the top left, you're going to write, did, and a list. One through seven, and you will fill these in later.

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Top right, saw. And one through seven. Bottom left, heard, and just one. And then you're going to write, doodle, on the right. So this is going to apply to like the past 24 hours. On the top left you're going to write down, just jot down seven things you did. It might be dried dishes. It might be, ate cashews. Any little things that you did. On the top right, seven things that you saw. So it might be a bird. It might be my unpainted toenails. I saw those. Plenty of things there. And then one thing that you heard. So it might be a line of dialogue you overheard. It might be something you heard on the radio. It might be the sound of a frog outside your door. It might be the thud of a package on your doorstep, which I just heard.

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And then on the bottom right, you're going to make a doodle of anything. And you can give yourself say 10 minutes to do all of these. And it's a great exercise. It lets you go, there's no stress about writing paragraphs or sentences, or anything like that. It's just list making, but it trains you to be observant, to keep track of things. To just pick up on little details that you might not notice.

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Marie Forleo:

Yes. I think what I love about that too, is I think there's so much to be said for just momentum. And in our society that's so obsessed with being productive and always producing an outcome, I think that what these prompts, and even that incredible matrix describes and helps us do, is kind of overcome that constant push to create a final product, and just to get ideas flowing.

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Laura Belgray:

Yes.

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Marie Forleo:

Like the power of momentum is absolutely, it's miraculous. And if you can give yourself the space to just start making connections, and like you said, develop the skillset of being even more observant, of paying attention to the tales. And having those memory captures and putting them down on paper.

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I was looking back at journals that I have just from earlier this year, and the emotion that I was talking about, like in the end of January, before all of this hit…

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Laura Belgray:

Yeah.

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Marie Forleo:

…and I was describing how Josh had this particular bad cough and now I'm looking back at all those, yeah.

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Laura Belgray:

Yeah.

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Marie Forleo:

And so I'm happy that I was keeping those journals for this time. So I love these prompts. These are amazing. Anything else that you want to share with people around writing, before we wrap up this Self-Care Saturday?

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Laura Belgray:

Yeah. I think that writing is one of the top forms of self-expression, it's definitely the most accessible, portable, affordable. Anyone can do it. It's a thing that we are so excited to learn when we're kids, like first grade. It's like, I'm learning to write. I think it's a miracle that it is built into our muscle memory to create words on the page, whether writing longhand or on a keyboard, that is crazy that we can do that. So it's such a gift. And when it comes to self-expression, self-expression is the greatest form, to me, of self-care. Right up there with physical exercise, I'd say they’re neck and neck. And when you think about the word, expression or express, it's not just about communicating, but also about another form of that word, or another meaning of it is squeezing something out. Like juice or breast milk. Neither of us would know. But it is about letting something out.

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And I think that's so important. We all have, like those of us who are not in the habit of expressing ourselves in any form, I think have a feeling of something trapped inside. And so the best thing that you can do for yourself is express yourself. And I think that you should use writing to do it. And you don't have to be a professional writer. You don't have to be an author. To say that writing is only for those people, is like saying that exercise is only for pro athletes. So I think it's something that we should all be doing. And you will be so happy with yourself, I think, if you create a writing habit and just do it every day. Yeah.

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Marie Forleo:

Yes. Yeah. I'll tell you it's been transformative for me, even when COVID hit and kind of everything started shifting, our lives started shifting, and everything had to kind of be rejiggered. I fell out probably for maybe three to four weeks of my habit of getting up early in the morning and writing, and that was appropriate. That was fine. It was like, there was so much happening. There was so much that needed to shift that, for me, I had to say, "Oh, okay, I'm going to prioritize a little bit more sleep right now." I wanted to really take care of my health. And then a couple weeks ago I restarted that habit again of waking up super early and just going and writing on the page. You know, sometimes it'll be two hours. Sometimes it'll be 30 minutes. You know, it depends on, again, what's happening in the flow, but I could not agree with you more.

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I feel so good when I have spent time on the page. Even if it is just 20 minutes of sharing and getting down more thoughts and more ideas, and putting them on paper, and moving that ball a little bit ahead. I just feel this sense of groundedness and this sense of fulfillment and satisfaction, that I can notice a difference if I miss a day.

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Laura Belgray:

Yeah.

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Marie Forleo:

And I can notice a difference of feeling like, ugh, like I didn't have that little pocket of time to really spend time between me and me, and expressing myself. So Laura, you are so brilliant. I'm so grateful for our friendship. My goodness.

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Laura Belgray:

Me too. Thank you. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. Inviting me to hang out with your people.

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Marie Forleo:

Oh, thank you for hanging out with us. Yeah. And thanks for taking the time to put all of those prompts together. And for all you guys that have been with us for this Self-Care Saturday, writer's edition, thank you, thank you, thank you. Again, you can re-watch to get all of the prompts. And in the meantime, take really good care of yourselves and each other, and we will see you soon. Bye Laura. Bye everyone. Love you guys.

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Laura Belgray:

Bye Marie. Bye everyone.

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Marie Forleo:

Are you someone who aspires to become a better or more prolific writer? Maybe you want to get your book done. Maybe it’s a program. Maybe it’s a screenplay. Something like that. If writing is a part of your practice, you’d like it to be, or you want to get better, this is the episode for you.