Keeping Myself in Check

Last week I was massively resisting with writing my blog, had total mind fog and didn’t know where to begin. This week my mind has been putting the world to rights, full of opinions and if I’m honest judgements. It’s like every day has been a full on shower day! You know the one – where as soon as you’re in the shower you’re partly washing but mainly connecting to creativity or winning invisible arguments?

Lines of poetry, statements of intent, book ideas and collaborations washed all over me, some of the information sticking but most disappearing down the drain. I’m left with the residue, trying to piece a story together.

I have to remind myself what this blog is about and who I’m doing it for as I feel myself getting wound up as I’m reading statement upon statement poking fun of people on a different journey to the masses. My mind is constructing responses, picking apart their views, I’m starting poems with lines such as ‘How dare you’ and then I step back and laugh when I see the irony – the defence field I have put up falls down and I ask myself ‘What do I want?’

• I want a year of tremendous growth
• I want to be courageous
• I want to be loved for my authentic self
• I want to create magic
• I want to laugh, be inspired, be heard and be………..me

Battling someone’s opinions on trivial matters is not going to put a tick besides any of my wants, chances are it won’t change anyone’s minds but will leave me feeling uneasy and further back on my journey. And so I retreat and remind myself…….

I’m doing this for me. 

I was also struck this week with comparison. Unfortunately comparison hasn’t been a stranger and visits me often. Walking past someone with better hair, a better strut, straighter teeth, a gorgeous partner, beautiful children, a confident voice – the Comparison Cashier checks it!

I stumbled across a blog the other day that spoke to me – it literally spoke to me – asking me questions, including the reader into the words. Immediately the Comparison Cashier, who at this point was like a Parking Attendant, had already written a ticket ready to stick on me.

It read ‘your blog is self obsessed, it’s all about you, you don’t check in with other people, it’s not engaging, you’re not as talented as she is, you sound like an amateur’. 

Due to personal development my awareness is getting stronger each day and I’m able to uncheck and move on at a quicker pace, sometimes that pace is still that of a snail but I move on. And so I had to remind myself…..

I’m doing this for me.

So this blog post wasn’t one of the carefully pieced together works of art I had planned to write. It wasn’t written in anger trying to put down someone’s point of view. I didn’t have an image of someone feeling inspired after reading my words. Im not writing for viral internet fame. I’m just sat in bed after a couple of glasses of wine and I’m reminding myself why I’m doing it.

All my above wants make up my year of vulnerability and I realise that I’m feeling pretty vulnerable right now. And it is once again confirmed…….

I’m doing this for me.

• The Comparison Cashier will keep on visiting.
• There’ll always be someone’s opinions that don’t resonate with mine.
• There’ll be times when I want to do things just to be acknowledged

That’s when I realise, this blog post is my marker, to keep me in check, because after all…….

I’m doing this for me.