Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography

Today is my fifty second consecutive day of writing Morning Pages on 750words.

It’s been an amazing process.

It’s generated new story ideas. It’s triggered me seeing it really is possible to make a huge change, like quitting the Day Job. It’s helped me see unhelpful thought patterns, the excuses I use, the limits I set on myself.

 Like the one I wrote about yesterday.

There’s a saying- “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.”

And it’s true. Nothing can change the past. But we can stop recreating it in our grown up lives.

Maisey Yates wrote this in her blog yesterday, in response to me sharing that story about dad and the book I made him -

The words people speak into your life, especially influential people, have a lasting effect. There is no denying that. However, for all the support my parents gave me, they couldn’t MAKE me succeed. Yes, their confidence bolstered mine. But they couldn’t make me write the book, or submit it. They couldn’t make me put in the work, and they couldn’t do it for me.

And the people in YOUR life who have said negative things to you can’t stop you. Words do have power. And when you’re coming from a place with no support, from a place where someone has disrespected and degraded you, I know you have more to overcome than I can even begin to understand.

But those people don’t get the final say. They don’t get to hold you back. You have a purpose, and you have gifts, and no one has the right to discourage you from those things. And their words don’t deserve to carry weight.

They don’t.

I need to stop blaming other people for what is in my life that I don’t like right now, my parents, my husband, my boss. I need to start taking responsibility for my own choices, and I need to stop beating myself up. Blaming them for limiting me, and then beating myself up for  letting them limit me, this does not help one itty bitty iota to change things.

What changes things is choosing to let go of my limiting beliefs I formed out of that situation. What changes things is choosing to stop using those limiting beliefs as excuses.

That’s the biggie. That’s the real crunch place. I’ve been using those limiting beliefs as excuses.

I have created the perfect wrong situation, where I can’t fail because I don’t try, and I don’t try because it’s someone else’s fault. The only problem is, I can’t succeed either. and I can’t be happy, because I’m living a smaller life than I could be. I’m still stuck with that desire and drive and need in me to write, to create those stories, to make those little books of mine. Not trying keeps me safe, and it makes me miserable.

So I need to do to give that little girl who wanted to make books the books she dreams of. I need to let her write. and let go of the excuses. The excuses feel safe and secure and free of failure, which is what my father was trying to protect me from, in his cack-handed but loving way.

Failure hurts. But maybe safety’s not all it’s cracked up to be either. The stories never get told. The books never get made.

No more excuses accepted here. 

I want awareness of them, those excuses. I want to be very aware of my negative self-talk, instead of suppressing it.

So when it comes again, instead of ignoring it or using food and drink to suppress it or getting angry and resentful and not-fair and poor-me, I will gently talk to it. I will tell it- ”Thank you for trying to protect me. but I don’t want to play it safe any more. I want to take this risk. I want to tell the stories and make the books. I want to write the best stories I can.”

That means the little girl needs to write with me. She’s the creative genius. She’s the wild mind. Grown up me can only correct the grammar and spelling and give the story a bit more shape, once it’s written. Grwon up me interefering in the first draft makes for dull dead boring stories and the little girl goes and sits in the corner and sulks because i told her she could play, but she’s still getting stopped, criticised, told her writing’s not good enough.

She makes up the stories, for fun. Grown up me can’t make up the real good stories.  Grown up me needs to butt out. I can only stop making crappy excuses, stop criticising her stories, and let her write. Grown up me can stop being Dad. Grown up me can know my place, letting her create the stories then taking them from her, gently and lovingly, once they’re finished. Then I get to edit them. Maybe with tough love, but still with love, and with acceptance, and with thanks for the gift she’s given me of sharing her stories.

And if nobody wants to read them, that’s their loss. The stories have been told, like they needed to be.