“You should focus on why you do things, not on how you do them.” 
~Janine Teagues, 2nd-grade teacher (created/played by Quinta Brunson), Abbott Elementary

What is NeuroPlay? What does it have to do with writing?

This series invites neurodiverse authors to intentionally neuroplay with your writing craft, from the theory that our best writing flows through a balance of discipline and play that honors who we are. For example, I’m starting to accept that my personal blend of AuDHD and developmental trauma does not allow me the consistency of focus to write every day. No amount of disciplining myself is going to make it happen or empower me to do my best writing; it’s more likely to activate anxiousness or lead to burnout. Instead, I’m learning to move with a flow that invites failure and success, discipline and play.

In stumbling toward loving my neurodiversity, my queerness, my penchant for social flops, and all that I can learn from them – I embrace what Simone René Antillón (2016) calls neuroclowning:

“By embodying the neuroclown,” Antillón shares, neurodiverse people “are embodying a type of neuroqueer – one who tinkers around with their neurology, consciousness and embodiment in a way that embraces failure and seeks to perform social faux pas.”

Antillón invokes the Trickster trope and ritualistic clowning as roles seen in stories and cultures throughout global history; these Tricksters, clowns, and Fools encourage acting intentionally against social norms, intentionally behaving out of line to call attention, to provoke thought (especially from different perspectives), and to inspire careful action.

The Trickster or sacred clown shows up in the tales of faith and heroism around balancing life, sustenance, and power such as kids’ action-adventure cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender (aired 2005-2008). Child monk Aang is fated to be the world’s last Airbender as well as its new avatar – a superhero who can bend all four elements of earth, water, air, and fire. Aang visits Guru Pathik because he is unable to control himself in the Avatar state (S2:E19 “The Guru”). Guru Pathik guides Aang to consider the importance of energy flowing freely through the body and to connect with each of his seven chakras to address what is blocking their flow. Notably, chakra blockers are also referred to as tricksters or “demons”.

Naming areas of personal challenge, of failure, of struggle is a first step to moving through them, and it opens the door to playing with them, using the Trickster-like art of queering and questioning to turn them around from perceived weaknesses to areas for focused play and growth. In the spirit of neuroplay, this 7-part series invites readers to play with the concept of the 7 chakras, to consider the chakra presented in each blog post as an energetic source of motivation for you as an author and/or the character(s) you are creating, as well as what may be blocking the flow of that energy.

Post #1: Grounding and Survival when Blocked by Fear

The first chakra is the Earth or Root Chakra. Earth and Root are associated with stability, grounding, physicality, foundation, and identity. Accordingly, the motivating energy for the Earth chakra is survival, one’s right to exist. It also invokes the reality that all beings share the Earth together; therefore how we survive and meet our needs is interconnected. Likewise, Earth chakra’s blocker or trickster is fear.

Step 1: Naming

“What are you most afraid of?” This is the question Guru Pathik asks Aang around the Earth chakra. Aang meditates on various moments of fear he has recently experienced, immediately bringing to mind the volatile state of the world with so much violence and oppression. He witnesses his fears of losing his friends, his own life, and the world in general to the conquering Fire Nation. By engaging his fears, Aang is able to name them, reconcile them, and let them flow. They are not gone from him, but neither are they blocking him anymore.

Put another way, by engaging his Trickster Demon, Aang is able to give its True Name, stripping it of its power—this is also a timeless literary trope.  There is deep potency in naming the blocker’s of one’s life, just as there is power in knowing the True Name of a demon. Take a moment and consider what fears are calling your attention (whether they are your own or your character’s). Name them out loud and/or write them down. Take a moment, breathe.

Step 2: Playing

Aang contemplates and then lets go of his fearful memories through meditation. When he departs the guru to return to battle, Aang does so with the confidence of standing firm in who he is and his motivating reasons to embrace being the Avatar (that is, to embrace who he is and what that means for the world). I invite us writers to take this exercise a little further and play around with both the chakra and trickster concepts.  There is so much they can teach us, especially if you think of them as intertwining, interdependent, twisting and flowing, always in motion as we are always becoming.  

What we focus on grows, and how we focus also matters. The below writing prompts are designed to help you play with fears and how they may relate to grounding and survival for yourself and for the character(s) you write. Scientifically, we know fear is instinctively built into us (and fellow animals) to help us make healthy and life-prolonging decisions. So rather than think of fears as evil demons, let’s see them as the teaching tricksters they are and play instead.

Consider the following playful writing prompts; these are stylized as if you are writing characters, though they may also be worded to oneself:

1. What gives my character life? What nourishes, stabilizes, or grounds her/him/them?
2. What is my character’s fear trying to tell her/him/them?
3. How does my character’s survival and right to survive relate to her/his/their fears?
4. How does my character embody her/his/their right to exist (especially in fearful moments)?

Be watching for upcoming Post #2: Pleasure and Feeling when Blocked by Blame!