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November 16th, 2010 I know. Diet and exercise are the keys to a healthy body. But what about a healthy mind? No more excuses, right? Wrong. Our bodies as well as our minds wake up in different places each day. Approaching exercise each day with no expectations is giving your body the freedom to do what’s right for that particular day. We need to give our minds the same courtesy. We think the ultimate goal is to wake up and have a happy day, everyday, and somehow feel shortchanged if that doesn’t happen. Some days we wobble in our workouts, feel tired, and sense when we need to listen to our bodies and take it easy. Other days we feel strong and energized and accomplish more that we ever thought we could. And all of this is understood and “alright”. Same with our minds. Some days we wake up happy and are appreciative of all that’s around us. Other days we wake up and just don’t want to do it. (we still do, because we know we have to) We feel we shouldn’t feel that way and we berate ourselves for it. Sometimes we need to excuse ourselves. Rest in the fact that maybe we’re a little off today, don’t want to smile, tears come easy. Excuse ourselves with no expectations for tomorrow. Tomorrow is a new day. Today, excuse yourself, and give yourself permission to feel what you feel. A kinder and gentler world begins not at home, but within ourselves and radiates out. Excuse yourself.
And so, another day goes by, I excused myself today, and…I have written.
November 15th, 2010 After my three day hiatus my thoughts are once again flowing. I am thinking back to the beginning of my writing journey that I write about in a different blog. I keep that one password protected because the process is too painful to share – it's actually called Writing Pains. Today though, I feel like sharing the beginning of my journey with you. Why now? Because I read an article in my Cape Cod Writers newsletter of a psychologist counseling a published, well-known writer on writer's block and he told her all the same things I told myself when I started to blog. I feel so validated that I did all the right things and proud that I figured it out on my own instead of the $200 an hour that that author probably paid to get told the same things.
Part of what he told her went like this: "Take control of your inner motivations by eliminating the possibility of failing. This includes such things as your fears, goals, beliefs, and expectations. In your case, one method is to consider anything above zero as a plus. That will change the lens with which you're viewing your writing. For example, type anything and consider it a partial success. Think of it as a step ladder. The first step puts you on the bottom rung, which is more than where you are now. Each step up brings you closer to your goal. And the more you accomplish the further you move away from being a total failure." (Herbert J. Greenwald, Ph.D)
Thus, THIS blog, in which I committed to writing SOMETHING everday, was born. And it only cost $13 dollars a month. Here are my first feeble steps I took in August after giving myself this cheap advice:
The first entry of my blog, Writing Pains:
"This blog is about my journey into the printed page being a beginning writer. On this Friday in August of 2010 I will chart my daily progress as a writer and maybe it will one day, years from now, end with a book. Twelve years ago, (get a cup of coffee and settle back – I've got to bring you up to speed) I decided that when I retired to my home in Cape Cod, I would be a writer. I had no idea what I was going to write or how to go about it, but the idea of sitting by my computer overlooking a marsh and writing was intriguing and going to give me something to look forward to during my last twelve years as a kindergarten teacher. Make no mistake, teaching was great fun and the love of my life, but I knew I had only twelve more years to do it, so I figured I better have a back-up plan.
Now the twelve years is up. I have been retired here in my house on Cape Cod for one solid year. What have I written? Nothing. Now this is not to say that I haven't done a lot of thinking about writing, because I have. I think mostly about the desk and tools and room I need to do it in, instead of what I am going to write about. I think that was what was holding up the process. I had to redecorate the house so I would have a "writing room". So in September of 2009, instead of putting pen to paper, I made a writing room. It's beautiful – right down to the brand new computer. It has the ambiance and serenity that would inspire any writer – just not me. You see, I finished the room by December 09 and it is August of 2010 and you are witnessing my very first words. (not really, but we'll get to that – that's where the pain begins)
I cannot say that in this past year I have done nothing about writing, other than create the room. Last September, while creating the room, I joined the Cape Cod Writer's Center. I was quite proud of myself for going out and actually joining a writer's organization. If you're beginning to get the idea that I was scared to write, you're right, but had to figure a way out of this. I attended every monthly Writer's Night Out and Breakfast with the Author's the group offered. I spent all year listening to other writer's and observing how they went about their craft. This was a good way to begin, but after 8 months of getting to know me, my new writer friends were beginning to ask "What do you write?", to which I would reply "Nothing yet, but I'm sure it will come to me at the right time."
Along about February, through some unforeseen circumstances, my writing project presented itself. My big ahah moment – I have my writing project – a nonfiction book. I know, I know, if you're not a beginning writer, or even if you are, you're probably falling off your chair laughing. A book? What am I thinking? Oh well, it's the story of my life – whenever I do something I'm passionate about, I do it in a big way.
Well, that's all for today fellow writers. Tomorrow I will begin to tell of my journey on the book writing road – hence the pain begins. Have a wonderful evening. ~ L.B. "
The next part of that journey will stay locked up for now because I'm not quite ready to bare my writing soul yet. (you can tell how painful it was by the way I just stopped writing when I got to that point) As I was being carried down the path of excitement over the project, somewhere fear and anxiety began to creep in and paralyze me. Fear of failure. Anxiety about "Am I good enough?" Now, three months later, I am happy that I am not so scared to share my writing pains with you. I am happy that I have made a plan and stuck to it and to my surprise, have written three months of a blog and it was not painful at all. My plan not only included this blog, but also alot of education and writing experiences along the way eventually getting to the book. I am happy to report that I have taken advantage of every opportunity presented to me to further my writing education and experience. As the shrink said, "type anything and consider it a partial success."
I think this concept of making a concrete plan to take the first step in any anxious area of our life is valuable advice and saves us from wallowing around in uncertainty. That place where we know we have to change things and move forward, but have no idea how to start. Make the first step small and concrete – with "paint by number" direction, leaving no possiblity of failure. Take it and plan the next step. Three months later, look down and wow, you are off the ground. You're moving up the ladder. Keep climbing and as you climb remember it's all about the journey, not the destination.
And so, as another day goes by, I stop and look down, and feel inspiration that I am no longer on the ground because…. I have written.
November 14th, 2010 ..and I have NOT written. At first, I was sad about this, but as I thought about it, there is another way of looking at it. The writer’s brain, like a well, needs time to be replenished with fresh thoughts. These three days were my replenishment period.
These days were spent in the company of people close to my heart and through our quiet and loud times, I felt my outlook on life, and the way I view my place in my present journey, changing within me. I felt curtains of tears and waves of sadness gradually leave me. Burdens I’ve been carrying for months just evaporated. For the first time in many months I am beginning to relax back into the person I lost a long time ago.
This weekend “retreat” restored solid ground that had slipped away over time. Lots of letting go of things that I harbored and were dragging me down took place. The concepts I read and spoke about earlier in Kelly Cutrone’s book If You Have to Cry, Go Ouside were internalized and applied – much to my surprise. I put down the gloves. Stopped fighting things I cannot change and only then, was I able to see clearly the things I should embrace. I stopped kicking and screaming and crying, and instead approached things in a clear thinking manner, standing up and taking my place in a spot that was meant for me. This spot comes with alot of responsibility, requires unconditional love, and fortunately no more risk of loss. My outlook on the upcoming days ahead has been drastically altered. What I had dreaded with much trepidation, I now look forward to with love and contentment. Again, I know I must stop fussing and crying and step up and do not only what’s needed, but what’s wanted, even by me.
I am a more peaceful individual tonight as I close out what was an important, much needed hiatus from my own daily world. Stepping away from one’s own thoughts for a bit, gives God and the universe a chance to work it’s plan within us. Another words, stop trying so hard, thinking too much and rest in fate and faith. My angel of peace has not let me down as long as I stopped trying to make things happen, and once again the rewards are more than anything I could have done or created.
And so, as another day goes by, I am in a better place, and ….have resumed writing.
November 10th, 2010 I have now done Bikram yoga for 7 weeks. In his book, Bikram, AND my instructor have both said all other forms of exercise deplete energy and yoga is the only exercise that gives you energy. Ok, so for six weeks I’ve been coming home, showering and napping to soap operas! How UNLIKE me! This week, I am proud to report, that both of them are right- it takes time, but when the toxins are finally out of the body, it DOES give you energy!!! This week I have not even been able to sit down all afternoon even if I tried!!
I am happy to still find Bikram’s book still rings true!
Another day goes by, I am energized and…I have written.
November 9th, 2010 How do you know when to stop? Whether it’s the end of a pregnancy or the end of a relationship, or the end of constantly torturing yourself about something you have no control over, how do you know you can’t do this anymore?
When it overtakes your day, it’s time to let it go. When you walk through your day constantly talking to yourself about it in your head, it’s time to realize you can’t change it and HAVE to stop. What other people do, even if they die, you absolutely cannot control. The ONLY thing you can control is your reaction to it. You can only control what is inside of you. You cannot force your will on others. To be truly happy, learn to live within yourself and don’t try to manipulate or force or beg the world outside of you. Very often if we can just give in to God or the flow of the universe, things will work out to give us peace. Maybe not the way we would have them work out, but there is genuine peace in surrender. YOU don’t have to do anything – just rest and live and let live and life works a magic and brings you to a place you never imagined you could go.
Listen to the Angel of Peace. Her gift is in finding inner peace, without which we cannot appreciate the outwardly peaceful moments. To be at peace, let go of complaints against how this world is. Simply rest in contentment. The angel of peace likes to give. There is only one kind of person she cannot bless. Those whose minds are always busy trying to make things happen. To fix things and to make things right. She cannot help those who have the habit of always correcting others, or being critical of them. Her magic works best with those who “live and let live”. The angel of peace invites us to be content in an unsettled world.
And so, another day goes by, I am resting in contentment, and I have written.
November 8th, 2010 In yoga class, when I feel myself falling out of a pose, I quickly think “The breath, focus on your breath…” and so many times I am instantly calmed and go from flopping around like a fish out of water, to regaining balance and settling into position.
Again, my yoga practice reaches out into my everyday life. A few times when fear has gripped me or I got sucker punched when something hit me from out of no where, I went to the breath. It immediately calmed me and let me feel the presence of some being larger than me. I regained focus and was able to stop myself from reacting impulsively (a very big leap for me, who usually dissolves in tears, takes on all the blame, and then tries to fix it.) Now I am able to see some things cannot be fixed – immediately anyway – and require time and patience. As a type A who barrels through life at a breakneck speed – and has from the time I could walk, as my father tells it- time and patience for me, is foreign territory.
The good thing is, through yoga, I actually see progress in this area. I DO approach each day just a bit slower and more peaceful. My yoga practice is my work for now. Work, serious work that needs to be done on myself. I so look forward to getting there every morning and spending time slowly turning inward, never knowing where the class is going to lead me on any particular day, what new lesson needs to be learned or what new idea will be presented in the instructor’s dialogue, and then being able to face the world (albeit some days it is only me in my world) a little gentler.
And so, another day goes by, House is on tonight, I am moving a bit slower, and…I have written.
November 7th, 2010 After 57 years walking this earth, why do I always feel the need to reinvent myself? Like the wheel, after living with myself for that long, you would think I would know by now that no matter how many reinventions I attempt or how many times I manifest myself into a “new person”, that I would still come out the same “me”.
I’m just too happy, too over bearing, too loving, too involved, move too fast, get too excited, too hopeful, always wanna fix things, want to make everyone happy, too organized, too planned, ……..I actually exhaust myself READING what I just wrote. I’m not gonna apologize for my “me-ness” because it’s always out of love and good, but I gotta slow down and balance the boat. Hmmmm….I need a plan. I will read, think, meditate, write, practice yoga, throw myself into solitary therapeutic household tasks (like painting rooms) where my mind is free to vacate the premises as push my brush up and down to the beat of the blaring Pandora radio – after this long (maybe all winter) transformation of myself, just who will I be come spring?
STILL someone who is too happy, too over bearing, too loving, too involved, moves too fast, gets too excited, too hopeful, always wanting to fix things, wanting to make everyone happy, too organized, too planned, ……..I will be just myself, as the proverbial wheel will always be just that – the wheel.
Now that doesn’t mean I won’t still try to move toward a more peaceful, balanced existence, because as I said, I am a hopeful individual. My glass is always half full instead if half empty. Hey? Isn’t half a glass a form of balance?
And so, as another day goes by, I’m thinking of keeping me, me, but just turn down the volume a few notches, and I have written.
November 6th, 2010 I promised at least one sentence a day, so here it is:
The frickin painting is DONE!
Tonight, that’s a beautiful sentence.
Another day goes by, I have painted AND written.
November 5th, 2010 …it’s raw, it’s true, it’s how love should be.” L.B. Miller
That’s right. Today I’m quoting myself. I actually think it’s cool that I HAVE a quote (albeit it’s my only one). I got it from something I said in a letter to someone once. After rereading my letter, I liked that sentence and decided it would be my quote.
Loving fiercely. What does that mean? To me, it means never giving up on someone, no matter what. It means chasing them down just to make sure they are ok. It means sitting up all night worrying about them. It means spending hours writing to them, hoping you can help keep their world together. It means answering the phone any time – day or night. At times, in a crisis situation, it means sleeping with your phone. It means worrying about them when they are sick and getting the right medicine to them. It means listening to them when they just need to talk and talk. It means not judging their life choices. It means welcoming them and their friends into your home always. It means leaving the door open so they can always come home to clean sheets and good food when the world is not on their side. It means never lying to them, even when it will put you in hot water. It means being the example of never leaving, so they will know how it’s done. It means loving them so unconditionally that they will become experts at that, too.
In short…..loving fiercely means….being a mom.
Another day goes by, I love my girls, and I have written.
November 4th, 2010 “This is how you’ve been imprinted to use your power – you use it against yourself. Everyday we create reality based on what we’ve been programmed to believe. So we spend most of our lives not thinking clearly and coherently – not initiated thought. We spend a great deal of our lives not really living, but existing in programmed reactive belief that we call thought.
We can blame the oppressor, the predatory mindset, we can blame it forever, and it doesn’t mind. It doesn’t care.
We need to use our energy, our intelligence, in an alternative way to the way we’ve been using it” John Trudell
This is the quote the book begins with. I met the author on TV today and she threw me a thought curveball. As the quote says, what if everything I’d been brought up to think, believe, and do, was not really me and what I think and feel and wanted to do?
I was born and raised in small-town America. I’ve only lived in three houses all my life (til now) and those houses were all within ten miles of each other. I graduated in a class of 50. I loved my parents. They made me feel safe. Too safe. In high school I was afraid of alcohol. I had to find a college where there was no drinking or drugs. (I ended up being one of 4 Catholics in a Bible belt Protestant college for this reason) I was actually alive in the sixties, and I missed it. The sixties, to me, consisted of a few fleeting pictures of people they called hippies sitting in white gowns on street corners in a foreign place they called LA and some soldiers and students doing something they called rioting on college campuses. The sixties to me, looked scary and I didn’t want anything to do with it. I thought news on TV was boring and never began watching it until I was grown up and married, so I not only missed the sixties, but the fifties and most of the seventies, too. My entire world consisted of my house, my tiny school, and the local KMart (then called Big N). We lived rurally and I couldn’t get to friends houses, as we only had one car that my dad took to work. So I made up my own world, complete with dreams of my future, based on life as I knew it.
It was written, without question, that I would grow up, get married out of high school, have kids and live my mother’s life. Now, looking back, most of my friends in school that tried that, failed miserably and I would have too, without some divine intervention that (or just maybe the beginning of a thought of my own about what I wanted for my life) said NO vehemently that I did not want to live my mother’s life – I wanted to go to college (unheard of in my family) and have, not just a job, but a career. Whatever God or Godess was looking out for me, I am forever indebted to him/her. My grandfather, who lived with us, used to yell at me – “What you want with college? Lot of money for what? Get married. ”
Anyway, I might continue that story tomorrow because it might come in handy someday. The point of today is the book that led me to take a look back to find the answers to some things I struggle with today. The book is by an incredibly inspiring woman, Kelly Cutrone. The title is “If You Have to Cry, Go Outside and other things your mother never told you. “
Written for women and girls, it’s very thought provoking, while at the same time, once you get over the fact that you may have duped yourself about what you really wanted out of life, it’s comforting to know it’s never too late to do a little self evaluation and realize you hold the power to change your path….and the strength.
And so, another day goes by, my heart and mind wander and search, and I have written.
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