Yesterday I started two new blogs. The same content on different platforms. Because I didn’t like the look of one and couldn’t find how to change it. And new blogs because I wanted to start afresh. Because I was embarrassed about what I had already written in this one and wanted to give a different impression to the outside world of who I am.
I recently read a book on lifestyle/diet/cooking where the author talked about ‘only starting once’. By which she meant that if the reader fell off the diet wagon not to think ‘oh’, I’ll start again tomorrow’ but to get back on the horse right here, right now. Not to think that they had blown it, and use that as an excuse to binge or eat as many of the ‘wrong’ things as they could stuff in before the new start, usually the next day, or the next Monday, or… or… or
So this morning I decided to keep posting on this site, and to include my new blog post within this one. It is a gift to myself, a half measure at just continuing, despite the past, and as a way of getting through my needing everything to be perfect before I show up. Of having to get it right before exposing myself.
The truth of it is that I chose this website name to share my conviction that we all need a space to be…. A … space … to…. BE …. To be ourselves, to be held by others, to explore and experiment, to rant and rave, to be who and what we are in each moment, no matter how ugly it may appear on the outside. A space to do nothing, to reflect and sit with uncomfortable feelings, a space to create and play. And a space to express ourselves.
But although I have recognised in earlier posts that I need to give this space to myself, I am not actively doing this. I have enough time to do it, but fill it with running away from, rushing, being driven, distracting, escaping…..
So this post marks some sort of break. Where it is OK to be me, as I am, doing what I am doing. Or being lazy and self indulgent, playing the victim, feeling sorry for myself.
For in allowing all this I know that the creative, heart centred stuff will come….
This is yesterday’s post ….
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This is not the first blog of mine. But it is the first time that I am going to be as honest as I can be. Not clever. Or Trendy. Or Spiritually Correct. It’s not going to be well thought out, polished, or designed to be helpful, whatever that means.
I do have a desire to write a blog that will inspire others, that will provide the odd nugget of gold that may help someone in the moment they read it. But for now, I am not in a place to provide that. And I may never be. I can’t let that stop me from writing. I have to write, for my own sanity, and to openly share every fear and insecurity may not make for good reading, but will sure as hell help me grow and evolve and heal.
This blog is for me to experiment with expressing myself honestly, with no holds barred. I will not tell anyone I know that I am writing it, or what the web address is because I want to be totally uninhibited in what I write. I am sure that hackneyed advice and age-old clichés will slip in, but I will do my utmost to speak simply, from the heart, in the moment. As a commitment to myself. Not for anyone else. Anyone reading this can and will take what I say through their own filters, beliefs, perceptions and experiences and make of it what they will. I am not responsible for that, and nor do I want to be.
I have a car sticker pinned to my cork notice board that reads ‘Be yourself – and change the world’. I would like to attempt this being myself thing. But first I have to find this self, this individual who is so conditioned and influenced by their upbringing, their culture, their environment that they don’t know what they want, or who they really are underneath all the masks and facades. The fact that I use the word ‘they’ instead of me is a startling indication of how disconnected ‘I’ am from my ‘self’.
I am sure it will be a bumpy ride. But not doing this is also a bumpy ride and I want to be happier than I am. I want to feel connected – to myself, and to others. I want to love, and allow love in. Not just in romantic relationship terms, but with all around me – friends, nature, each moment.’
There is so much I want to express. All in good time…..
Having not written for some time it is my intention to write more consistently. I am reading and learning more about blogging and hope to make this site more accessible and more appealing.
Until I have discovered my style, my audience, my tribe, I will continue to post from where I am right now. I can only get ‘there’ by being here. There are so many exciting things going on in my life that I can’t wait to share them. But they will probably seem disjointed, chaotic and a bit haphazard!
My first news is that I have re-launched my photography website. I am struggling with how to incorporate it into my blog, or whether I should keep it separate. I am also looking at changing my name, and don’t know whether to wait until I have done this – a scary process – before appearing as someone new! I will keep you posted….
There have been many times recently when I have had insights or reflections that I have wanted to share but haven’t had the time to write about. If I am lucky I manage to write down a few words to serve as a reminder later. Often they have an urgency about them that can’t be ignored, they seem so important.
But when I go back to these hastily scribbled notes I find that they have lost their initial significance. I struggle to find their original meaning. I may castigate myself for not writing enough, not making it clear enough, but in essence these insights are now old news. Trying to conjure up the impact they had on me at the time is like trying to describe a wave that broke on the shore five minutes earlier while looking at a wave that is currently breaking.
I can find this disappointing, a waste of snippets of wisdom or profound learning. I hang on to what I thought was new and vital, but it is neither now. It is a lesson that I need to write as Life unfolds, in real time space, while it is still fresh and raw and real. Of course this isn’t really attainable either as my writing is always too late, occurring after the ebb and flow of the thoughts or emotions I am experiencing.
This has been shown to me very clearly recently in a more concrete form. I belong to a writing group that has published an anthology of poems and short stories including my own. It has taken two years to amass enough entries and produce the book. When I re-read my stories I almost don’t recognise them as coming from me. What really stands out is that they resulted from where I was at the time of writing them and may be very different to where I am now in terms of content, style, attitude, perception etc.
However, any shifts in consciousness, any minute changes of perception, will inform who I am at any given moment so that when I do write it will contain and include all these even if I can no longer isolate them or describe them.
This creates a bit of a dilemma in me but also makes me smile – the fact that I love writing this blog whilst at the same time knowing that it is already out of date.