Make believe you had a secret hiding place to call your very own. It is where you can shut yourself from the demands of the world, where you can have your private thoughts and be the ”real” you. What would this secret haven be like? What would you do there? Write? Think? Pray? Just sit? How could such a place change you? Do you already have such a secret place, and if so, what is it like. Please describe.

“Mom, we need to talk,” she said. “It’s something serious.”

These are the opening words of a conversation and it’s your job now to continue the dialogue and figure out what the daughter and mother are saying to each other. Relax and let your imagination take over. Maybe this is a conversation that you, too, would like to have with your mother or father. Give it a try!

A blind man is trapped at home where the flood waters caused by a hurricane are beginning to sweep into the house. He places his crippled son on his shoulders and slowly leaves his home to find safety. What is going on his head? What are the words he tell himself to keep going? Will he be able to save his son and himself? Tell his story!

Here are four scenarios to encourage you to write from your heart:
1. You walk into a gallery and start reading 800 handwritten stories that are hung on clothespins along lengths of twin affixed to the wall. Someone then steers you to a bench, pen and clipboard to write a story of your own, with a sign saying ”What’s Your Story?” What do you write?
2. You then go to a gallery that features Yoko Ono’s Wish Tree where visitors are invited to take a paper tag, write a wish, and hang it on the branches of a tree. What do you write?
3. You walk into another place and someone gives you a postcard and encourages you to write a ”secret” and mail it back; some of these anonymous secrets will be posted online. What do you write?
4. At another location, visitors are encouraged to send a letter to someone in need, or encouraged to write letters to the future. What do you write?

All these are wonderful ways of reaching into yourself and then expressing what is important to you or in your heart or mind. Take a moment to let things swirl in your mind and chose one of these scenarios to do some writing. You’ll be happier for doing so!