Interview with Jari Chevalier

by Arna Vodenos

What does wellness mean to you?

Wellness is a state of being fully engaged in life -- the whole person, in all aspects: physical, intellectual, psychological and spiritual. All these aspects should be strong, flexible, and most importantly, integrated with one another. Wholeness and wellness require a lot of self-knowledge, because each individual is one-of-a-kind. Every person has had distinct influences -- genetic and other -- unique personal experiences and deep desires. Only you can sense your own dormant capacities and what could grow from them. This is done through listening very carefully and attending inwardly; then the body and the psyche will let you know what its needs are for growth. You can then take action and extend yourself towards wholeness and reach for the full range of yourself.

How does a person achieve this state?

I work with people through creative writing, and so I’ll speak to that. Creative writing calls for a state of high engagement. It demands the full resources of the person. The verbal, logical and linear skills associated with the left brain are called into action, and also the intuitive, pattern recognition, and metaphor and image-making activities of the right or gestalt brain. Plus, one has to learn to think with one’s body in order to go into memory for sense impressions, as the whole personal memory bank -- all that we know -- is stored throughout the cells of the body. Also, it’s important to have a sense of the times we live in, of the society around us. Most importantly, creative writing calls forth your own unique vision -- it reveals to you the way you see the world, how you relate to yourself, to other people, to nature, to the essential facts of life, and to the idea of God. It activates a high sensitivity and awareness, and promotes what we’re now calling emotional intelligence. When done right, I think it exercises the mind and body conduits that work to enable wholeness and integration.

Do you have any tips to give on how a person who’s using this site right now can achieve some of the things you just mentioned?

The way one goes about creative writing is very important, and I’d like to give some tips on how to establish a pleasurable relationship to creative writing -- how to get into the right state to get the most from the activity. First, I think you have to be both energized and relaxed, so you need to involve your body in the process, preferably just before you write. Physical activities such as yoga, tai chi, dance movement, swimming, and other physical activities can help with this, as can the concentrated brain integration, sensory awareness, and stress reduction activities that I teach in my workshop. The second thing is to exercise your intuition. That can be done by setting up choices involved in the writing that you’re going to do, making lists and letting your intuition be drawn to a particular aspect of the writing. For example, if you’re writing a story, you can zero in on a particular character or a description of a place in that session. It’s good to invite the right brain into the process right away, and you can do this by calling forth images, whether they are visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory or taste images. You can also do right brain activities such as free-associative writing or mind mapping. Another thing is to enter your writing session each day in a very regular way, to get started ritualistically, so to speak. This again activates the right brain, which responds to atmosphere, and to the rhythm and feel of things. It also promotes a feeling of safety and pleasure around your creative writing sessions. I think it is also very important to have other people in your life who understand the creative process, comrades and supporters with whom you can discuss the ups and downs of writing. Finally, the practice of silent meditation is a tremendous support in the process, either before or after writing. It acts as a ritual and it’s also a means to greater sensitivity and self-knowledge.

If you had one main message to give about the process of creative writing and wellness, what would that be?

We live in times of great anxiety and of great anger. We all know this … and these words are related. The root of both means constriction, strangling, choking. I think that a lot of us feel that our happiness and balance are somehow being thwarted or denied. A lack of creativity in our lives can cause this very constriction, and creative writing is a means to free us from it. I think the opposite of depression is expression, and that’s what creative writing is all about.

How would like people to contact you from this site?

They can e-mail me at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , or look me up at www.tapvoice.com.