Discovering Mindful Writers: Paolo Peralta

Wisdom and reflections from Paolo's writing journey

Jan 03, 2025

Welcome to the January “Discovering Mindful Writers Q&A”. Each month, a guest writer answers the same seven questions about their writing life. When I came up with the idea for this series last year, I had no idea that it would prove so popular! It has been great to connect with so many new people both through those who appear in the interview and in the comments that their answers prompt. The schedule is full until May so I am now looking for more mindful writers who would like to appear from June onwards. Get in touch if you’re interested in answering these questions. I answered them myself recently and it was a very interesting exercise to answer my own questions!

I am delighted to welcome

Paolo Peralta

this month. Paolo writes Make Pure Thy Heart where he shares his journey of self discovery and expansion through his life as a musician, a vegan cook, and a mindful writer and practitioner. He is the author of “It’s All In Your Head, Friend” and a mindfulness coach.

I hope you enjoy his answers to my questions. I love what he says about even when we are not literally writing words, the story of our life is being written.

What do you think about the responses Paolo has given? Do let us know in the comments.

With love,

What does mindful writing mean to you?

Mindful writing is taking the time to slow down the racing mind. Our minds are the master weaver of the worlds we create, but its power is double edged, it can work for the creation of our most audacious dreams or its opposite. When we write we give voice to the subtler parts of our nature. Our spirit. The moment you write your thoughts down distance is created from thoughts and awareness. This process gives us a clearer view of what is perceived from being inside us to something material. When something is written, we can question its alignment to our truth again and again, revealing the more fortified version of ourselves. Hence my inclination to purity and my name being Make Pure Thy Heart. To mindfully write immediately filters what is of the good, for my practice honors the ink of the pen and paper which came from the tree, making me immediately discard anything not of service to the greater flourishing of life.

To mindfully write is to mindfully create your world. Writing is a form of manifestation from thought to matter. As we write we are in this very sacred channel of focus. One can flow, tap into God and get to know the best person in the world you have yet to meet: yourself.

How does a mindful writing practice fit into your wider mindfulness journey?

I write mostly on my phone than on paper although I do sometimes flow endlessly on paper.

Mindful writing fits into my overall mindfulness journey because I have learned that I’m more at peace with life and myself if I’m of use to the world. I’ve been writing on Substack most regularly for the past few years and am happy to have a home base where in I have committed.

I love expounding on book titles I come across. Some timeless aphorisms and applying my own wit to it, maybe trying to simplify it even more so readers on the same wavelength maybe uplifted, and change in the day might be instigated.

What do you write? Essays, poetry, fiction, plays?

Songs, (TURBO GOTH) is my musician moniker and we tour these songs of love, packaged in a rock duo with my wife, in music halls all over the U.S.

I write about concepts that get my attention; about mindfulness, stoicism, personal growth and future self; also facts about science, new thought, biology and economics.

I take note of these and riff on how it is to be used in our day-to-day. Just to ease us of self inflicted suffering. To get to a very high performing, ultimate use of the gift of our faculties.

I love man/woman to succeed over their self limited mindsets. That all is possible, that we are here to play and grow.

What drives you to write?

I’m driven by the brilliant teachers that have come before me and I believe it is our duty to continue what they have put to writing. To make it our own and drive forward with even more of what was.

What stops you from writing?

Reading, exercise, cooking, when I’m not writing, I guess I’m writing in another form. I make dishes at makepurethyheart.com I make solo free-flow podcasts on my musings startearlytoday.com. I guess we are always writing as long as we are living, we just need to choose and view things as more aligned than they appear, that even though you are not writing literally; your story is being written without you knowing about it.

What do you aspire to achieve with your writing?

Each and every moment we write, we have achieved. When you sing you are a singer. To analyze and impose anything other than that is a complexity. I love simplicity. My hope is for my own equanimity. If someone reads it and is uplifted, that makes me feel good but it is really none of my business. I try to write beautiful things because I feel it is needed to be out there in the open. Just as life has been generous to us, it is only natural that we are to be generous to each other. My hope is a fluency that transcends the murky and tricky distorted realities that the ego is always persistent in making real. That the only real thing is Love and love will be all there is.

How do you write? Are you a planner or do you just start writing from an idea and let it lead you?

I love the Parkinson’s law (things get done with time designated to it)and squishing getting things done in a timeframe. I love putting out bad or undone things; from there I get better. I get to see what really is important. Sometimes typos that I point out to readers they don’t even recognize because that are so into the meaning of what I’m saying. I guess it’s all about what is Real and Genuine. If it feels real, make and be something out of it. Introspection, learn and progress in a direction that feels closest to your Truth.

Thanks so much for your time and sharing your insights and inspirations, Paolo.

Next month’s guest is

Diamond-Michael Scott

who writes many Substacks! The one I read is Chocolate Taoist Nation where he shares a daily clarion call to embrace life in a way that's boundlessly interconnected and expansively free.

Read previous interviews in the series here.

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