I was at the pub earlier chatting to a friend about the idea I’d had for us to have a writing retreat day together. We talked through the details like would it involve alcohol or tea (we agreed tea, he suggested nettle - that’s a new one on me but it sounds very connected to the earth so, perfect), cosy indoor round a fireplace or outdoor picnic? And then got onto the motivation - I said I hadn’t written for a while and he said ‘right? I haven’t seen anything on your Substack!’
We chatted through the psychology of having a block, and how once you stop expressing yourself, it can become a bigger and bigger hurdle to get started again.
[Sidenote on something that’s deeper than this post, for another time - I think this really rings true for some of the division and awful stuff in the world right now - when we fear that we’ll be misunderstood or that the people we want to talk to will have painfully different views to us (even if they’re important people in our lives) we avoid certain topics until there’s an abyss of unexpressed stuff between us.]
The last couple of months for me have been busy and full of interesting learning which I’m looking forward to sharing here.
[And the sun/dry weather has also meant a good amount of sitting in my favourite place - the hammock in my little garden, which Spooky has now learnt to get into as well :)]
So, as a placeholder for some fun updates to come, here is my quick, rough post, to connect with all of you and to encourage all of us to take more ‘just go for it’ ‘done is better than perfect’ steps towards things we want to do.
Anyway, to mark my commitment to this theme of just taking one step, I’m going to commit to posting once/week on here over the next few weeks, to see how it goes.
You can expect to see:
Recorded meditations, as I progress through my Mindful Self-Compassion Teacher Training.
Links to resources and simple ideas for how to bring more peace and spaciousness into our daily lives.
Photos of Spooky and other natural wonders.
Some deeper musings here and there, on things like how we handle overwhelm and heal from burnout.
But the overarching intention with this is to create something that is easy to take in and use (and make ;) )
[Sidenote - is anyone into zines? I went into a Youtube hole this weekend getting inspiration around zine-making and think I might give it a go…]
And some inspiration/ideas/actions to leave you with…
To any London-based people seeking to take action against the genocide in Gaza this anti-arms trade demonstration is happening throughout the day on Wednesday.
If you’re interested in finding out more about what mindful self-compassion is about, check out this 14 minute meditation recorded by one of the teachers I studied with.
It’s a great one for checking back in with when you’re feeling caught up in overwhelm, or weighed down.
The idea with the self-compassion break is that after you’ve learnt the steps of the formal meditation, you can bring it into your life informally, in small moments whenever you need a bit of support and grounding. Just bring the steps to mind as you go about other things.
And here’s Spooky supporting study time in the garden:
As always, I really love hearing from you, so let me know where you’re at with your creative endeavours and how it goes if you take one step forward, however small.
Wishing you a lovely week, back again soon!
