New Beginnings and Home Comings

Well Hello There You

It's wonderful to be here again, and after such a long time. Is it crazy to be jumping back into blogging this year, after a three or more years away? Possibly. Probably. Who cares? I'm throwing caution to the wind. And yet that makes it seem un-calculated, spontaneous. It is not. I have thought long and hard about whether to come back, and why I stopped in the first place. Here's what I have learned. 

Writing is not just something I do. It's part of who I am. From so very little I remember writing things out when I was confused or overwhelmed. It rarely solved anything or gave me answers but it calmed me down. Writing brought some clarity, and thinking about it now I think it made me feel a little bit in control in a world that could seem chaotic and helter-skelter to little girl me.

I've kept journals on and off for most of my life. Sad to say that until recently I could not entirely enjoy this process because, especially as a child I was always stopping and starting again after a long break because I was determined to believe I wasn't doing it right and constantly comparing myself to some other (imaginary) person who was neater, more articulate and more consistent than I was.

I've always been so hard on myself, so judgemental, so uptight. I'm not sure even now why that is, but I do know it is the antithesis of creativity and I'll hazard a guess a big part of the reason that I have always, always felt like a blocked and frustrated writer, rather than just a writer. Well enough of all that. It ends where this blog begins (again).

A major part of the reason that I gave this blog away and then slipped quietly from most social media was because of anxiety. I went through a period of years where my anxiety was increasingly difficult to manage. Racing thoughts, racing heart, feelings of panic. When it got to the stage that I was having stand up panic attacks I felt the only thing I could do was make everything small. 

Whatever it was that I felt anxiety around I dropped. At the time this felt like self care, and it was in it’s own way, but eventually I came to resent the anxiety for making me give up things I enjoyed, for forcing me to make my life smaller and smaller by increments in order to try and stay safe, to ward it off. It was a necessary action at the time, but it's not sustainable or healthy.

Also in terms of this blog I realised that it wasn't the writing that was causing me anxiety - it was everything around it, the promotion, the social media, the tips and tricks and lessons I picked up that I obediently felt I had to follow to be successful, to be doing it right. I'm still going to have to be wary of all that but I come back to One Small Life with a renewed focus - on the writing - and a determination not to get caught up in all the other faff. Also my anxiety radar is on high alert, and if it starts pinging I'll be taking swift action, whatever that might mean at the time.

While I haven't been blogging, something lovely has happened. I've rediscovered fiction writing. And poetry. I have a very vivid memory of being a little girl, staying at my Grandma's house. I woke early and didn't want to wake her so I took out my journal and started to write a story. It was about a woman who was a lawyer and she was trying a case. 

What little 10 year old me thought I knew about Court cases and lawyers I'll never know, and even then I realised the story probably wasn't that good. But there was this one sentence that I wrote. Something about my protagonist wearing a sharp suit to make her feel strong and powerful, but at the last minute giving in to a touch of something feminine, a pearl bracelet I believe it was. I don't have the story so I guess we'll never know, but I remember how it felt when I wrote that sentence. I remember how it was like an out of body experience, how I felt like that sentence was magic, like it had come from somewhere beyond myself. I was so in love with that sentence and so in awe of it and so blissed out by how it felt to have written it and to read it back over and over. It moved me. 

I didn't realise then how rare and wonderful that feeling is. I didn't honour it the way I should have. I took it for granted. But 36 years later looking back, I don't take it for granted now. I revere it and I seek it out and I'll do all I can to have that feeling again. Not only that but I know well enough now that stepping into that feeling has nothing to do with having enough talent or skill to craft such a sentence and everything to do with showing up, bum on seat, pen on paper, fingers at keys and just being present enough to allow the sentences a chance to appear on the page.

I chose a word for this year. I don't do resolutions but I've seen people choose words to give their year an intention and while I wasn't sure it would do much for me I thought I'd give it a go. I tried out a few. Power. Voice. Truth. I thought they were good choices for what I needed more of this year. But then another word chose me. EMBODIMENT. 

This is my word. For I feel that I am finally, finally coming to understand what it means. For the longest time I thought embodiment was to feel your feelings, to really get in touch with where they land in your body. And it is that, in part. But the penny dropped for me when I realised that really what embodiment means is to live the life you want to live, to do the things you want to do, to be the person you want to be. 

You see it's all very well to for me to say I want to be a writer, and stare wistfully into the distance wondering why I wasn't blessed with the talent enough to be one, or why my life just didn't turn out that way. But what if all you need to do to be a writer is to sit down and write? Likewise with everything else. Am I someone who says I love meditation, or am I someone who meditates? Do I believe myself to be honest, kind and generous, or am I acting on those qualities. It's so bloody basic and yet so utterly profound. 

If you want something different, do something different. Who do you want to be? Then you have to bloody well be it. 

Embodiment. Take action. Do the work. Do not just intellectually understand what you want and what you believe and who you are, take action in those things. I meditate and journal every morning and it amazes me since the word embodiment chose me, how often it comes up in my journal as a response to something. I’ll be ruminating on something and the words bubbles up. EMBODIMENT. 

All I have to do is to be the person I want to be. Simple, but yet not simple at all. So this is my word for the year and my intention for this blog. I’m starting anew and it feels like that too, I hope you come along with me so I can share it all with you. 

x

Top Image via Jan Tinneberg Unsplash

Listen to Alex Lloyd Coming Home