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Author Recommends 'Writing Down Your Soul'

Cheryl Bentley/SUNCOAST

Janet Conner's altar at home has items from many faiths. The former business executive is the author of "Writing Down Your Soul."

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By Cheryl  Bentley | The Suncoast News

Published: January 23, 2009

Updated:

'I want you to find me." That was Janet Conner's message to God on New Year's Day 1996.

"Of course, I had every idea if God finds you, it was going to be pretty," Conner wryly notes.

It has become just that - after a lot of traumatic bumps down the spiritual path. She meets spirit daily through writing, Conner says.

Her book, "Writing Down Your Soul," recently published by Conari Press, describes a process Conner developed in which, she says, spirit can be accessed through writing. The practice is readily available to anyone with pen and paper.

Conari Press is a unit of San Francisco-based publisher Red Wheel/Weiser LLC. The Conari imprint specializes in books on spirituality, personal growth, parenting and social issues.

Dr. Larry Dossey, a physician and author and former co-chair of a National Institutes of Health's panel on mind-body interventions, calls Conner's book "an invaluable guide." Dossey is a former executive editor of Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, a peer-reviewed journal.

Rebecca Thompson, executive director of the Consciously Parenting Project, a collaboration of professionals and parents focusing on family life, describes soul writing as "an amazingly transformative process."

Conner appears to be an atypical messenger for the divine. She is a bundle of nervous energy, with words coming out in dramatic torrents accompanied by self-deprecating humor and hands fluttering as busily as Tibetan prayer flags.

The Ozona home of this woman who was raised a Roman Catholic in Chicago sports a variety of items representing different spiritual traditions. They include an Islamic prayer rug, icons of the Christian archangels Michael and Gabriel and pictures of Native American animals.

In addition, a lily-themed painting by artist Linda Renc hangs on a wall. The work by Renc, co-owner of the Painted Fish Gallery, in Dunedin, was a 60th birthday present from friends, Conner explains.

At a time when finances were tight, Conner asked spirit, through her writing, how she could support herself. "Lilies," she found herself writing. She knew immediately she was being referred to the passage in the New Testament Gospel of Matthew advising trust and faith that begins, "Consider the lilies in the field and how they grow."

Still, coming into contact with the divine definitely had its rough side. Conner describes a painful divorce in the 1990s that involved possible physical danger for her and her son.

A former vice president and general manager of a division of the international staffing firm Robert Half International, Conner could no longer work because of the chaos in her life. To try to understand her pain, she began writing to God. Her first writing was mostly venting.

"I swore at God," she recalls. But later, she viewed it "as a call from deep within saying, 'I want more. I want to change.' "

Her trauma over her marital difficulties caused her to employ some of the techniques that would later become important in what she terms soul writing. Conner wrote fast, asked plenty of questions and didn't edit her words. The fast writing seems to allow the writer to bypass the conscious mind, she explains.

The writing eventually led her to forgive her former husband. Unknown to her until his death, this man who had once hated her had made her the beneficiary of his life insurance.

In one of the many incidents Conner considers a gift from spirit, the money came at a time when she most needed it.

The writing also caused her to write her book. In 2006, at a time when she was involved in another project, the idea for the book came up while she was soul writing.

By that time, she had developed enough respect for the process not to ignore ideas that arose in her writing. Conner half-heartedly decided to contact a publisher, thinking her query would be rejected.

She e-mailed Conari a one-sentence query, asking if the publisher would be interested in a book on deep-soul writing.

The answer was just as brief: "Yes." It was followed by 15 exclamation marks.

Even though Conner has developed trust in soul writing, she is the first to admit she is still left gasping at the sweetness of what she considers its results. Her latest miracle is a possible interview with National Public Radio her publisher has arranged.

While not the same blockbusters sales boost as becoming a selection of Oprah's Book Club, coverage on NPR does get an author's work before a major section of the book-buying public.

"I'm waiting for NPR to call," she says. "I've been writing for 11 years, and I'm still blown away."

Cheryl Bentley can be reached at 727-815-1069 or cbentley@suncoastnews.com.

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