Finding home, finding love – writing romance, making clothes, growing food, and growing up

Adventures in living an authentic creative life

Category Archives: Emotional growth


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How to be happy as a writer

What to give up- and what to focus on, by Art ~ 4ThGlryOfGod via Flickr

Shameless lift from Chuck Wendig’s blog post today- 25 Ways to Be a Happy Writer. I love Chuck. I want to marry him and have his babies.

What? He’s already married with an adorable ankle biter? And I’m already an old married lady and twice his age and way too ancient to have anyone’s babies even if I could which I couldn’t?

*sigh* Guess I’ll have to settle for just loving his blog then.

Potty mouth extraordinaire, with metaphors that will set your eyeballs on fire, for sure, but there’s so much crunchy writerly goodness in his posts.

I loved every one of his points, though this one maybe spoke most of all to where I am with my writing now. # 25- Finish Your Stuff (okay, he didn’t write “stuff”, if was another word starting with ‘s’. But I’m working on my own potty mouth right now and do not want to swear, not even quoting a swear!) -

Every time you fail to finish your work, a little girl loses another kitten. A unicorn loses his horn and becomes a regular stupid old horse. A sweet old lady chokes on her dentures. But worst of all, every time you fail to finish your work it wears another small hole in your soul. You can feel it there — that ragged tear in your cloth, wind whistling through the gap. Because you know what it means. You’re giving up. Giving in. Handing over the keys. Letting the terrorists that are your Doubt and Fear and Uncertainty win. You know what all the books published and movies made and comics inked have in common? Someone finished what they started. And finishing will give you a bliss-boost. All your happiness circuits will fire like a 21-synapse-salute. Even if it’s not the best thing you’ve written. Even if it’s the worst.

Because the best thing you never finished is always less than the worst thing you did.

I’m so glad I have a strong writing goal for April. I can’t wait to get this research and planning done and start writing!

And I adore this image by the lovely talented Art ~ 4theGlryofGod. It to me is the total recipe for happiness. Plus the last point made me smile.


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Simplifying my life

River gums beside the Lachlan River at Forbes, NSW, Australia

Quitting the Day Job to write has opened up a whole lot of other issues.

I know I’ve made the right decision in resigning. This feels right. This makes my inner child happy, while also satisfying my inner parent. Yay adult me for finding the right compromise!

But my life needs to change, in big and small ways.

I need to get writing and to get in as strong a position as I can financially. I’m embracing the possibility of working extra hours while I am still at the Day Job, to top up the bank balance ready for the time I have no income. We need to live as simply and frugally as possible. This week, I already sold my car and the spare mobile phone. I’ll be selling more stuff on eBay. I also gave twelve bags of clothing and bits and pieces to charity.

A big change to make is curbing my spending. I don’t think I’m extravagant, but I still spend way more than I need to. I’ll go back to the spending diet, keeping track of everything I spend and limiting my Material Girl to £10 a week.

Now, when the shopping urge hits, I have two choices- spend a small amount from my ten pounds a week, or “shop” my remake bags or fabric stash and create something new. I have enough fabric and fifty p items there to last ages, honestly. When I want to buy junk food or drink, I just don’t!  Instead, I need to ask what it is that my inner child is really looking for. Comfort. Love. Release from stress. Even the thirty nine pence for two liter bottle of supermarket own brand diet cola musn’t be a regular purchase.

I’m getting better at letting go of stuff.  I need to develop this mindset- hold on to what is worth holding, let go of what isn’t. So I hold on to my writing and my relationship with my husband, I let go of my job and any things that don’t add value to my life.

I get focus back on what is important. My home and garden. My health. My marriage and other relationships. My creativity. My writing.

The things that matter to me.

I shouldn’t have anything I don’t truly love or use in my life. No more hanging on to stuff for the sake of hanging on to it. I can let go, easily. I can have just what is needed. I can live joyfully and simply. It will be better.  It will help me be more focused and centred. I’ve been scattered.  Way too scattered. My energy has being pulled in a million different directions. That’s already starting to change.

Things that are important-

  • Writing
  • Creativity
  • My husband
  • My family
  • The mother-in-law and supporting her- the reason we are still in this country
  • My home
  • My garden
  • Eating well
  • Staying healthy
  • Financial security
  • Hopes for the future
  • Going to Australia at least once a year
  • Taking care of our animals
  • Spiritual connection



That’s probably about it!

So that’s an easy list. And I don’t see having a Day Job anywhere there, except as a route to financial security. And I never wanted financial security for it’s own sake. It ties in to my hopes for the future, with wanting to eventually move back to Australia.

Oddly enough, the desire for a house in Australia right now, not when we actually move there but NOW, this minute, even better yesterday, has subsided. The solution came from a surprising source.

Instead of hiring an expensive and never-quite-right-for-us campervan this holiday, as we have for the past few years (less emotional wear-and-tear all round if we don’t stay with my parents) I bought a tent instead. Cheap because it’s coming into colder weather now, and more comfortable and roomy than the van. It can be left at my parent’s place and reused every time we go to Australia.

Simply having a tent and a few other bits and pieces left behind satisfies my urge to have something there, a foot hold in Australia. I thought it needed to be a house or at least a block of land. Then when that didn’t happen I thought a campervan, that I could leave at my sister’s place. But this will do it just as well. A tent. Under two hundred pounds worth of camping gear. No further outlay required, unlike a house or a van.

It’s enough.

A lovely lesson in finding what enough is. It’s often smaller and simpler than we think.


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Being like our characters- finding courage to go for our dreams


Photo by oktavianim

So, I quit the Day Job.

I gave them four months notice, so I’m still acting professionally and not leaving anyone in the merde. I’ll save as much as I can in that time for an extra financial cushion. I have a story all planned out, ready to start writing, a novella I want to get written and published fast in the hope of having a trickle of money coming in before I leave.

Now of course the fear kicks in, the fear I won’t be able to write it as well as I envision the story. And of course, I won’t.  Nowhere near it in first draft, but it will get closer to the story I see with each successive draft, until I know it’s close enough and ready to send out to the world.

I still feel the terror though. Of not being good enough. Of being found out to be a fraud, I write so much about writing, yet I can’t write. Of truly finishing something and putting it out there to be judged and criticised.  Of failing at this grand big plan to have it all, damaging one dream (the house in Australia, the reson for my savings) for the sake of another (being a full-time writer).

That’s the risk I take. I did a process of thinking what my “brand” will be as a writer. Basically, what my stories will be about. What the consistent themes are readers can expect from my books. This wasn’t actually for me as Autumn, this was for another pseudonym I’ll be using for my hotter stories. It’s all about my heroines growing their confidence. Owning their power. Overcoming the fears and limitations that have run their lives.

I realise, these are the themes of ALL my stories, possibly all good stories by any writer. In the erotica written under the pseudonym, it will be an extraordinary sexual encounter that catalyses her change. In my stories as Autumn, it will be the demands of the developing relationship. To have the relationship, she needs to change what holds her back.

Yet all these things are what I need to do too. I’m still letting fear and limitation run my life.

I don’t think I’ll be having any unusual sexual experiences, or a new relationship. But I still need to change. I need to find that strength in myself. I need to find the courage to overcome my fears. I need to stop giving away my power, and use it like a battle axe to slash through the wall of limitations I’ve surrounded myself with.

Making chance is big and scary and risky. Last week I had the high of making the decision and acting on it. This week, I have the crash, the dealing with the consequences.

I still know I’ve made the right decision. I need to take this chance now. Playing it safe in the Day Job was keeping me small, giving me excuses to not be all I could be. It’s time to go for it, but pay the price. The price is needing to face this fear. Needing to face the insecurity. Needing to face that it might all go wrong, spectacularly crash-and-burn wrong or quiet whimpering wrong.

Also, needing to face that it might all go right. Fear of success is just as big an issue as fear of failure. The only truly safe thing is to never try. Or to say I’m trying, but procrastinate. Waste time. Write about writing instead of actually writing. Sub stuff far too early as a safety mechanism.

It’s time to stop all that. Time to stop playing it safe. Time to take the risk and do the work. Time to stop being a wannabe and a couldabeen. I’ve “tried” to work at my writing. But Yoda was right. there is no try. Only do, or do not.  It’s time to do. The fear will always be there. It never goes away, according to my multi-publisher author friends.

But we can still do it anyway. No lucky charms needed. Just enough courage to get started and keep going.


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Dealing with aging parents and angry spouses- being a daruma doll

Daruma doll, okiagari, symbolising resialnce and equilibrium
Photo copyright Daruma Doll Musuem

Aging parents and parents-in-law is a major challenge! Try as we might, we don’t always deal with them as well as we’d like.

I don’t feel I managed things too well over the last few days.  Just as my husband and I were getting ready to go get our “new” car from the dealers, fraught enough with tension, my mother-in-law’s next door neighbour rang to say she’d fallen over in the drive. No serious injuries, but bruised and shaken up. Our plans for the afternon changed to going over and check she was all right. Not a big deal.

The problem was my husband’s reaction to the situation, and my reaction to his reaction. We got in a spiral of anger and it wasn’t helpful or comfortable or good for our relationship. All we did was increase each other’s stress levels.

I can’t change how he reacts to his mother. He may always react with anger, resentment, and little boy whinginess. What I can change is how I react. Getting angry, resentful, and whiny little girl myself is not useful!

I need to stay calm and focused on what needs to be done. Acknowledge his right to be angry. Acknowledge that I am angry too. Calmly ask him to stay focused on the current situation and not to bring in past events, instead of making things worse by yelling at him. Ask him not to vent his anger at her the way he does, so I feel it’s directed towards me, while validating that it’s okay and appropriate to feel angry. His mother has no risk perception, and won’t take advice. She chooses to put herself in unsafe situations, and is oblivious to the worry and bother her actions cause others. I can see why he feels angry with her. I feel angry too. My day is wrecked just as much as his.

But I need to react to his anger with calm acceptance. Not with more anger. My putting more anger into the mix is what makes it spin out of control and get ugly. I need to stay calm and centred and balanced, and not allow what is going on to push me out of that. I can’t recall the exact line, but there’s a sentence in A Course in Miracles that Marianne Williamson quoted, something about when two of you are angry, whoever is sanest in that moment needs to stop. When it comes to parents and parents-in-law, that’s seldom the person whose parent it is who can be sanest, so I guess that makes  me the person responsible for keeping things calm here.

Getting angry and resentful in a reactive way helps no-one. It’s hard  to have to always be the grown up, when the child in me wants to throw a tantrum and yell and drum her feet and cry about how unfair it is too.

But it is what it is. I chose this situation. I chose to marry my husband, for better for worse. I chose to stay in the UK rather than move back to Australia, solely so we could support my mother in law.

Now, I choose to stop seeing myself as a martyr. I choose to embrace the gifts in this situation.

The chance to learn calm and focus and equilibrium. The knowledge that in staying to help her, we are doing the right thing. The chance to grow more in patience and compassion. The chance to support my husband as he hopefully works through his feelings about his difficult relationship with his mother. Being here in this situation is his choice too.

It’s hard. She’s nasty and selfish and totally can’t see why she shouldn’t just do what she wants. She doesn’t appreciate what my husband does for her, because she wants more or other things from him. He feels unloved, has always felt unloved. His fragile self-esteem takes a massive hit every time he sees her. She’s far from being a good mother, though I know she does the best she can. While we were there, after rearranging totally our afternoon’s appointments and plans to be with her, she still sniped criticism at him, in a deliberately hurtful way. I tried to stop her, but it didn’t reduce the effect on him.

It’s easier for me with her. I don’t have all that history with her. It’s always easier with someone else’s parent, not our own.

Where I have the problem is with my husband. I want him to be grown up about her. But he can’t. The child in him is too wounded and hurt.

And when I react with anger to his anger or resentment, I’m wounding that child even more. I need to validate his right to anger while not feeding it. I need to make it clear I don’t accept feeling like the target of that anger, when he says to me all the things he wants to say to her. I need to remind him that he has a choice.

I need to remember that I have a choice.

I need to be a grown up, even more so. I need to find resilience, my place of calm and focus, and I need to stay there, refusing to be knocked out of my equilibrium. I need to be a daruma doll, a roly-poly, a round-bottomed doll with weights in it that you can’t push over. Try, and it bounces back up again.

If my weight, my focus, is on what’s most important, on why I’m choosing to do this, I’m a daruma doll. I can help my mother in law. I can help my husband. I can help myself.


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A lesson from the Universe- quit complaining, and appreciate what I have

The Universe is teaching me to be satisfied with what I have and to stop always asking for more, resenting what I don’t yet have.

Examples- I found a one p coin on the street, and asked for more. Next day, I found a five p coin. My reaction was “Great, but could it be a five pound note next time? Or even a tenner?” Within half an hour, I found more money on the street. Not a note, another five p coin! I did get at the time that maybe that was a lesson. Say thank you for what I was freely given, and stop grasping from more. Be satisfied and happy with what I have.

Obviously I didn’t quite get that lesson. This morning I hopped on the scales. The number was about six pounds more than I’d like, but that’s not so bad. It wasn’t over my this-far-and-no-further weight limit. I’ve only put on a pound since breaking my foot, which is actually marvellous, as my mobility has been so badly reduced, and walking was a huge part of my weight loss. But it wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to be less. So I rebalanced the scales and got on again. One pound heavier!

So I had another lesson from the Universe in accepting what I was being given. Now I need to apply that to the Day Job situation. Yes, I’m not working the hours I want, the hours I signed up to work. Instead of doing two days a week, I’ll need to do three, to meet the needs of my department.

But that’s okay. Instead of resenting that and making myself unhappy because I want more time for myself, I can embrace the gift in it.

The combination of Day Job and writing will give the perfect mix of outside stimulation, safety net of cash flow, yet still with ample time to create and work on my own projects. From this week, I’m off the full time work I had to go back to for a while. I have more time for me, for my creative play/ work. And the extra money will be a nice bonus. I have no problems spending the additional cash that will bring me!

So I accept and embrace the gifts the Universe gives me, with thanks.

Not in a soggy cereal this-is-all-there-is-so-I-have-to-pretend-I’m-okay-with-it way. In a real, taking on all there is for me in my life as it is now. Not wasting time in resentment and wishing things were different, but actively using the gifts that are there right now.

That’s a good thing. It doesn’t mean I don’t work to change things or stop setting goals. It means really and truly being with what is right now, seeing the good in it, and making what I can from the current situation.

That’s a stronger place to come from. It’s a more centred and energetic place to come from. It’s a happier place to come from.

This is the lesson I need to learn right now.

So I accept going to my mother in law’s all day today, even though I’ve been longing for a day off to write.

I accept working a day more a week that I prefer at the Day Job.

I accept that our little car has broken down, the very next day after passing its MOT check.

I accept that my husband is unable to find paid work.

I accept that we are living in England for the time being.

I accept that I’m not yet ready to make an income from writing or other creative work.

I accept that my blog is far less read than I’d like.

I accept that I have a broken foot and can’t walk like I usually do.

I accept that my weight is five or six pounds over my chosen ideal weight.

I don’t just accept these things. I give thanks for them. I embrace them. I find the gift in them. Pollyanna’s Glad Game. I’ve never known why people use Pollyanna as a criticism!

The reason we stay in the UK is for my mother-in-law. I chose to stay here, so we could help her. So she can be toxic and grudge-bearing, she can also be generous and she does appreciate the visits even if she denies any need for support.

I do enjoy the Day Job. The skills I develop there are useful for me in my creative work. Project management. Dealing with set-backs. Prioritising. Juggling different projects. Following things through to completion. Meeting different people and hearing their stories.

No-one was hurt when the car broke down. It didn’t break down somewhere totally inconvenient. The mother in law has loaned us her car. We can know our car is getting to the stage where it’s developing problems so we can sell it now while it still has some value. We need to have car to get to the mother in law if she has a problem, but we can find another car. Added today (I wrote this yesterday): And we did. A gorgeous very different car we would never have looked at otherwise, a car I know I will love, and we got it at a good price. Plus, my clever husband worked his butt off and fixed our old car, so we can sell it while it works well with a full year’s MOT, instead of waiting for something else to go wrong with it.

My unemployed husband has time to do all the housework, freeing me from that. He’s enjoying the opportunity to learn languages in the time he has spare. He’s free to support his mother, so I can be less involved there.

I love so much about England, that I will miss when we do eventually go home to Australia. The green. The history. The unexpected magical things one can see it one looks for them. Our adorable little house and garden. And now, my lovingly hand made writing shed. There’s a lot of good things about living here.

I don’t have the pressure of needing to make money from creative work, so I can develop, learn, play, and explore options. This is a lovely low stress place situation.

My blog is something I love doing anyway, and I have a small group of wonderful readers, all interesting people, most with fabulous blogs of their own that are a delight to read.

I needed to learn to slow down. Breaking my foot has given me far more understanding of what it’s like for my husband, living with a chronic disabling condition. I’m seeing a lot more little things because I’m not whizzing past intent on getting somewhere else.

I can lose more weight if I want. Maybe I goal weight is actually too low for me. It’s just a weight I had in my head my whole adult life as an ideal weight, but that doesn’t mean it’s right for me. When I was that weight, several people told me I’d got too thin. Maybe the weight I am now, six pounds heavier, is the weight my body wants.

These are some of the gifts in the things I’ve been complaining about lately. I’m discovering this is the key to living a happy life.

How about you?


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Monday Musings- on menopause and creativity

At last the writing shed is being used as I designed it to be used- writing! I had a lovely afternoon yesterday beginning  edits of Believe in Me, my Christmas novella. It’s a wonderful space to write in, though I do admit to getting a bit twitchy after dark. Onder of those slightly creepy windy nights, and the cherry tree has a branch that rubs on the shed roof. If my husband had been home I don’t think I’d be so jittery, but he’d gone out.

Anyway, I’m so pleased and happy, using the shed to create in.

I’ve sorted out a lot of my sewing and crafting stuff too. I’m moving it all out of the house and into boxes in the shed. I think I’ll be able to fit everything in. I want to keep the shed looking uncluttered, so everything needs to have a place in the boxes on the shelves. That way, I will only have my current project on view and will be less likely to get distracted. That’s the theory anyway. I’m easily distracted! My brain has finally switched back on after menopause, and is whizzing in so many different creative directions.

So glad I am through menopause now.  I’m feeling like I have my brain back at last, though I’m still more forgetful than I was. Names and words for things in particular. I hated the feeling my head was full of wet cotton wool!

I do think I complicated my transition with a lot of resentment at not having a child, not wanting to let go of possible fertility. Then I got to the stage where I just wanted it over with. I had a couple of false stops, where I went many months without menstruating, then my cycle restarted.Every period was an annoyance and a reminder, tying me back to a phase I wanted to let go of. Once they really did stop and not come back, I felt more like I could mourn and let go of the wasted opportunities of that stage of my life. I do still very much regret not being able to have a child, but it’s time for me to move past that now and see what else I can do with my life.

I’m quite happy to develop into an interesting crone now, with cats and a garden and my creating shed. I really want to get into art too, not just writing. I always had this thing I couldn’t do “art”. Part comparing myself to a very talented younger sister, part internalised parental perfectionism, and the biggest part primary and high school teachers who insisted on very prescriptive art tasks with ridiculous rules for what a painting or drawing should be.

So much of that teaching stifles creativity rather than developing it!

I want to give myself permission to make a mess and get things wrong. In writing and in other forms of creativity. I want to start keeping a sketchbook. I bought a better digital camera cheaply on eBay (still a point and click, but it has a zoom and a macro and takes pretty good photos) and I’m taking photos of anything I see that interests me. I’m trying to develop seeing things differently. I want to mess around with restyling clothes from the fifty p rack at my favourite charity shop,  especially doing things with texture and pattern for surface decoration.

I love Alisa Burke’s work, because her stuff is so wild and free and she doesn’t wait for “permission” to be an artist. She has an inspiring post here on being an artist.Age doesn’t matter. Having a Day Job and not being able to create full-time doesn’t matter. Life after fifty can be fun and interesting and more creative than when I was younger and all my energy got tied up in the longing for a child. Now, I’m free to focus on creating. On writing and sdewing and painting and drawing and however else I want to express my Muse.

I go back to part-time work next week. Not the two days I want, but three days a week  is at least a step in the right direction.  Getting the shed finished now is perfect timing.

 


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Fear of beginning a big scary story- or fear of subbing?


Photo by verityatthedisco

I’m feeling stuck- conflicted about what I should write what’s best for me to write.

A few days ago I did a post on starting a new story, and committing to finishing it. I need that so much! I am a serial starter. New story ideas come to me easily, I get excited, do a bit of planning, start the story, and give up after a few chapters. Or i finish first draft and never edit it. Or I get as far as editing a partial enough to submit, get a rejection, and again the story languishes, because I’m off with the next exciting new story.

If I took the same approach to my love life, I’d have gone through about forty-something boyfriends in the last ten years, instead of being happily looking forward to our tenth wedding anniversary in Paris next April!

I’m running through my list of unfinished stories since I started writing fiction again in January 2008.

It’s worrying.

I haven’t properly completed a single story. Ever.

By “completed” I mean not just first drafted but edited and rewritten and made as good as I possibly could.

I thought I had with one, the novella I wrote last December, but I was wrong. All I really did was tidy up and gently tweak the first draft, when it needed some serious cutting and rewriting in parts. I saw that straight away when I re-read it a few months later. So much that was wrong with it became obvious. It’s a wonder I got such a kind rejection! “Let a story sit as long as you can before re-reading it” is my favourite advice for self-editing. I was totally blind to all that needed editing when I’d only just finished first drafting it, on a deadline and needing to submit fast.

That one hasn’t been finished yet. I saw I could take it two ways, rewrite as a longer story and go broader and deeper, or cut it in half for an even shorter novella. I started the longer rewrite, but stopped after two chapters, enticed away by a new story idea.

My story files are a clutter. I’ve got four other first drafts through to “The End”. One of those, I’ve edited the partial for submission, got a nice rejection, and started a complete rewrite. I’ve got another three or four stories around a third to half-way first drafted. There are more that are just two or three chapters that were abandoned. I’ve got a lot of first chapters, written for contests or just because I had a new story idea, that I didn’t take any further. Then there’s the big folder full of story ideas I haven’t started yet, just jotted a page or two on, but I don’t make myself feel any guilt about that.

It’s all the unfinished stories that I’m guilty about.

I publicly committed to completing the next story I start. I have to get in the habit of finishing what I start, if I want my writing to ever be more than a hobby. So I’m developing the story now. The problem is, it’s going to be huge. far bigger, both in word count and complexity, than anything I’ve ever written before. My guess is this story will take around a year just to first draft. Probably as much again to edit. It does scare me. It scares me silly.

But in a comment on that previous post Mike perceptively suggested I may be using the big story as a way of hiding from another fear.

If you fear rejection, then embarking on a brand new, multi-year writing project might not be the best thing to pursue at this time. A shorter, more quickly completed story will force you to tackle that submission fear of yours sooner rather than later.

Then you can send out the short work while writing the longer one.

Initially, my reaction was “No, course not” but now I’m wondering if maybe he is right. Am I using the big story as a way to avoid more rejection?

Possibly.

It’s interesting that when I looked at the editing last thing I subbed, the rejected novella, I chose to go for the longer rewritten version and not the shorter easier fix. Part of that was because I wanted to enter it into a first chapter contest, and the longer story is a better fit for the publisher’s submission guidelines. (In the end, I missed that deadline anyway.) Now I’m also considering if I didn’t want to do the shorter version out of fear of needing to sub again so soon.

I can see how the 22k novella could be a different, much stronger story as the 10k version. Doing that wouldn’t stop me still rewriting it as the longer 50k version if I wanted to, because so much needed changing for that it would be a complete rewrite anyway. I’m thinking, while I slowly develop the very big 100 k story idea, which will need a lot of prewriting planning, maybe I should do the 10k  rewrite of the rejected novella.

It was so clear on re-reading that the story could have ended around 10k. That’s when the emotional issues
actually resolved. The other 10k was a sex scene and a lot around resolving the external block.

Yes, I had it totally back to front!

In romance, the characters really do have to resolve the external issues BEFORE the internal emotional ones. That’s because the main story question is always ”How do these two very different people overcome all the blocks in the way of them committing to a truly loving relationship?” not “How do they solve the external problem?”

I do want to write this story. I think it could be good.

Now I’m feeling torn. I know I’m scared to start the big story. I’m afraid it’s way beyond my ability to write. I want to do it anyway. I don’t want to run away from this.  I also have this contradictory desire to be writing shorter stuff and subbing. But I don’t want to use editing the novella as an excuse, a cop-out, an escape from taking on the big  scary project.

I’m going to have a go at doing both. I’ll do the development work on the fantasy story, in parallel to editing the novella.

Wish me luck!

And tell me, how do you juggle working on two different writing projects at once?


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Letting your light shine


Photo by remanufactory

I love those aha moments, the light switch moments that help us  see something more clearly. The most unexpected things can trigger them, and when they come, I grab them and treasure them for the gifts they are.

Shireen commented she had one reading my previous post. ”Don’t dull who you are…who you are might inspire someone else!”

Absolutely!

Letting our light shine is a cliche, and yet it’s so hard to even admit we HAVE a light, let alone let it shine. I noticed I had to add a disclaimer (“such as it is”) after I mentioned my light in the post.

Claiming our light and letting it shine was a capital crime in my family of origin, part of the major offense of being “big-headed”. I used to try to make myself small to the point of disappearing. Then I became fat to do the same thing. Being fat is a great way of being invisible, I could make sure no-one saw me, just the fat.

Now I don’t want to be invisible. I was not born to be invisible, none of us were.  I pray to be appropriately big-headed, with a realistic and clear sighted self-love, awake to my own gifts as well as my flaws. To see who I truly am, with no delusions of grandeur or of smallness, and live that truth.

So funny that our language has a term for people who see themselves as bigger than they may be, delusions of grandeur, but no matching term for people who belittle themselves! That’s really the same thing, a delusion of smallness.

I’ve always loved this quote by Marianne Williamson from A Return to Love -

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.’ We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

I’m ready to shine.

How about you? How can you shine your light more today, and inspire someone else to stop making themselves small?


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Morning pages- number one tool for change


Photo by dcJohn

One big difference I’m noticing in myself lately is that I’ve stopped apologising for existing. It’s like growing into who I really am. I speak my mind more. I’m making different choices to those I might have made six months ago. Instead of waiting for things to happen, or playing “I’ll be happy when…” I’m making things happen, and I’m choosing to be happy now.

The key thing I believe helped me change, start living more authentically, is writing morning pages every single day. Seven hundred and fifty words, the equivalent of three pages, every day, just writing whatever comes into my head without thinking too much. First thoughts. Wild writing. Okay, some days they’ve been evening pages, but they got done.

I started this back in February, and it’s made a huge difference. I’ve done it in the past, but not nearly as consistently, or as long. I haven’t missed a day. Morning pages are amazing. They’ve helped me find a clarity and level of honesty I don’t think I would have found any other way. Most of what I’ve blogged lately comes from there.

There’s no right or wrong way to do morning pages. Typed on a computer. Handwritten in a pretty book. Scrawled on loo paper even.

There’s no right or wrong thing to write about either. It’s whatever is in my head. Sometimes that’s a rant about something frustrating me. Sometimes it’s a big To-do list. Sometimes it’s problem solving, exploring alternatives. Sometimes it’s a scene for a story, just popping up out of nowhere. Sometimes it’s a messy mix of all of this.

I use either my laptop or PDA. I could handwrite faster than I type, but I like being able to read it back, cut and paste bits elsewhere. Loo paper wouldn’t work for me, impossible to read back! And the pretty book would just plain intimidate me and make me feel I had to write pretty thoughts, too. It would stop things being so raw.

My morning pages are definitely not pretty.

What they are is consistent, at least 750 words long, and written every day, as soon as I can after I wake up.

The last few days are full of crossing out. I’m trying to remind myself just how much in my life is my choice. Every time I write “have to”, “must”, or “need”, I’m striking it through. Not deleting it, the word I chose initially is the word I chose, so that’s how I felt when I wrote it. Next to it though, I’m writing “choose to” or “want” instead. Just to remind me.

What’s important is not to judge what I write, just let it be what it.

I’ve written a lot of drivel today. All about buying and selling and wanting a load of ”stuff”.  But it’s just as real and valid as the deep emotional stuff. This is my concern now. This is what is in my mind. There’s no right or wrong topic for morning pages. No “You can write about this but don’t you dare write about that.”

 So one day I write about growing up at last and letting go of resentment, and connect with a hidden part of myself. The next day I’ll use all the words up pondering if I can give myself permission to shell out for a Kindle and how I’ll come up with the money. All equally honest. All equally real.

I hope so anyway!


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Taking off the fat suit


Illustration by thelaziestpaw

An onion, a prison, or twenty sets of clothes worn all at once? (See yesterday’s post!)

Maybe those layers of limitation we put on ourselves and need to peel  away to live authentically is like all those clothes that make someone look fat when they’re not. A kind of fat suit, disguising the real person. I know about that. I’ve lost huge amounts of weight, taking off my personal fat suit, twice over. 

To do that, I had to give up all my excuses, just like I am now with my writing.

Before I could change, lose the weight, I had to deal with some questions. What was the fat protecting me from or an excuse for or otherwise doing for me? What was the payoff for staying fat? I couldn’t lose weight unless I looked at what the key benefit of being fat was. Until I knew that, how could I choose to do anything differently to change things?

When I lost weight the first time, in my early thirties, I woke up one day knowing it was time to change my life. Simple as that.

What allowed me to let go of the weight was suddenly realising I wanted to punish my parents. My fat was my unhappiness made visible. I didn’t need to tell them they’d made me unhappy, they could see it.

I had to make a choice- did I want to punish them more than I wanted health and happiness?

Obviously, I wanted to be happy more. I lost weight, easily and without really needing to try too hard. I just started exercising more, and didn’t want to eat the junk food I’d been stuffing myself with.

There were other issues of course, other road bumps I hit along the way as I lost weight. I longed for love but felt deeply afraid of being hurt by risking a relationship. I’d used the weight to hide myself, to avoid letting anyone get close to me. Literally. If anyone touched me, they didn’t really touch me, they touched the fat. If anyone hugged me, I had an extra six inches between me and them to keep me safe. It felt like the fat wasn’t part of me, something external. My fat suit.

There are plenty of abundantly sexy larger women, women who are the size they’re meant to be, women who are perfectly confident in their attractiveness exactly as they are.

I was not one of them.

Losing weight didn’t change that. I struggled with feeling more attractive as I lost weight. I screwed up relationships with my insecurity and fear of real love. Until I found a man who’d stick with me, no matter what.  Then over ten years later, seven miscarriages behind me, I got fat again.  Nearly back to my heaviest weight ever.

I had good excuses. My hormones didn’t know where they were, after so many pregnancies. I had a stressful job. My husband lost his. There are always plenty of excuses if we want them.

Oh, I wanted to lose weight. I tried. But it all seemed too hard, for so many reasons. Perimenopause. Crazy busy job with a long commute. No time to cook meant eating supermarket ready meal pasta arrabiata and garlic bread every night. With two or three glasses of wine. And dark chocolate. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t lose much more than a few pounds, no matter how much I told myself I wanted to.

It took a night in hospital with chest pain that could have been a heart attack but thankfully wasn’t to make me look at the truth. The real too-shameful-to-admit reason I didn’t want to let go of my fat. Same old thing, except instead of punishing my parents, I was punishing my husband. Showing him- look how miserable you’ve made me.

After the seventh miscarriage, he refused to let me get pregnant again. His way of protecting me, making sure I didn’t experience that heartbreak again. He would only have sex with a condom. I hated him for that. I thought about all sorts of options, from leaving him, to having an affair, to simply putting holes in the condoms.

I didn’t do any of them. In some deep hidden secret part of me, I was relieved not to have to go through it again. The hope. The excitement of the positive test. The constant anxiety, waiting for the bleeding to start. The anguish when it inevitably did, after one week or sixteen weeks.

The price of course, was giving up on ever having a child of my own.

But hey, it wasn’t my choice, right, it was his. I had someone to blame. Perfect. I could be angry with him for stopping me. Much better than being angry with myself for being too gutless to try again. Or angry with my stupid useless body for letting me down and not doing this one simple thing millions of other women could do. I could stuff those feelings down with food. I could show him how much he’d hurt me.

And I did.

Then, crunch time. I had to choose. What did I want more- to lose weight and cut my risk of the chest pain really being a heart attack next time, or to keep on comfort eating and punishing my husband?

My grandmother dropped dead from a massive heart attack in her fifties. I didn’t want that to happen to me. I still had too much I wanted to do. It was time. Time to stop using weight to show my husband how unhappy I felt. Time to stop hiding the real me behind my fat body. Time to stop using food and alcohol to stuff down my emotions.

I lost the weight. Over eighty pounds, again. I’m now the lightest I’ve been in my adult life, eating almost totally raw vegan and loving it. I’m hoping I won’t put on weight again. I don’t think I will. I’m ready to give up using fat as a weapon or as somewhere to hide the real me.

I’m ready to stop hiding, full stop.

It’s time for me to grow up and own this body and this life of mine. Start living honestly and authentically. Start living raw and wild. Start living more and more as that creative me I’ve only allowed out in transient glimpses.

So now I’m not hiding behind weight, what else am I hiding behind? What other excuses do I need to let go of?

I’m willing to find out.

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