The Wielding of Words: A Conversation on Writing with Saakshi

Season 3
Written By Wellspringwords

Season 3 Episode 13

In this episode of Wellspringwords: The Podcast, Nkem speaks with writer Saakshi Agarwal about writing as a tool for connecting with self, for self-expression, and for archiving the current self. The passion of these two writers is underscored during this episode as they reflect on and analyze the role writing plays in their lives. Enjoy this conversation fully focused on the art and use of writing!  Scroll below for the topic timestamps.

Today’s conversation is all about writing, but of course, the practice of writing is intertwined with spirituality and wellness. Saakshi introduces herself as an engineer by profession and a writer by passion. She’s currently on a ride of trying to survive the bad days and truly live out the good days. Though it’s difficult to strike a balance between her job and her lifestyle, she’s happy she gets to work on her passion. Nkem and Saakshi met through the internet, which can bind people together when the algorithm actually works to show you people you’ll like instead of what it wants you to like. Saakshi’s Instagram is full of truthful and deep writing that made Nkem feel like it came from real lived experience — rather than just abstract thoughts. Saakshi’s words are a reflection of who she is and as a result her writing is honest; she doesn’t shy away from expressing herself because she knows how universal experiences can be. It’s the essence of your experience that people connect to.

Saakshi’s writing journey started when her mom gifted her a journal at the age of fourteen. She was going through a tough time having to move to a new city, and she needed a way to express her thoughts and feelings — an outlet. She had an English teacher whom she adored and who inspired her to truly wield her pen. Naturally, she started writing about everything she was dealing with. At this point, she usually kept things to herself and wasn’t interested in telling actual people about her feelings but she needed to talk about it somehow. Writing allowed for her to feel liberated in the same way that other people might feel when they speak.

“While people associate writing with having a vast knowledge of words or above-average vocabulary, it’s more powerfully used as a tool for expression. The content that sprouts from navigating who you are in an attempt to self discover is about more than just words — it’s about liberation.”

Saakshi had a passion for writing from the moment she picked up her pen but ended up pursuing engineering professionally instead. The pandemic and loving encouragement from her friends was actually what inspired her to start sharing her writing with others on social media. Since starting her Instagram account, she’s realized there are so many people also battling their inner demons that could feel validated by her work. Saakshi’s writing is full of reflection and analysis which has Scorpio energy but she’s actually an Aries. She’s found that the Aries in her makes her persistent but uncomfortable with change, which has often held her back from doing what she truly wants.

While people associate writing with having a vast knowledge of words or above-average vocabulary, it’s more powerfully used as a tool for expression. The content that sprouts from navigating who you are in an attempt to self discover is about more than just words — it’s about liberation. Words are the building blocks, but their true emotive meaning comes out in context. These two different sides to writing can be understood through the lens of the masculine and feminine. Expression is harnessed in the left side of your brain while feeling comes from the right side. Writing your emotions can bring the two together by activating the creative feminine and the expressive masculine and bringing them into alignment.

Using writing to process your emotions can be an expressive, creative, and productive tool, but oftentimes, it can be easier to embody pain through that process. Negativity and low vibrations are important to move through, but residing in that energy only attracts more low vibrational experiences. Such experiences can teach us many lessons, but once you move through them, it’s important to figure out how to stay in a higher vibrational frequency. In the process of writing, this means moving writing from a place of ‘this is my experience of pain’ to ‘these are the lessons I’ve learned.’

Saakshi uses that mindset to tackle her own feelings and uses writing in a way that’s authentic to her. There are things we feel every day regarding the prevalence of conflict in our lives but Saakshi believes writing is meant to acknowledge those feelings. More than just stringing words together, Saakshi writes to let go of fear, for introspection, and to preserve herself on paper. To truly do all of those things, one must first be able to know themselves more than anything else — after all, you are forever in your own company. Saakshi has found a flow — one that works with her inner self to get her where she wants to be and where she needs to be.

Getting to the point where we can know ourselves and express ourselves in such a personal way requires honoring the process of learning. This means giving ourselves the appropriate time to process instead of being rushed to find inner peace. Striving for peace takes a lot out of us — healing takes time and energy. The process can be easier if we stay kind and feel everything life demands of us. Even at only 23, Saakshi has observed how life gives us a lot to learn from at every stage. Ultimately, every step in life is an experience no matter how old you are and if you can take baby steps through it, you will always find something to learn. In the same vein, Nkem feels Saakshi’s work has a ‘how-to’ aspect to it. Not in the sense of a step-by-step demonstration but rather her saying, “This is how it works for me.” Saakshi only writes about things she has actually felt and that make sense to her — that way she knows it will be of use to someone else by validating what they may be feeling.

“In the process of writing, this means moving writing from a place of ‘this is my experience of pain’ to ‘these are the lessons I’ve learned.’”

Something all of us must learn from at some point in our lives, or every step along the way, is love. Nkem reads one of Saakshi’s beautifully written Instagram posts about love. Saakshi’s words are full of larger questions about love but it really comes down to her belief that love is priceless — you can’t encapsulate it and when it’s there, you know. A lot of people find it hard to write about love because it’s such a big concept, but Saakshi thinks love is everything life is about. She says, “We are because love is.” She and Nkem believe that our entire life is an amalgamation of the various kinds of love we create, receive, and have within us. 

This conversation about writing itself is rooted in love. Nkem can feel Saakshi’s energy to know that she is living from her passion! It's invigorating to hear someone speak with passion and it makes this conversation engaging in a totally different way. As an engineer, Saakshi doesn't often get to talk about her passion so her online platform and Wellspringwords serve as an outlet for her.

When working on large or high-pressure projects, that same spark and passion can easily start to fade. Saakshi has been working on a book but since it demands so much time she’s also taking her time to write it. That way, she doesn’t feel like she’s being forced to write. For her, writing her own book means making something she resonates with and that other people can resonate with as well. She wants to create something timeless that encompasses learning and knowledge for years to come — something as close to perfect as she can get. Maintaining a process like this can be hard with the common rhetoric that we should be producing quickly and all the time — the same mindset that makes us buy a ton of books and never read them. Saakshi and Nkem know they are writing for themselves and with the goal of connecting with others. When Nkem first started her novel she was cranking out thousands of words a week but that became harder to do when she started living her process. It’s one thing to purely use your imagination to write but it’s a whole other task to deliberately weave in your own being.

To end this episode’s conversation, Nkem brings it back to what this season of the podcast has been all about: returning to wholeness and what that means to Saakshi. Saakshi believes experiences can’t be classified into shareable and unshareable — everything is personal. In the same way, there isn’t one version of us that’s whole and one that’s broken — she thinks we never break at all. She is always going to feel things she can’t define and things that hurt her but she doesn’t break into pieces. Instead, she believes we are so strong within ourselves that we can’t break; we are invincible! Not only that but feeling broken is also a part of being whole.

You can find Saakshi on Instagram if you want to read more of her work as well as her piece that was published on Wellspringwords. If you want to just chat, catch up, or ask her questions, you can send her a DM on Instagram or an email at anonymousxonly@gmail.com. Let us know if this conversation brought anything to mind or heart for you in a podcast review on Apple Podcasts or Podchaser, on Instagram, or via email at bewell@wellspringwords.love. Be well!

Topic timestamps

0:10 - Introduction

4:42 - Saakshi’s journey as a writer

12:27 - Writing as a tool for expression

15:00 -  Aligning masculine and feminine energies through writing from an emotional place

17:10 - Articulating and transcending pain through writing 

20:18 - What writing means to Saakshi

22:08 - How to deepen our personal expression + honor the process of learning

26:41 - Pivoting into writing about “Love”

28:57 - Writing about “Love” as a concept

32:00 - Saakshi is living from her passion and Nkem can feel it!

34:51 - Maintaining authenticity and joy while working on a larger writing project

39:35 - What returning to wholeness means to Saakshi

42:16 - Stay connected and dive into more!

References and resources mentioned in this episode

Find Saakshi here:

Find Nkem here:

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Wellspringwords

A space dedicated to holistic wellness through writing, through narrative reclamation and authentic storytelling. This is a space for healing, for feeling, for talking, and for seeing each other as we truly are, as we see ourselves, and as we want to be seen. 

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