Blog Bugaboo, boo-hoo and yippee!

Some of you may have missed my blogs the last several weeks, no months! Yikes!

Others of you may not have noticed I’ve been absent.  Boy, oh boy, have I been absent. And believe me, I’ve missed you

whole lots more than you might have possibly missed me.  I’ve missed myself, too.

What I mean by that is that I was just getting into the swing of this blogging thing, and finding to my amazement and delight that I was enjoying it, too, and then several things happened all at the same time.

I got extraordinarily busy with work: first, an astonishing number of people were suddenly in crises of one sort or another, and calling for some assistance. While delighted to be able to use my skills to help, as happens when a big clump of intense work comes all at once, I found I wasn’t sleeping normally, desperately needing naps in the afternoon, and then being awakened by guidance in the middle of the night (with terrific suggestions, but I’d sure like to get those memos during daylight hours.) And all of this just increased as the holidays got closer. . .you know.

Second, the weather fluctuated between coldwindyrainy, and gloriously sunny and springlike. On the springlike days I found myself remembering how many times in my life I’ve worked right through those, planning to play in the garden or go to the beach later, only to have the weather shift before I got to later. After years of hospice work, and never once hearing anyone regret not spending more time at the office or on the factory line, I’m finally learning to play hookey now and then, and even do it with a minimum of guilt.  I feel really good about this, but recently the opportunity and temptation has come about rather a lot. (I’m writing today and it is coldwindysnowy out:  see?)

Third, the blogging caused an existential mini-crisis, with me asking myself tedious questions about who I was and what the heck I thought I was doing.  Partly this is a natural process of coming to terms with having spent years thinking of myself as someone who just doesn’t “do” the computer, and here I was doing it and liking it!


 Much more odious was the persistent snarky voice asking me why I thought I was a writer with anything worthwhile to say? After a period of gnawing gut, my subconscious burped up the memory of a brother scathingly telling me that the regular nutrition column I wrote for a women’s newsletter was “stupid, with no original ideas at all”. . .now, that was mean, but considering that I had two other brothers who were supportive, and that I even got fan mail occasionally, clearly this comment bugged me because it mirrored something I sometimes believe about myself. 

Yes, we all know that many creative folks feel like imposters, no matter how hard they work, sure that any success is just good luck, and that one of these days someone is going to figure out what fakers we are. . .

I KNOW how ridiculous that kind of thinking is, but those imposter thoughts are subversive, sneaking in around the corners and blindsiding you, so once I grabbed ahold of the little sucker, I knew it was my responsibility to do the inner work that would allow me to move forward with this writing adventure. So I have been.  Between working with lots of clients in crisis and goofing off at the beach picking up beach glass and splashing in the waves. Yes, in Northeaster Ohio in winter!

I hope this hasn’t bored you to tears.  I feel glad to be starting again, and would love to hear from you about what inner challenges you’ve been going through, and how you deal with them.  Thank you for sticking around.

May 2012 be the year we all unload our old demons and move forward with grace and humor.  Namaste.