When I started this blog, I remember worrying about running out of topics.  I worked from a list that I kept adding to each week.  But after just a few months of posting, I quickly found it more enjoyable to come up with my topics spontaneously, from listening to what people around me or my own mind was wrestling with that week.  After two years of weekly posts, I am so pleased that I have never missed one or felt that is was a burden.  I am really enjoying this platform and am so thankful for your time in reading it.  But I am going to make  change.  I love to write and have some ideas for some other pieces that I haven’t had time for, so I’m going to shift to writing in this blog every other week.  So in honor of this change, I’m going to invite you to do some of your own writing and see what you might discover.

It makes me angry at how school teaches most people to hate writing and dismiss it.  Watching my daughters write their “compare and contrast” essays, struggle with MLA notation, and be hammered with the search for topic sentences, it sometimes breaks my heart to see them become alienated from their own voice.  I know it is vital to learn to write formal essays, but I wish an English teacher would sometimes have them write an assignment that can teach them how to use writing as I have come to love it, to discover what they think and feel, to expand on a creative idea, or to just simply play.  I use writing personally to help me figure out what is going on with me, and if I can get a client to trust that I’m not going to grade their work, I use it effectively with them as well.  By putting feelings into words, you can achieve clarity and find a release. In the end, this helps us make better choices about what we really want to do or say to someone.

At a writing workshop I went to almost ten years ago, the instructor had us create two characters for ourselves.  The first was our inner critic.  We gave a name and a look to our inner critic, and thanked it for its help in editing and improving our work.  But then we asked our inner critic to step aside so that we could identify our muse.  We also gave him or her a name and identity, the part of ourselves that is creative and reckless and has a lot to say once the critic is put on hold.  This was a huge turning point for me.  Once I could begin to let myself write freely, I discovered the complete joy of letting my muse take over.  I also discovered the great paradox in writing:  On the one hand I am often completely surprised what comes out on paper if I allow it to flow, as if someone else had taken over, but at the same time, I am in complete control.  I can kill off a character, change an ending, be overbearing or be nakedly vulnerable,  I get to decide what I say, who gets to say it (I love writing as a male character), and who gets to read it.

If you’re like most people, getting started is the hardest part.  So here are a few ideas that help.  Let your muse pick out a beautiful journal.  Let him or her do some free writing in your journal each day, just ten minutes of uninterrupted writing to let it flow.  Or start with a “jump line,” such as “My father’s hands” or “When the sun goes down…”   If you google jump lines you will find a long list of great ones.  A set of jump lines I love to use with people I work with is, on one side of the page write “Want I want to tell you is…” and then after writing for ten minutes, turn over the page and write ten minutes more to “What I don’t want to tell you is…:”  It’s amazing what comes up!  Some other ideas are writing letters (you never have to send) to yourself, to a part of you, a younger you, or to someone from the past or future.  You can also let yourself write about a fantasy or rewrite the ending to a scary dream.

There is a freedom in writing if you can surrender to it.  But it does take some courage to find your muse; a part of you that wants to get out, be heard, dig deeper, wonder, shout, or try something on.  They say the pen is mightier than the sword.  So take a chance and meet your muse.  Together you can discover how powerful you can be!

See you in two weeks!

I saw this phrase in an article I was reading last week (sorry, I can’t remember the author) while preparing for last week’s blog on acceptance.  I thought it was kind of funny, if not a little corny, but even more funny was how it stayed with me during the week.  Every time I said the word “buts”, the phrase rang out, “Get off of your but.”  It helped me stop, take a second look at my thinking, and over the week, see how often I let myself off the hook so easily for acting positively on something I say is important to me.

Some of the things were little, like “I want to work out, but I don’t have time,” or “I want to eat healthy, but we don’t have anything good at home.”  Others were bigger, such as “I would love to go to Greece someday, but we could never afford it,” or “I wish I could be more like my colleague, but I’m just not as good a leader as she is.”  Every time I said the word “but,” it made me step out of my words and think – is this “but” an excuse or is this “but” my real choice?  Does it have to be all or nothing, can I do a little bit of exercise, or make some small step toward the desire?

Life is overwhelming and has a lot of limitations.  Money, food, time, energy are all finite resources.  How we choose to use them is really important and over time, ends up building to the significance of who we are and how we live our lives.  Each and every day we make so many decisions that it’s easy not to notice them.  One little decision does not seem to matter, but the decisions we make add up, and lead us to where we are.  I learned this week how easily I can get in the habit of derailing my valued actions by saying, “yes, but.”

So, I need to stop making excuses.  If I choose not to use my precious free time to work out, or if I choose to eat something not healthy, I need to own the decision.  And if I don’t have the money to go to Greece, I have to really ask myself how important that is to me.  If I really want to go to Greece, I can start saving and look for more the most affordable opportunities, perhaps forming a plan for the future.  “Buts” can come from many sources.  One type comes from pure laziness, BUT, others come from deeper places, like fear,  insecurity, sadness, helplessness, lack of control, or skill.  But, I am a victim if I let my world be ruled by my “buts,” which is why I liked this kitchy phrase.  It helped me step back and assess the truth of my assumptions and realize the comfortable pull of staying on our buts.

Last week’s blog contrasted the passive and avoidant experience of denial with acceptance, an active process of choice.  This week I’ve been thinking a lot more about these two experiences, and the complex relationship we humans have with our thoughts and feelings.  I see a lot of anxious people in my line of work, and tend to be a bit of one myself.  I am hardly in denial about things, as my anxious thoughts are quite active!  But these thoughts have the effect of controlling me and making me avoid things, just as denial can. When my mind tells me there is something to be afraid of (making a fool of myself in a presentation), it makes me want to run the other way (turn down the invitation to speak).  Though I’m not in denial, I still end up restricting my life through avoidance.  So this week, I decided to look a little closer at acceptance, to explore the paradox of how, at times, actually being less active in my thinking can lead to less avoidance in my behavior.

Cognitive fusion is a process that involves attaching a thought or feeling to an experience. Cognitive fusion is beneficial in many ways, like when we become interested in story lines in movies and books because we attach emotions to them, or we attach positive feelings to certain activities (hobbies) or people (our loved ones).  But when we fuse our negative thoughts with certain experiences, we begin to avoid those experiences.  So when I think of embarrassing myself through fears of public speaking, my fears are fused with the experience, and leads to avoidance.  

Ironically, the more we try to control thoughts and feelings, the more they tend to influence us in the long run in potentially harmful ways.  For example, have you ever tried to distract yourself from a unpleasant thoughts or feelings by binge watching or shopping?  Withdraw from certain people or opt out of certain activities because you don’t like the thoughts or feelings they bring up?  Have you tried blaming others, worrying, rehashing the past, fantasizing about “what if,” “if only,” or “why  me” in order to think your way away?  Or put substances in your body (ice cream, vodka, xanax) to get relief?  While they may have helped that day, what effect do they have over time?  Did the thoughts and feelings go away in the long run?  And what is the cost in terms of your health and vitality?

That is where acceptance comes into play.  Instead of trying to control our thoughts and feelings, we can “de-fuse” them.  If I think of giving a speech and get anxious, I can defuse this from the experience of being embarrassed and making a fool of myself.  By noticing my anxious feelings and accepting them, I can separate them from the outcome that leads me to avoid the experience and then in turn reinforces my feeling badly about myself.  

This type of acceptance involves developing a more compassionate relationship with our experiences.  As thoughts and feelings arise, the aim is not to control them by trying to stop them or change them, but to let them happen without letting them control us.  So I can be anxious, noticing my anxiety in how my hand shakes, how I feel a bit queezy in my stomach, but still go on and give the speech.  Who knows, the speech may go well.  I may embarrass myself or I may not, but I allow myself to be open to the new experience without making myself a prisoner of the past.  True acceptance is the ability to allow internal or external experience to occur instead of fighting them or trying to change them.  When we can accept our experience, we actually set ourselves free.