02.16.16 – End of Day Notes

What I did today: I woke up this morning after only four-ish hours of sleep last night. It’s been nearly a week since I’ve done that and it felt good to be back in my routine. I was able to do most of my writing projects early before the household stirred and it got noisy. I tackled my to-read list from the numerous challenges and bloghops that I belong to. I didn’t complete the list, but I did whittle away a huge chunk of it. I’ve yet to tackle the growing emails though. I am feeling tons better, not yet 100% but definitely better. My energy has returned.

What I learned today: If I am ever to complete the new poems I want to get written this year for a chapbook, then I must schedule the time for them. Yes, it has come down to that, because otherwise, I will just continue to procrastinate, dream, and do anything and everything besides write these poems. So I have scheduled two days a week for the remainder of the year to write them. Now I just need a theme.

What I am most proud of today: I am proud that I have taken the initiative to conquer my dream of a chapbook by the year’s end. No more excuses.

What did you do today? Learn any lessons? Have a reason to be proud? Share your thoughts with me in the comments!

The Sandbox Writing Challenge #27 — Can’t Let Go

This week’s challenge is What are you holding onto from the past?

Maybe it would be easier for me to list the things that I have resolved from my past. It took years of therapy, learning Mindfulness and Ho’oponopono for me to let go and forgive, not only others, but myself as well.

• I have forgiven and spit in the face (mentally) of my Creative Writing teacher for telling me that I would never be a writer
• I have forgiven my childhood sexual molesters for their deeds against my person and my mind
• I have forgiven my 1st ex-husband for his abuse
• Forgiven myself for the loss of both of my children to miscarriages
• I have forgiven my family for their abandonment and disinterest, this especially includes my mother
• Forgiven myself for distancing myself from my family
• Forgiven my estranged husband for our failed marriage and realized and forgiven myself for my role in it as well
• Forgiven myself for my mental illness that ruined my one chance of true happiness
• Forgiven myself for losing that one person who would have given me that true happiness and have forgiven her for leaving
• Forgiven an old friend for her ways and rebuilt that friendship
• and I’ve forgiven myself for all of my trampy relationships throughout my life

I’ve even recently let go of two relationships that I know I will never recover and am working on forgiving them and myself for our roles in letting the relationships suffer.

So I am not sure that I am still holding on to anything from my past that I need to let go. Like I said, I’ve had intense therapy, nearly ten years of it. I learned to say what made me angry and then I learned to let it go. I wrote letters to my tormentors, read them aloud to myself in a mirror and then burned the letters. This was a year long process. Then I learned to stay focused on the here and now through Mindfulness. This past September or October, I began practicing Ho’oponopono and cleared out the remaining issues. Now when I get upset or angry, I don’t let the issues fester, I just clear them immediately. It probably helps that I have a faulty memory and if there is anything left out there to clear, I may not remember what it is anymore.

How about you? Are you holding on to a past event that is eating away at you? Ready to let go? Let me know in the comments.

 

Thoughts on Doing My Own Thing…

Once again, I turn to Rob Brezny’s Horoscope for some words of wisdom. Here is mine for the week beginning on the 18th:

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Coloring books for adults are best-sellers.
Tightly-wound folks relieve their stress by using crayons and markers to
brighten up black-and-white drawings of butterflies, flowers, mandalas,
and pretty fishes. I highly recommend that you avoid this type of
recreation in the next three weeks, as it would send the wrong message
to your subconscious mind. You should expend as little energy as possible
working within frameworks that others have made. You need to focus on
designing and constructing your own frameworks.

I find this amusing for a couple of reasons: I never cared much for coloring books as a child because I always wanted to color outside the lines and create my own doodles to color AND a friend bought me one of these adult coloring books for Christmas and I’ve only colored one page. My friend loves her adult coloring books and has completed a couple of them. I get the concept. Great for relieving stress. Keeps you sharp and focused on one task, so also great for people with ADD or ADHD. It’s not so good for creative types with OCD because just one color outside the line and well, we go bonkers! I am more comfortable without the lines or my own lines, thank you very much!

I am encouraged by Rob’s words. To design and construct my own frameworks. I’d like to think that this is what I have been doing a lot lately with my writing. I think that the more I step outside my comfort zone and write things that frighten and scare the shit out of me, the more honed my skills are becoming. I also like that I am doing my own thing with my writing these days. For so long, I concentrated solely on one genre, believing that this was all I was cable of and not much else. Or that I needed to write mainstream fiction if I ever wanted to be published. But now I know that isn’t so. Now I don’t care about publication or mainstream. I just care about the writing. I love the characters I’ve come up with lately. And I enjoy exploring the dark side of my subconscious.

So thank you, Rob and thank you for the reminder to keep doing my own thing!