Ok, it’s hard to believe, but I’ve been writing this blog for ten years!!  Say what???  Indeed!  Back in February of 2015 I had been laid off from the clinic I was working at when they closed their entire Mental Health Department.  I was feeling pretty lost, trying to figure out my next step and how I could find a new job.  My confidence was a bit shaken, I have to admit.  I suddenly had nowhere to go and while I interviewed and waited, I had some unexpected free time.  I’d been doing some writing for fun and loved the process.  It was my friend, Sherry Weinberg, who encouraged me to start a blog (thank you Sherry, for creating with me and supporting me along the way).  I had the glimmer of an idea, but it was Sherry who had learned how to set it up while helping her son write his own blog about cars.  With her technical and emotional support, I launched For-A-Change.  I had no idea at the time that I would still be writing it ten years later and what a positive experience it would be for me.  I thank you so much for taking the time to read my posts and for changing along with me.

What has surprised me the most about my blogging journey is how fresh it still feels.  I’m so lucky for how much I’ve enjoyed it!  I’ve never missed a post (first writing every week and then changing to every other week), because I’ve never been at a loss for something I wanted to explore and share.  That has been the best part for me.  I get the opportunity, through the structure of my self imposed deadline, to think about an idea I want to delve into and then allow myself the space to read, research, and then write about it.  I hope I’ve shared some helpful or thought provoking ideas along the way.  But also, I appreciate the opportunities to share some of my own personal growth with you.  A lot has changed in ten years including our county wildfires, my mother’s death, my kids’ graduations/launching, and yes, my own aging process.

And so, for my tenth anniversary edition, I ask for your indulgence in a little rant about writing.  I’ve been so surprised how much I’ve come to love it, because it surely wasn’t always this way!  Like most of you, I was exposed to writing in a format that pretty much sets you up to hate it.  We’re given assignments on topics that are dull, that are fact based, or in which we have to find right answers. Then we are graded and critiqued and asked to rewrite it.  We’re trained to write by being asked to write something for someone.  While I really do understand the importance of learning to be a good communicator and writing effectively and showing our accumulation of knowledge, we’re never invited to explore the very best of what writing can be.  Writing can and should be about expression.  It’s the art of putting our thoughts and feelings into words so that we, and perhaps someone we care to share it with, can get to know us.  Writing can be about exploration, about self discovery, and about being able to spend time with our curiosity aimed at whatever moves us.  Free writing is an amazing way to discover.  It taps into our unconscious and can enlighten us.  When we let go and follow our writing process, we can often be surprised at what connections we make and what we have to say.  It can be about big ideas and important relationships, or it can be about the most small and seemingly mundane events that make up our daily routines we often take for granted.  Writing is a way we draw attention to our lives and notice things as we record them.

In a recent article, author Elise Devlin, interviews Michael Phelps about his journaling habit.  He credits it as a key to getting his emotional world in balance.  He follows two rules.  The first is “no limits.”  He doesn’t start with any particular prompt or intention.  He simply writes about his day at the end of every day.  The second rule he follows is “document everything” – what he ate, how he feels, any interactions that made him feel weird…every little detail.  After doing it for years, it takes him about 15 minutes.  Then he takes time to review it.  He looks for clues or patterns or any bit of information that informs him about himself.  Phelps describes re-reading his entries as “piecing together the puzzle.”  He finds connections between his behavior and what he was feeling.  He finds patterns to his sleep or food intake, for example that might have gone unnoticed that might have affected his mood or attitude.  As a part of the article, the author decides to try the Phelps method of journaling.  I love how she describes it after her initial concern of having nothing to say, “It felt like one of those magic tricks where the magician pulls a never ending scarf out of their sleeve:  More and more unexpected thoughts kept rolling out.”

Regardless of what method you use, I think writing is essentially a process allowing you to be in conversation with yourself.  This level of internal dialogue and documentation allows us to go deeper into what we experience and offers us a chance to reflect without having to justify or defend ourselves.  As long as we can keep our critic out of the mix!  The most significant way to shut ourselves down or to give ourselves a case of writer’s block is to begin editing at the same time that we’re writing.  If our inner voice is evaluating what we’re expressing, it surely curtails the freedom to explore.  That’s why it’s so important to free write, following our muse, only later re-reading it.  That’s where journaling can be so liberating.  You can write and read it later, you can write and never, ever read it again, or you can write and read it moments, days, or years later.  Writing is a way to learn to stop the inner critic from editing our every thought and feeling.  It’s a training in giving ourselves permission to be who we are, with full acceptance of our totality.

For me, the process of writing has helped me uncover what I think and feel.  It also helps me to see that I can hold many different thoughts and feelings at various times, or all at the same time.  Writing gives me the awareness of my full experience and helps me integrate what can seem contradictory. And when I write, I don’t have to be completely accurate – it’s my story, after all.  And maybe that’s what I like as well about writing.  I have total control!  If I want to write a happy ending, I can.  If I want to kill off a thought or feeling, I can slash it and write the opposite.  I am the author!  The omnipotent creator of whatever I am saying.  Where else in life can I have so much control?  Maybe that’s why I love it so much! Aha!!!!  I just made the connection between my desire for control and my joy in writing. See? Self discovery in action! 

So to celebrate my 10th anniversary, I invite you to grab a pen, pencil, crayon, or a keyboard and take control.  Write away!  Whatever you want to say, whatever you want to ponder, whatever story takes up your interest.  Please, have at it!  It’s all available just for you in just the way you want it to be!  

Happy 10 Years and THANK YOU for all the time you have given me in reading my words and the support you have shown me!!!!!