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Stormy Days Help Grow Flow

Take time to play during bad weather.
Take a break and play with words to relieve stormy weather angst.

Grow Flow by Appreciating Stormy Days

Today is a stormy day in Central Florida. My heart goes out to the snowbirds, the spring breakers, and anyone who flew down for a reprieve from icy weather. And, if to add insult to injury, the high today will not go above 63 degrees. So, chilly, wet, and unappealing.

Washing Away Doubts

Creatives have periods of time such as this weather. Nothing seems to inspire new work. It feels like a supreme effort to sit at an open screen or a blank canvas. Yet, preparing for such days can help move a trying day ahead. How? First, commit to working without excuses. Even 15 minute chunks are manageable. Next, make sure that the daily round gets objectives met, such as a blog post or a section of a chapter or report. While writing in a journal is a great way to warm up, creating a dedicated product is rewarding. Finally, build in some fun especially on a day when staying in bed sounds appealing.

Perhaps playing with a magnetic word bank would help shake out cobwebs. The Writing Across Borders: Traveling Stanzas Magnet Kit from Kent State University is a good example. It was a promotional gift given out last year at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Convention in Tampa, Florida. Interested in learning more about the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State? See more here: https://travelingstanzas.com/ 

Your Turn

Stop waiting for the perfect conditions to work. Take out your journal. Spend 15 minutes listing all the ways you allow yourself to procrastinate during bad weather. And, bad weather in this case for creatives is anytime we feel too gloomy, too moody, or too uncommitted to work creatively. Write quickly to bypass any resistance. Then, immediately reward yourself with 15 minutes of creative play. Need ideas for things to do? Look at a creative play post from a few weeks ago, here:

https://wewriteitright.com/playtime-helps-adults-enter-flow/

Here’s to growing your flow,

Marisa

 

 

 

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Travel Golden Path to Flow

Travel the golden road to flow.

Ease On Down the Road with Flow

Sometimes flow seems elusive. Especially when media is bombarded with images of people enraged by their current situations. And even when we temper the need for social media, the soundtrack in our own minds can be “what’s the use?” In our angst, the lyrics to Kansas’ “Dust in the Wind” can begin to sound all too familiar. There are, of course, choices. We can see change simply as something as a natural progression of our lives.

We change, because change is the only constant. Instead of resisting change, why not travel the golden path to flow? It sure beats the virtual superhighways charged with images that can shut down our own internal resources.

Surviving the Storm

When we approach a new path in our lives, we can feel trepidation. What is on the other side of the door? We might have a cyclone of emotions leaving us reeling with unchecked emotions. Change can cause a feeling of disorientation. There in our internal journey we have the ability to self-correct. And, it is free and available to each and every one of us 7/24. And that powerful resource is our attitude.

Recognizing the Resource of Gratitude

Once decide to look for the silver lining in a challenging day, or week, or year, we swing open the door of gratitude very wide and enter a technicolor world of Ozian proportions. We see possibilities. We note options. In short order, we decide to take a step on our very own yellow brick road. So what does this road look like? How we can access it? Does it require some special skill?

Don’t Carry Nothing That Might Be a Load

If we use journal writing to spill our fears  onto a page, we gain courage to move forward with greater ease. One step at a time. One word at a time. And we have a place to count our blessings. In doing so, we begin to travel the path with a lighter spirit. A shift in mindset places our feet firmly on the road to flow.

Your Turn

Decide to step through your black and white (all or nothing) thinking. Open the door to flow. How? Consciously begin to curate what you are grateful for in a journal, notebook, or legal pad. Continue to add to it daily. See if it helps you to be more creative even with a few short steps on the road.

Here’s to Growing YOUR Flow,

Marisa 

 

 

 

 

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Personal Journal Writing Soothes Grief

Observing Grief Gives Way to Beauty

Daily journal writing soothes grief and gives gift of beauty.
Daily journal writing soothes grief and gives gift of beauty.

Beauty is not the first word you may think of when the topic of grief comes up in conversation. Perhaps sorrow, dread or suffering, but not beauty. In the classic book on self-development,The Artist’s Way, author Julia Cameron notes that negative emotions can be neutralized through a daily journal writing practice, which she describes as Morning Pages. These three pages of stream-of-consciousness writing point out the extremes in behavior – be it overt sadness or over-bounding glee. And in that quiet place in the center, I have learned from practicing this daily method for over a decade, is where beauty resides within grief.

Not everyone is willing to find that center. They will reject it. They will deny it. Someone recommend that I suspend the grief “over there” – as if it were capable of being conveniently shelved for later inspection. The only problem is that grief is a tired ad weary travel companion, who will not leave you alone until you complete the conversation with it. And that conversation is one you have to have within yourself, which is why journal writing works so well. Send out a question disguised as a writing prompt: “What do I need to learn from grief?” Then, without judgement, write the reply for three pages.

I did this exercise recently in the heartland of Florida after my step-father passed away. He battled a long and debilitating fight with a slew of diseases, which turned his world upside-down. I was walking near a canal near his home at dawn, which was cloudy with the approach of a storm. Reflected there in the dark waters of the canal was every palmetto, every cattail, every lily pad that was on or near the shore. And I got a glowing feeling inside of me as I wrote down in my journal after the walk, “that beauty resides reflected in grief with memories of family trips and Italian cooking lessons just as the beauty was reflected from the shore in the waters of the canal.” It was a mid-life lesson to observe this lush land as I, too, observed the life of my father-in-law, who had a life filled with beauty.