What does kindness have to do with mindfulness or even with writing? And just what exactly is mindfulness? I’ll answer that second question first. There are many definitions of mindfulness, but the one I like best comes from Kristin Neff: “we hold our experience in balanced awareness, rather than ignoring our pain or exaggerating it.” (You can read my review … Read More
Thankful for Questions
I’ve read that on average we have somewhere around 70,000 thoughts each day. I did try to work this out, but it seemed too much like hard work. After all, how long does a thought last? I don’t have a standard thought size. “Chocolate.” That didn’t take even a second. “Chocolate.” Neither did that. “I wonder if there’s any in … Read More
The No-Na-No diary: This Moment is All We Have
I’m not sure if this is part of my No-Na-No diary, or just some random thoughts – but here goes. I am so, so pleased to have taken the pressure of myself and decided not to force words that don’t need to come. The last two days I have carried on working on the novel I began for NaNoWriMo, at … Read More
The Many Facets of Grief
Even as I’ve been going through it, even when it has hurt deeply, I’ve felt fascinated by the grief process. Grief doesn’t come in a box marked: “Sad all the time. ” In the first few days after my father’s death, when my sisters, mother and I were together, it’s true we did a lot of crying. But we also … Read More
7 Ways To Help You Write When You Feel Depressed
If you are a writer who struggles with depression, you are not alone. Some research even suggests that writers are more prone to depression than the general population. If you feel severely depressed, it is important to get professional support. This article is not about how to find support, but how to keep going when it feels you can’t ever write … Read More
Let Go of Trying to be Better Than Your Parents
This post was originally published on my Inquiring Parent blog on Sep 10, 2013, and was updated on April 26, 2018. In the weeks before my father died, we had many conversations. Sometimes, he expressed regrets. He hinted that my sister and I had done better at parenting than he did. He thought he’d done things that weren’t kind; he … Read More
The Importance of Journalling for Writers
It struck me, at 4.30 am this morning when I got out of bed to journal, that without all the notebooks I’ve scribbled in over the years my sanity would be precarious at best. I had been lying awake with thoughts whirling round my head, and nothing I tried would quiet my mind enough to sleep. Instead I was getting … Read More
Children as Mirrors
One night when my elder daughter was about eighteen months old, she and I were upstairs getting ready for her bath. She wandered out onto the landing and stood on tiptoe peeping over the stair gate. In a sing-song voice she called out, “Jeh-eee!” (My husband’s name is Jerry.) She stood quietly for a few moments, and then she said, … Read More
Recent Comments