HeartWriting is the workshop you join when you’re finally sick of hearing yourself proclaim, “Oh I just love writing, but I just don’t have the confidence or time to hone it!”

Sheepishly, you’ve already enrolled in six different online courses that haven’t inspired you to write more than a haiku. It’s not easy getting back into writing as an adult when you’re told, constantly, that writing is just a useless hobby – and yet you know you can do this – you just need a teacher who can look after your heart and alchemise your fears into unbridled creative joy.

The first thing you’ll realise when you walk into a HeartWriting course is that this is no regular writing workshop. This is a place of magic and transformation – mentally, spiritually, and writerly – even if you’re joining the online version. In fact, most HeartWriting students join online from all over Australia, with just a couple of bespoke writing courses offered in person in the Central Coast of NSW per year.

The main crux of HeartWriting? To follow the authentic voice that resides in your creative heart. You’ll learn how to overcome your fears while learning writing techniques that will quickly advance you into strong wordsmithery (and creative confidence).

Why writer’s block is an actual thing

Rose, creator of HeartWriting, asserts that fear is the true cause of writer’s block, even when you’re not fully aware of it. Writer’s block is just a euphemism to say that you’re not fully connected to your heart. If you’re feeling fear, self-doubt, depression, lethargy, detachment – these are all pretty sure signs that there’s a lack of alignment to your spirit and calling.

“Most creatives exist in a conundrum because they’ve been told that their path is useless,” Rose says. “They’ve been taught that only the very luckiest geniuses in the world can make it as writers, and that still, this talent can’t be relied upon to make a living. At least, that’s what I was told, which deterred me from pursuing a writing career after I graduated from my first creative writing degree.

“I totally flaked out from my calling. I went through a depression that I couldn’t shift, and then bypassed myself by enrolling in a teaching degree so I wouldn’t have to listen to my fears anymore.”

There’s valid reasons why creative choices aren’t taken seriously. Society hasn’t always been kind to artists. Take French artist Claude Monet: when he first unveiled his Impressionist works, they were widely dismissed as childish. Now, history has proven his artwork to be genius, widely beloved, and deemed exceptional in execution.

Andy Warhol’s pop art masterpieces, including his soup can paintings, were met with scoffs by many who felt the paintings were nothing more than junk. Wrong again.

In the 20th Century, the World Wars and the Great Depression took centre stage. No wonder we’ve been brainwashed to believe that the arts are reserved for the rich, or for the lucky, languorous few. For our parents and grandparents, there was no time or money left to indulge in the arts. These beliefs are infused into our ancestral lines.

You should only reignite your creativity when you’re retired: but isn’t this when you’re too tired to write because you have a multitude of health problems from your soul-sapping job that was never your first choice?

With all these toxic thoughts buzzing around your brain, it’s no wonder that you shut down those dreams and focused on something else that wasn’t so scary – paralysing all chances of picking up a pen and making some poetic, promising, heart-inflating change.

How HeartWriting works to remove writer’s block

HeartWriting flips the “disciplinary” writing approach, which is what most writing courses teach. “Here’s another writing prompt!” *snore*

Rose says you have to expand your heart first, find your internal creative resources, and then watch the magic unfold.

“To really nail it as a sustainable creator is to love each cell, each beat, each whisper of your beautiful heart,” she says.

“Sure, you can learn all the techniques, but if you’re not fluent in the language of your heart – if you can’t connect deeply with the spirit that resides within, the true author of all your works – then you’ll keep encountering the same blocks.”

Meditation, Heart Math and brainwave theory

Our heart is the most intelligent organ we have. The heart conducts 60 times the electricity, and 5000 times the electromagnetic energy of the brain. So by meditating, while connecting deeply with the breath and the heart space, we can literally alter our brainwaves into a more creative zone.

When you’re a child, innocent and in love with the world, you naturally experience the lower, more creative brainwave frequencies. As you grow up, it becomes harder and harder to drop down into that delicious creative state. But you CAN find your way back there, anytime. Just place a hand on your heart, and breathe. ⁠[Try out the “Meditation for Creativity” on the HeartWriting Podcast]

What to expect in a HeartWriting Workshop?

First you’ll be guided to the yoga mat where you’ll be asked to take some deep breaths into the heartspace, following Rose’s HeartWriting Method. A qualified yoga and meditation teacher, Rose will teach some gentle movement that is designed to incite inner connection and confidence. And when you rise from your mat, you’ll be ready to write effortlessly, already anchored in the alpha and theta brainwave states, where fear and ego are naturally banished from your being.

You’ll take part in heart circles for sharing your creative fears and joys, before knuckling down to Rose’s inspiring writing theory lectures. You’ll be provided a wide range of literature and writing skills, as well as 1–1 Zoom mentoring, and an online resource library – including homework modules and yoga and meditation classes.

Rose, a creative writing teacher of 15 years with a masters degree in writing, teaches us that authentic, powerful writing comes from a place of love – when you honour the truth of what you REALLY need to say.