Written last year during one of the writing retreats:
I followed the Tom Bird writing retreats to write my first book: “Yes I do & I did it”. I was writing 3 nights in a row, al through the night each time and with only a bit of sleep during the days. When I got stuck in the book the following was written:
“This is after lunch break. There is so much that happens in a lifetime that when you start writing about your life you forget so much. I keep thinking I already wrote all this down and maybe I did. Maybe it is time to write it all down again? I will find a way to make time to add some pieces of the earlier writings. It will be special to read the first book again once I get 15 minutes of this piece of writing done of the second book.
I love living close to the water and to see lots of nature around me. The grass in garden is very green at the moment and so close I can almost touch it. The water sooths me as lately I have felt lots of irritations. I noticed that one of the ways I make it clear I am irritated is that I scratch a lot. Sometimes because of allergies but this time I have ants everywhere. They are in the kitchen and everywhere outside even in the pool. They are very small ones and their bites are not too painful not like the big ones who are quite nasty. In other words I am bothered by small irritations. Things that don’t go my way give me these irritations. Something at work that is not panning out the way I was hoping to. My new friends that I am hoping to find here are not showing up as yet. The book is still not finished. My husband is not giving me attention when and how I need it. I am sweating all the small stuff in life. I wonder how I can get out of this rut and if writing about it will help me to sort it out.
Sometimes I am very happy just being by myself, all alone in the house. I like the freedom it brings and how I feel that all is already present. No confrontation with others who as Sartre claimed can be hell to get along with(‘l’enfer c’est les autres (hell is the others)). No long traffic jams to get stuck in, no noisy person sitting next to me in the office when I work. Just my dog and I, exactly the way I like it to be. Then it gets a bit boring after while and I feel the need to get out of the house. Usually it only is a trip down the road to the shops, buying some groceries and other necessities. There I get confronted with other people and their behaviour and that is where irritations start. Why are they pulling up in front of me with their car? Now they make me hit my brakes. How unconsidered! Why are they not hurrying at the checkout counter, I have other things to do then to stand here all day long. The internal dialogue in my mind goes on and on about everything it sees and experiences. I suddenly realise I am judging everything so I bring it back to being in the present. I force myself to being in the now, and to make sure I feel good and smile and am there for the person in front of me. They are probably only my projection anyway so what I am seeing and experiencing is what I was aligning myself up for anyway.
Every day I wake up with the intention to have a great time and to not let my thoughts carry me away in repetitions that do not serve me.
(Second day of this second writing retreat. It was not easy get in the right mood.)
I have found that indeed my first 5 minutes set the mood for the rest of the day. If they are not positive I try to turn them around as soon as possible. It would even be better if I could start before I go to bed which in a way I do. I never watch the news to make sure I don’t have horror stories running through my brain. I don’t like to watch violent movies either for the same reason. I make sure that the last thing I read is something inspiring. Something that will give me sweet dreams… Maybe that is why people used to sing lullabies, to make sure children had sweet dreams and woke up in a similar sweet way. I love to sleep and especially when I am stressed. I think I can cure anything in my sleep. If I feel my system is a bit out of wack I take to bed as soon as I can and literally sleep it off. I did write down my dreams in a notebook for a while but have not done that in ages.
In my early twenties I was plagued a lot with nightmares. I had these creatures at the window that tried to get inside my bedroom and they made a lot of noise similar to a chainsaw. I called them the “Mccullough” chain saw dreams. They made we wake up all in sweat and very unsettled. The demons were the most ugly thing you can imagine and they were very persistent to scare the hell out of me. Because the dreams became so frequent I spoke to my friend Jim about it and he gave me a great tip. He said next time they come and bother you change the way they look in your minds eye. See how they change into ridiculously, funny clowns and start laughing at them. In other words change your perception and change your thoughts. So I started doing it, first time only half successful but each time I became better at it and I have not had the Mccullough dreams in years. I had some reoccurrence in my late thirties but I used the same tactic and they disappeared again. I now know that I am in charge of my dreams and if I have reoccurring nightmares I know that I can change them. Before falling asleep I can tell myself how I want to change my dreams.
Another dream I finally got rid of is the dream of being in an elevator that changes shape and that gets very confined. In the end I can hardly move and it starts moving sideways instead upwards or it goes into another building altogether. I have now a safety switch build in that the elevator cannot go under a certain size and that I trust the process. Wherever it brings me is where I need to go. In my case I think this stands for trusting the process of life. I was not sure that life was taking me on the right road. I did not feel safe and was convinced there was a better road. “
That was this for the first week of May, stay tuned for next week! And as you know all comments are welcome here below and don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter so you will be the first to know when “yes I do & I did it” will be available in the stores
