A Letter to a Friend

Dear Lola,

I am so grateful to you for listening today. I don’t know why I opened up to you, because it seems to be such a huge step outside my comfort zone to open up to anyone I know. What am I afraid of?

When you asked if you could read my blog  I was so tempted to just let you  read away but at the same time I was worried that if I did, I would stop writing. It is as if the anonymousity of writing here has taught me complete honesty with myself.

I was feeling rather anxious all morning before I called you. I think that spending all day yesterday, writing and having to deal with what came out, left me somewhat worn out.

Having become so used to always being the “listener” it was quite an unnerving experience to be the one talking for a change and the anxiety was there throughout. Afterwards, however, this sudden feeling of relief came over me and I think that the act of opening up (A massive risk in my world) was exactly what gave me this feeling of relief.

Your kind act of listening made me realise that it is sometimes safe to let people in.

With love and gratitude

J

Take Time for Yourself

Well another three and a half months has all of a sudden gone by without me writing a single word and in all honesty I haven’t felt any desire to write at all.

I am not exactly sure why, but I kept feeling kind of guilty about it, and that sort of made me feel like I should write something which then stopped me completely!! Call me me mad if you want!

Why do some people (well, me!)  put this strange pressure on themselves to do things when there is no need for it?  Louise Hay is right in saying that she would like to take the word “should” and remove it from the dictionary. Whenever people (me) say to themselves; “I should be more organised at work”, “I should eat more healthy”, “I should do more exercise”, whatever, for me that word is exactly what stops me doing what I “Should” or what other people think I “Should”!

Whenever I say to myself “I should………”, immediately afterwards I automatically start to think of excuses not to do it and most of the time I end up not doing it! I wonder sometimes if I am the only one that goes through this strange thought process?!

However, her solution to that way of thinking is to replace the word “Should” with  “If I really wanted to, I could……………” and it works an absolute treat, whenever I remember to do it!!

This is the other thing; I very often have to work fairly hard at sticking to what I learn and I often fall back into old habits of both thinking and doing, and sometimes the old habits take over again for a while. It’s like taking two steps forward and one back!

The good news is the fact that even though I let the old habits take over from time to time, I now know that I can switch back at any time, which I didn’t before I started all of this self improvement stuff. I also realise that switching back really is as easy as simply making the decision to do so.

Making the decision can be that hard part!

There have been times when I wish I had never opened the door to all of this because, once you do, there is no turning back.

Perhaps there is some truth in the phrase “Ignorance is bliss”! Fortunately I very rarely think these thoughts anymore, and whenever I do, I pretty much instantly think about how much my life has improved since I started learning about this. In other words; I really do not want to go back to being ignorant to all of this.

I think at the same time though, it is important to sometimes take a little break from it all and give your mind a chance to absorb it all, which is another thing I have had to learn. It was all or nothing with me and I would go through so much of it in a short space of time, which then got me a little bit confused.

What did slow me down was a book by Spencer Johnson called One Minute for Yourself

It is a very short book and written in a story form, but it really made me open my eyes, not just in terms of doing too much learning but also in my work, which has been too hectic lately. I read it twice and then gave it to a friend who, I felt needed it more than me, but after a week without it I went out and bought another copy.

Have I managed to erase the word “Should” and replace it “If I really wanted to I could”? No not quite yet, but I am much more aware of it and I know that when I feel stressed or overwhelmed at work it is usually because I have told myself that I “Should” get something done! That is also exactly why it has taken me this long to write anything on here. Every time I attempted to even start writing something it was because I felt I should and also I was getting slightly worried that if Ileft it too long I would never write anything on here again. Obviously that is no longer the case.

Time will tell how long it will be before I write again, but when it happens, it will be because I really want to and not because I feel “I Should”!!!

Until then

I wish you all the best

J

Keep Learning – Keep Writing – Keep Going

I have just spent the past 2 hours reading through one of my personal journals “Letters to a Friend”, and I did that for a couple of reasons, one being that, maybe I might just learn something from what I have written and also it gave me a real sense of how far I have come on my journey.

Not only does it show me how far I have come but more importantly I have realised that I keep getting closer to what I really want in life and what my passion is.
Best of all, it has proved to me how important it is for me to write stuff down, which I never did before for various reasons, but when I read my old journals I realise that in the beginning I was all over the place trying out so many different books/courses – you name it but at the same time not really trying them at all.

Now I spend more time on each approach/book/subject. I still tend to do more than just one at a time but not as much as I used to.

For the past week I have purely been working on the “Living on Love” books and even though I bought another book online on Friday (I will review it when I have finished it) I haven’t even unzipped the package yet which has tested my willpower a bit. It just didn’t feel right to divert my attention from “Living on Love“
What was my point of this entry? Oh yes! Write stuff down in whatever format you feel comfortable with. Write a poem, write a song, write a journal/diary, record it or whatever way you can think of but do it because I promise you, not only will you learn from it, but you will have absolute proof that you are growing and moving in the right direction.
Write in whatever format works for you. The last journal I wrote, I decided to write as letters to a friend, who actually is a real friend and, who, to this day has no idea about it. I have changed the format for my new journal simply because it didn’t feel right for me to carry on in that format, so now it’s “Notes to the Universe”, which just feels right at this time.

The other thing is, and this is what stopped me from writing a journal before, that in my head I had created this rule that I had to write every single day about everything that happened during that day. I am not sure exactly when or how I got that linked up in my head, because it’s pure rubbish! There are no rules on how you choose to write or record your journal. You do it whenever you feel like it. I don’t always write every day, sometimes I can go weeks without writing, sometimes I write twice a day. It doesn’t matter! I write when I feel like writing and I write about whatever I feel like writing, it is not meant for anybody else to read, which means you can be 100% honest with yourself and you can write whatever you want regardless of what your friends, family or society in general may think. There is no right or wrong, there is only your thoughts.

Bless you all

J

Writing a Journal

What is the point of writing a journal?

For many many years that was my default response whenever someone mentioned the word journal or diary. I saw it as a chore to be avoided at all cost and not to mention the “valuable” TV watching time I’d had to sacrifice to do it!!!

Now! I am not here to pass judgment on how much TV you watch or whether you subscribe to my old view on writing a journal. I want to give you an insight to how much the simple act of writing a journal has improved both my confidence and my outlook on life and so much more.

It did take some effort on my part, initially, and the first couple of entries felt forced and I didn’t know what to write.
I also noticed that I was writing as if someone was going to read it, which I didn’t like because it wasn’t the true me coming out.

It wasn’t until I changed the format that the whole experience became automatic and my mind took over control of the pen without having to force it.

I think the main block for me was that as soon as I wrote “Dear diary” my mind would draw a blank, so I decided that instead of doing it that way I would pretend that I was writing letters to a friend and that changed it instantly. It’s now 6 months later I am still doing it and cannot imagine my life without it. I spend some of my favourite time writing letters to my “Friend” and it has helped me bring tremendous clarity to my life and has helped me find my path in life. I sincerely hope it will do the same for you. Should you decide to give it a go!