Acceptance and Appreciation – Completing the Three A’s of Personal Freedom

While agency is about acting on the controllables in our life, acceptance is acknowledging the things we cannot control – truly comprehending “what is” in all its vicissitudes and inherent challenges.  Acceptance moves beyond denial and rejection to recognising the vulnerability and difficulty of the human condition.

Acceptance is not about enduring a toxic situation or ignoring inevitable disappointments or frustrations.  Unlike complacency, acceptance does not mean avoiding responsibility or putting up with mediocrity or tolerating unacceptable behaviour.  According to Ben Crowe, acceptance is “the portal to improvement” because it is owning up to our mistakes, identifying things that we could have controlled in a situation and avoiding the tendency to blame others or abdicate responsibility.

Ben contends that there is serenity to be found in “the bridge between agency and acceptance”.  When confronted with an unpalatable situation we can choose to accept it (if we can’t do anything about it), attempt to change it (if there is some creative option) or leave the situation.  Serenity is achieved when we accept what we can’t change or exercise the courage required to change the things that are within our control, however difficult this might be.  

Ben likens acceptance to a boundary, similar to the boundaries we employ in life to protect ourselves, our interests and our welfare.  It serves as a boundary in that we finally say “no” to things we cannot control and move past resentment, anger and frustration over hurts, slights, or mistreatment.  We move on with our life rather than being obsessed with regrets about the past that can sap our energy and lead to depression.

Once we acknowledge that life is difficult, we can accept the reality of our lives, whether that involves chronic illness, financial difficulty or other harsh circumstances.  Through acceptance of “what is’ – the reality of the difficulty of life – we can move forward and find creative solutions to  our situation.  Being stuck in the “why me syndrome” can only exacerbate our difficulties as we “stew” over our circumstances, and this inevitably leads to inertia.

Ben highlights his work with WHO (World Health Organisation) during the COVID Pandemic as his greatest challenge in terms of helping people involved to “decipher agency and acceptance and distinguish the controllables from the uncontrollables”.  The life and death situation and the stresses on professional staff (who cared so much) to find a solution (a vaccine), brought the concept of “perspective” into clearer light for him and the WHO staff.  His assignment with WHO at the time of the Pandemic had been precipitated by his ABC Conversation podcast when he talked about his role as Ash Barty’s “mindset coach”  (Ash was playing Wimbeldon at the time, while he was grounded because of the Pandemic).

Self-Acceptance – the foundation for acceptance  of life’s difficulties

Self-acceptance is an antidote to perfectionism and the pressure of expectations (both our own and that of others).  It is underpinned by self-belief which together with self-acceptance is foundational to self-confidence.

I’ve found self-acceptance challenging during my early pickleball games because of my physical limitations associated with exercise asthma, arthritis, multi-level spinal degeneration and swollen ankles from allergies.  As a former “A” Grade tennis player, I expected that I would win more points than I would lose at Pickleball.  However, like Ash Barty, I’ve had to avoid confusing my persona (as a quality tennis player) with myself as a person (pickleball is only what I do now, my mistakes and results do not define me as a person). 

As Ben suggests, I have had to focus on the process rather than the outcomes – “simply to compete, have fun and play”.  To this end, I have chosen to play intermediate recreational pickleball, rather than intermediate competitive.  I still have to challenge expectations (my own and that of others) as I acquire skills in playing pickleball.

We can move towards self-acceptance and self-love by showing ourselves self-compassion which builds resilience, quietens the inner critic and ultimately has the power to transform us.  Ben suggests that we can create an “acceptance list” detailing what we need to accept about ourselves.  He also offers a number of “acceptance statements” that other people have used to build their own self-acceptance.  The one that I prefer is as follows:

I’m imperfect and that’s okay [self-acceptance], as I’m also original [self-compassion].

Appreciation – gratitude for what we have and can do

Ben maintains that appreciation and acceptance “form a powerful pair” – we have to learn to accept the things that we don’t appreciate in our life while being grateful for what we value about our life.  This positive focus overcomes envy and a deficit mentality.  The associated perspective shift enables us to celebrate milestones and be thankful for the people and things around us that contribute to our quality of life.  We can more readily savour what we have and what we experience – the small things in life, our unconscious mind, life itself, our children, our achievements and rewards and our friends.

Ben suggests that one of the simplest ways to achieve this perspective shift is to substitute “get to” for “got to”.   Instead of “I’ve got to” take my daughter to the doctor, we could say “I get to” take my daughter to the doctor (and thus contribute to her good health and spend quality time with her travelling to and from the clinic).

Engaging in loving-kindness meditation can be a form of gratitude if we focus on the people in our life who are close to us and have helped us throughout our life.  Loving kindness meditation incorporating kindness towards ourself and gratitude can generate equanimity and be a strong support in times of difficulty.

Reflection

Pressure and expectations are a reality of everyday life and we each experience them to different degrees at different points in our lives.   As we grow in mindfulness through adopting mindfulness practices, we can gain insight into our inner landscape (or what Jon Kabat-Zinn calls “mindscape”). By focusing on process rather than outcomes and practicing loving kindness meditation towards ourself, we can quieten the inner critic, enhance self-awareness and free ourselves from the tyranny of expectations.  In this way, we can enjoy greater personal freedom and live a more fulfilling life.

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Image by Alexa from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

The Three A’s of Personal Freedom – Agency, Acceptance and Appreciation

Ben Crowe in his book, Where the Light Gets In: Simple, playful and profound perspective shifts to change your life, identifies the Three A’s as the source of living with confidence and happiness.  He describes agency, acceptance and appreciation as the “Triple-A mindset muscles” that are foundational to “being human with freedom, clarity and enjoyment”.  In this post, I will discuss agency and highlight it’s relationship to dealing with expectations and pressure. 

Agency – power and control

Agency is the capacity to exercise control, choice or decision-making in a particular context.  In a previous discussion, I highlighted the role of action learning in facilitating agency in the workplace both for employees and managers.  While agency has a key role in our professional lives, it also impacts our personal life, whether we are talking about our relationships and/or sporting/recreational  activities.  It can also be very relevant to our longevity as we age.

Agency enables us to shape our lives and our environment and facilitates the release of creativity.  We become “masters of our own destiny” in the sense that we take control of the controllables in our life, including how we respond to difficult circumstances such as chronic illness.  We can control how we respond to our circumstances or adopt a victim mentality.   Controlling our response leads to freedom, victimhood leads to a sense of powerlessness and inertia (“there is nothing I can do about my situation!”).  When we see ourselves as a “victim” we “abdicate our responsibility for living”.

Ben draws inspiration about agency from the example of Viktor Frankl who survived Auschwitz and became a globally acknowledged author and psychiatrist when he wrote his landmark book, Man’s Search for Meaning.  Ben specifically quotes a significant statement by Viktor Frankl where he maintains that, in the face of being stripped of everything (dignity, choice, decision-making, control), the last human freedom still remains – “to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way”.  Ben points out that both Nelson Mandala and Viktor Frankl exercised internal freedom despite the loss of their external freedom through imprisonment.

Matt Mauser, who lost his wife Christina in the same helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant, epitomises agency in “choosing one’s attitude”.  In subsequently singing on AGT, he stated that he wanted to perform to teach his three young children that “grief is not going to define who we are as a family” and that “you have to find joy in life and just continue”.  

Projection – reducing agency

Ben Crowe points out that “choosing our own path” entails risk and opens us up to the prospect of “failure”, criticism, and even ridicule.  We can recall, for example, the personal cost for singers and artists who chose in their early years to defy their parents’ wishes for their career and instead pursued, at considerable emotional cost, what they considered to be their own “life purpose”.  

Ben maintains that parents often project onto their children their desire to satisfy their own unfulfilled dreams. This projection can conflict with the child’s own career goals and aspirations.  Ben cites the example of Andre Agassi whose father insisted that he play tennis against Andre’s own desires at the time.

Projection reduces agency.  Encouraging independence in children builds their capacity to make choices in line with their natural talents – it builds the child’s decision-making muscle.  This freedom to choose and pursue their own path gives them “personal agency”.   

Intuition and agency

Intuition is wisdom born of experience, reflection and subconscious processing, and insights gained through writing.  Agency, then, is the willingness and capacity to act on “intuitive judgments”.   Sometimes, agency can also involve the decision to not act on our intuition when it’s the result of bias, fear, or inadequate information about the context or the people involved.  However, when we can truly rely on our intuition and bring it into alignment with agency, we can move forward and “trust our gut”.

The reflective capacity of introverts, and their ability to slow down and be still, builds their insights, intuition and agency.  David Lynch (famous filmmaker, artist, Director, photographer and musician) maintained that creative ideas come from within and are stimulated by stillness and silence and the act of reflection which enables access to the “infinite dynamism” within us.

Susan Cain, in her book, Quiet, lauds the intuition of introverts who strive to exercise agency in a world dominated by extroverts.  She points out that social constraints and external validation of extroverts negatively impacts the freedom of introverts to share their insights, thus limiting their agency in a world that desperately needs their incisive thinking and decision-making.  She argues for empowering introverts, helping them to exercise agency “in a world that can’t stop talking”.

Reflection

I’m older than the great majority of pickleball players and opponents express surprise when I retrieve balls or play shots that much younger players are not able to do (especially spins).  Ageism is rife and sometimes I feel the need to prove that age does not define competence.  As a result I occasionally up the ante to prove my competence as I did recently playing a person who had played more than 1,000 pickleball games ( I have only played 250 games).  I noticed that the right-handed player had a weak backhand (they would stand in the very corner of the backhand court so that they could take the ball on their forehand).  So I served very deep into the backhand corner of their court so that they were forced to play a backhand (actually they used their left hand to retrieve the ball and play an ineffectual shot).

When I reflect on my competitive response, I wonder whether I am being trapped by my own projection of the other player’s expectations of me.  Am I giving up my freedom, my agency to play more socially than competitively, driven by the felt pressure to rectify an assumed expectation?  I have nothing to prove but do I need to show that I can play better, when we are actually playing recreational (non-competitive), intermediate-level pickleball?  It seems that our own expectations of personal competence, as well as our assumptions re other’s expectations, can limit our decision-making and choices, thus reducing our agency in the situation.

As we grow in mindfulness through the stillness and silence of reflection, we can enhance our self-awareness and unearth our assumptions and projections.  In the process, we can develop our intuition and facilitate our agency in our personal and professional lives.

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Image by Ahmet Yüksek from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Play to Drive Out Fear

Ben Crowe, author of Where the Light Gets In: Simple, playful and profound perspective shifts to change your life, suggests that our modern world is driven by pressure and fear.  Pressure comes from multiple sources including expectations (our own and other’s), relentless marketing, unhealthy comparisons (e.g. body image, financial position, status), the speed of life and the pervasiveness of social media.  Fear arising from these numerous pressures can induce a sense of helplessness, inertia and a loss of creativity.   Hugh van Cuylenburg points out that “fear of failure” can lead to all kinds of emotional and physical symptoms, including panic attacks.

Ben, like many other authors, contends that freedom is the opposite of pressure and expectation, while the real antidote to both pressure and fear is play.  He acknowledges that “play” means different things to different people but there is a common element which he describes as “finding time and space for curiosity, creativity and experimentation to be here now”.  He argues that there are three readily identified forms of play: (1) curiosity play, (2) spontaneous play and (3) nonsense play.

Curiosity Play

Ben explains that the essence of curiosity play is to ask the question, “What if?  He gives several illustrations of this in action.  The first relates to the arrangement between Michael Jordon and Nike to have a coloured basketball shoe in defiance of the NBA’s rules about uniform uniformity (wearing only predominantly white shoes).  The colourful Nike’s Air Jordon 1 went on to be a fashion trend worldwide, worn by people of all walks of life (even priests and doctors).  This “curiosity play” generated a huge sales boost for Nike and Michael Jordon got to wear his coloured basketball shoes.

Another example of “What if?” defiance of rules was that of Cathy Freeman wearing the Indigenous flag embroidered on the heel of her running shoes for the Atlanta Olympics (in defiance of IOC’s rule about “political statements” by Olympic athletes).  Four years later at the Sydney Olympics she had both the Indigenous flag and Australian flag draped over her shoulders when she won the 400 metres Gold Medal. The IOC did not take action despite threats to do so in the event of a “political statement”.  

Spontaneous Play

Spontaneous play is about possibilities – accessed by asking, “Why not?”  It is very much about openness and curiosity in the present moment – exploring without judgment while noticing what is happening.  This is akin to Jon Kabat-Zinn’s definition of mindfulness.  Ben describes spontaneous play as “being open to the universe, suspending judgment, entertaining possibilities, noticing more, and connecting the dots”.   

Ben provides a number of interesting examples of spontaneous play including Nike’s founder, Bill Bowerman, designing the company’s first shoe based on noticing the waffle iron in the kitchen – a design that addressed the existing deficiency in running footwear, namely “the lack of traction”.  Paul McCartney in his book, The Lyrics, stated that “one of the things about the Beatles is that we noticed accidents”.  He maintained that even a vinyl record playing backwards could stimulate creative ideas that they acted on.  According to Paul, the Beatles “always loved being sidetracked by these ideas”.

Nonsense Play

Nonsense play involves frivolity, fun and games.  It often leads to raucous laughter.  Ben suggests that nonsense play can release creativity as it is often used to “replace expectation with experimentation”.  He cites the example of the Beatles and their Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album.  At the height of their career, the Beatles were finding that the pressure of expectation was getting to them – they felt that they were continually expected to produce a new album that was better than their previous one (a constant drain on their enjoyment and creative energy).  The Beatles developed the Sergeant Pepper’s Band album by treating the band name as an “alter ego” – an example of experimentation to reduce the pressure of expectation that resulted from their outstanding and rapid success.  The album became one of their greatest achievements – all because of “nonsense play”.   One song alone, Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, has generated over 274 Million plays on Spotify at the time of writing this post.

Getting Into the Play State

Ben suggests that the easiest way to get into the play state is to recall one of our “earliest play memories”.  When I thought about this, I remembered vividly playing with model trains with one of my older brothers.  We would save our pocket money and progressively buy track, carriages, bridges, and engines.  Then together we would set about building a model railway track weaving through trees, houses and shops.  Through our joint purchases we were able to expand our track and our railway gear.

Ben takes this “play state” one step further when he maintains that hidden in play are a “quintet of emotions” that are only readily accessible through a “stream of consciousness” that comes from memory and imagination.  When I tried to recall the emotions I experienced in model train play with my brother, I came up with emotions that resonated with Ben’s quintet – joyful, excited, lost in the moment, connected and loved.  He argues that this playfulness is when we are authentic and truly human – “before fear, comparison with others, and wanting to fit in”. 

I also recall going on extended push bike rides (around 40 kms) on weekends with a school friend.  We would ride together along busy roads (often nearly blown off the road by passing semi-trailers). We were carefree, connected, playful and exhilarated.  The play state releases uninhibited behaviour, a sense of freedom, empowerment and creativity.

Other early play memories that come to mind, as I write, relate to going to tennis coaching with my two brothers and fishing trips with my brothers and sister.  Tennis coaching occurred each Saturday and Sunday morning and we would have an hilarious ride in my eldest brother’s car as we anticipated the joy of learning and playing tennis.  Like Ash Barty, we had an arrangement with our tennis coach that, if we assisted with coaching younger players on the Saturday, we would have free coaching on the Sunday.  In between, we were able to play tennis fixtures (competitions), so we effectively played tennis all weekend.  Our coach had been previously selected as a member of the Australian Davis Cup team but had been unable to compete at that level after a motorbike accident (he taught himself to play double-handed for his forehand and backhand to offset weaknesses in his wrists after the accident).

The fishing trips with my brothers and sister were also an enormous source of fun, not only from the joy of fishing itself (at Pinkenba, Breakfast Creek, Brisbane River and Tewantin), but also the adventure of the ride to these favoured fishing spots.  Invariably, my sister and I would ride pillion passenger on one of the Vespa motor scooters owned by our brothers.  We would race trains and enjoy the freedom and freshness of the breeze as we travelled to and from our fishing spots. 

Reflection

When I play pickleball I am able to draw on skills and strategies I developed playing tennis, squash and table tennis for many years.  This prior experience and attendant body memory often enable me to play shots as a senior player (over 80 years old) that surprises my younger partners and opponents.  The downside of this achievement is that it automatically produces a new set of expectations which were recently voiced by a pickleball partner who said, “Slay them Ron, like you usually do!”   I can very easily fall into the trap of this new set of expectations which will work against my goals in playing recreational pickleball. The challenge is not to succumb to others’ expectations or to unconsciously create new expectations of myself. Expectations of others and our own expectations are anathema to freedom and play.

As I have stated before, because of my physical limitations, I don’t try to win every game but try to enjoy the process, experiment with new shots and learn through playing different people on different courts.  One of the things that has attracted me to playing pickleball is the playfulness and fun experienced at the Intermediate Recreational Level.  When I was an academic, Emeritus Professor David Limerick, who taught organisational learning and change, was very supportive of “play” and had even considered setting up a research centre on play.  Apparently, Dr. Stuart Brown established the National Institute for Play to achieve similar goals to what David envisaged.

As we grow in mindfulness through practices such as mindful breathing, reflection, curiosity and natural awareness, we can become more aware of the influence of expectations on our behaviour and resolve to restore our natural, playful freedom.  I was taken with Ben’s statement that play is when we are truly human. This statement inspired my Haiku poem below:

At Home

Natural at play,

joyful and spontaneous,

connected to self.

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Image by Fabio from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Sam Neill – Compleat Actor

Sam, Irish-born actor and New Zealand resident, died at the age of 78 on 13 July 2026 as a result of complications from an aggressive form of cancer, angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma.  He revealed his devastating diagnosis in his book, Did I Ever Tell You This?: A Memoir.

His memoir reflects the dry wit and self-deprecating humour that he was much loved for throughout his life.  Sam acted in both films and television and was awarded an MBE for his contribution to acting.  He won many awards, including a TV Week Silver Logie For Most Popular Actor, and was nominated for several prestigious acting awards.  Sam won two Logie awards for the Best Lead Actor in a Drama, including his stunning performance in The Twelve: Cape Rock Killer.

On his  death, many leading actors paid tribute to his acting career.  Among those who offered accolades for his contributions to film and television were Alex Baldwin, Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe.  His contribution to the film industry was also recognised by Stephen Spielberg and Jimmy Barnes.

Sam loved his farm in New Zealand, his wine growing, miniature car collection, horse riding and his menagerie of animals. He maintained that he was never good at sports or physical activity and had a number of lucky breaks that led him, unintentionally, to his acting career.  He claims that his early life as an “outlier”, having to survive school bullies and other unsavoury characters, was great preparation for his life as a professional actor.

Life’s lessons

Sam got his first real, paying job at the age of twelve and worked hard during school holidays in all sorts of unsuitable jobs.  In his memoir, he claimed that there were real life lessons in these difficult experiences:

  • you have to work hard to earn money
  • the world is a very diverse place
  • stay out of trouble by keeping your head down
  • there are many forms of humour
  • be respectful of other workers
  • develop allies
  • listen carefully to instructions you are given
  • be grateful for your pay and your life.

Reflection

Sam epitomised a healthy confidence and avoided the trap of adopting a “superior conceit”.  He was humble despite his brilliant acting career.  He owned his foibles and recognised his “imperfections” and continued to improve his craft throughout his life. 

Sam’s life attests to the fact that we can grow in mindfulness by being humble, an outcome of sound, honest self-awareness.  He loved nature and found nurture in natural beauty and majesty.

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Image by NT Franklin from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Respecting Our Bodies

During our July Creative Meetup, we were introduced to the theme “Honoring Your Body” by our facilitator, Jennifer Crystal.  Jennifer provided two poems by different poets as a way to stimulate the creativity of our group of writers-with-chronic-illness.  

Our first stimulus poem was “Primary Care” by Dr. Rafael Campo that graphically addresses the body of the ill person, not only the symmetrical perfection but also the smell and blood.  He also exclaims, “beneath your fragile skin, I see the soul that you shield”.   He acknowledges that “you, body, weep, you think, you scar as if to show us our own history”.  The poem is included in Rafael’s sixth collection of poems, Alternative Medicine, that reveals his deep understanding of the relationships amongst “language, empathy and healing”.

 Our second stimulus poem was by Lucille Clifton, former Poet Laurette for Maryland.  The poem, “Homage to My Hips”, focused on a single body part, the hips.   In the poem Lucille expresses gratitude for her femininity and respect for her “body parts”.   She describes her body with pride and humour.   In a discussion of “What Poetry Is”, Lucille suggested that “poetry is a way of living in the world”.   “ a way of trying to express something that is very difficult to express” and “a way of trying to come to peace with the world”.  In her view, poetry comes from questions, not answers, and a sense of wonder about the world, ourselves and those around us.

Writing Prompts provided during the Creative Meetup

Jennifer provided the following writing prompts on the theme of the Meetup, “Honoring Your Body”:

  1. Write a piece of prose or a poem beginning with, “Oh, body…”
  2. Write a poem or a piece of prose about one part of your body.

I chose to respond to the first prompt and decided to write a poem titled, “A Letter to My Body”.   The poem reflects the emotional ups and downs that I experience as a result of having the chronic condition, Mass Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS).  The condition means that I have to severely limit what I eat and drink, otherwise I suffer from hives, rash, swelling of the legs and ankles, arthritic pain, indigestion and headaches.

Despite this condition, I am able to do many things, including think and write, read and play sport.  I feel endlessly grateful for what I can do and savour my residual capabilities.  I will be 80 years old in three weeks’ time and I value my overall good health.

A Letter to My Body

Oh Body – you test me at times,
react to the smallest thing,
create pain, itch and scars.
What are you protesting?

Where did this reactivity come from?
Why now in later life?
Pleasures from food and drink
turned to irritation and frustration.

You have served me well,
provided joy, pleasure and contentment.
Your agility and resilience amaze me,
even now, a source of astonishment.

I value that I can still walk and run,
the many times that you have been competent,
your flexibility and keenness to learn and adapt.
enabling me to play five racquet sports and two football codes.

Physical discomfort is partly in my control,
I choose to eat what I enjoy,
there are consequences that I know,
you have been forgiving of my abuse.

I’m grateful for my genetic inheritance,
a gift that keeps on giving.
Despite my ups and downs,
you stand by me – a constant companion.

Every day I see people whose bodies will not let them walk unaided,
whose movement is restricted or uncontrolled.
Some have to rely on others for their mobility,
always dependent on someone else for basic tasks.

I’ve taken my independence for granted,
not tethered to others to move around,
doing many things with ease,
the recipient of competency’s benefits.

You’ve stuck by me through thick and thin,
through the aftermath of a serious car accident,
through melanomas and skin cancers,
through the daily MCAS assaults and arthritic pain.

You’ve kept me mobile and mentally alert,
physically capable beyond my years,
despite my lack of respect for you,
my abuse of your good intentions.

There is grief here,
about the foods I cannot eat,
the drinks I cannot drink,
the meals I cannot share.

You have sweated and swelled to protect me from perceived invaders.
I appreciate your diligence in caring for me,
in helping me to maintain my immunity,
in providing the good health to enable my physical pursuits.

You enable me to enjoy my mobility when travelling interstate,
to achieve my 3,500 steps daily,
to play recreational pickleball weekly at intermediate level,
to do my regular exercise routine that keeps me agile, strong and resilient.

I’m surprised by your sense and sensibility.
Your intelligence is not just in my brain,
but also in my gut and heart.
You rein in my unfettered emotions with deep breathing.

I marvel at your body memory,
your capacity to play racquet shots instinctively,
without any conscious intervention,
reading the play and responding intuitively.

I have savoured your competence,
bringing me endless joy in the “now” and in “replay”.
I feel challenged to show you more respect,
to curtail what I eat and drink that is harmful to me.

Oh body, you are like a tree firmly rooted in the ground,
swaying with the winds of change,
inexorably displaying my life history,
in the texture of your bark and the shedding of your leaves.

You are my grounding,
my earthly residence,
my link to nature and others,
my sole comfort in times of darkness.

Reflection

In writing the poem, “A Letter to My Body”, I was very conscious of what I had discussed in an earlier post when I wrote about poetry “blending opposites and breaking frames”.  I wrote the first five stanzas during our Meetup writing exercise.  As I reflected further and processed my mixed emotions around the Meetup theme, I became more conscious of the need to blend opposite emotions and achieve a breaking of my “victim” frame.  In the poem, I was able to bring together sadness and joy, grief and gratitude, disdain and respect, frustration and elation, disorientation and groundedness.  The poem helped me to change my inner landscape from “victim” to privileged.

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Image by wal_172619 from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

The Need for Mindful Listening by Doctors

After completing my last blog post about Dr. Rafael Campo’s view that poetry expresses the rhythm of the body, I began to reflect further on my recent medical experience.  Rafael contends that doctors can access the “interior story” of a patient by listening to the poetry of the patient.  The patient’s medical story encapsulated in their poem provides the “context” for the evolution of the patient’s illness.

Uncovering strong emotions

On writing about Rafael’s perspective on what makes a “good doctor”, I began to realise that my “interior story” was really one of resentment and frustration with my recent treatment by doctors and specialist consultants.  It has been difficult for me to own this part of my medical story because of my inherent respect for doctors and their calling to help people in need of medical assistance.

In the past, I had focused on the “data” about my medical story .  For example, when I wrote the poem The Sounds of My Medical Story, I was very focused on eliciting the sounds and not on exploring the meaning and feelings behind them. Through a process reflection, I became more aware of the disruptive nature of my chronic illnesses and my frustration about the lack of support from the medical profession.

It was left to me to find a way to tone down the sounds/noise of my body by exploring “periods of silence and solitude” so that my body could emit a “soft pattern of soothing sounds”.  I have found these soothing sounds disturbed on a number of occasions recently when my body reacted to specific foods and elevated my heart rate to twice its normal level (from 50 beats per minute to 110 beats per minute) for a period of hours.

Lack of knowledge and understanding of many doctors

Part of the problem is that there is a lack of knowledge and understanding amongst doctors and specialist consultants in relation to my core dermatitis and digestive illness, Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS).  In consequence, there is a tendency to deny its existence or to ignore it as a part of my medical story. 

It is interesting that one of the new questions added to the survey for the joint Influenza/COVID vaccination asks, “Do you have MCAS and do you suffer anaphylaxis from it?’.  This new question for the Federally-funded, free vaccinations gives an indication that the existence of MCAS and its potentially serious impacts are recognised by some medical professionals in positions of authority.

In contrast, last year I had asked my gastroenterologist to undertake a biopsy during my routine colonoscopy to diagnose officially whether or not I had MCAS (apparently, a biopsy is the only reliable way to test the presence of MCAS as a blood test alone does not provide the necessary information).  My gastroenterologist refused on the grounds that “MCAS is a controversial area” and not accepted by all medical professionals.  At the same time, he gave me the name of a specialist consultant in another area who recognises MCAS and works with patients on this illness. 

Disinterest and disdain of some doctors

I subsequently obtained a referral to a specialist allergist who refused to read my medical history (that I spent hours preparing) but undertook a number of skin prick tests that showed that I was allergic to soy, wheat and dairy products among other things.  He lost interest in my case when he established that I do not suffer from anaphylaxis.  It was left to me to ascertain what foods, in what quantities, are harmful to my body and mind.

I then turned to my General Practitioner (GP) who has a Doctorate in Immunology and again I received no insight into MCAS and how to manage it. However, my GP referred me to a specialist dermatology clinic at a hospital because they were of the view that I would be “a good candidate for biologic treatment” as my MCAS was not under control and I was restricted to 10 foods (that were not harmful to me).  No explanation of biologics or its potentially harmful effects were given to me (I had to research this treatment myself).   From my own research, I have established that biologics are complex and expensive, can cause an allergic reaction and expose the body to more serious infection.  They are often given by injection and can require regular visits to a hospital (e.g. fortnightly).  

During my initial visit and a follow-up to the dermatology clinic, I saw two different registrars.  The first took my medical history record “for the file” but did not discuss my MCAS or subsequent events such as a tick bite, Mammalian Meat Allergy or Ciguatera fish poisoning.  The registrar was totally data-focused on assessing my suitability for biologics.  I was given a request form for a battery of blood tests (20+) to check whether I had one of the conditions that would eliminate me from further consideration for biologics.

Apparently my blood tests results were “good” which I ascertained to mean that they did not invalidate me as a biologic candidate.  On the follow-up visit to another registrar, I was not given the test results but told, after a physical examination, that I did not qualify for biologic treatment as my dermatitis “did not cover my whole body”.  From the outset, I had explained that I was not interested in biologics but this was ignored. 

Since my visits to the hospital dermatology clinic involved more than three hours (including travel time), I cancelled a further follow-up meeting.  I received no useful help with my dermatitis (no one was interested in my symptoms or triggers) – the registrars were only interested in pursuing their biological model which, in this case, entailed biologics. 

In a recent Q & A session with MCAS 360 practitioners I asked whether they supported using biologics for MCAS, the response was that they did not support this approach because it was very much trial and error as it was very difficult to determine the appropriate level of intervention and because it had potentially damaging side effects.

Reflection

Interestingly, during a live presentation by Dr. Neil Nathan, author of The Sensitive Patient’s Healing Guide, a participant from Chicago described her experience with the medical profession when she attempted to discuss her MCAS triggers and symptoms.  She visited an allergist (who claimed expertise in MCAS) and “ was belittled” and told to go to a dermatologist.  However, the allergist ordered a serious of tests despite saying it “was a waste of time”.  The participant then visited a dermatologist who “put his hand up” and told her “to shut up”.  He prescribed steroids which proved to be “useless”.  The original allergist’s office rang the participant back after the test results and told her she had MCAS and needed to return.  The participant chose not to return and over time progressively researched her own condition and improved her health by herself.  Dr. Nathan himself, during his presentation, commented that “if you can find someone who will listen to what you are saying about how sensitive you are, that’s a godsend”.

Rafael highlights the fact that doctors are taught “detached concern and distancing”.  They are “immersed in the biological model” and think only in terms of diagnosis and the “treatment algorithm”.   Poetry, in contrast, expresses emotion fully and thus “abets empathy”.   The cadence of poetry demands mindful listening, attention and attunement to emotive expression and the human sounds within.  It challenges doctors who are caught up in endless checklists, “overwhelmed with diagnosis codes” and disabled by “distancing”.

The Health Story Collaborative is designed to close the listening and empathy gap.  It creates multiple platforms for health storytelling  and provides an empathetic audience of people-with-chronic-illness, as well as doctors.  A supportive community is a key element in the healing journey of people with chronic illness.  I have participated in HSC’s Creative Meetups for the past two years.  This group of writers-with-chronic-illness meets online once a month and provides an opportunity to write about our “interior story” and to share the outcomes in this supportive community.

I have written a poem to reflect my experience with medical professionals and my feelings about their lack of listening and empathy:

The Inner Story Laid Bare

Frustration and resentment abound,
each professional with deaf ears,
not listening to my subjective medical story,
intent on objective data exploration,
missing the “interior story”.

Failing to understand the context of my chronic illness,
blind to its origins, effects and impact on quality of life,
always grasping for what is scientifically known,
shared patient experience ignored,
in the interests of a deemed correct diagnosis and treatment.

Lack of knowledge and understanding,
desensitized by a biological model,
closed to our “interior story”,
unable to listen mindfully,
unwilling to summon empathy.

A peer support community,
ready to share their health story,
prompts for prose and poetry,
collaborating to close the empathy gap,
willing to be vulnerable for each other.

If medical professionals practised some form of mindfulness they can develop the art of mindful listening to patients.  Rafael Campo has used poetry as his way into mindfulness.  Research demonstrates that mindfulness practices are highly effective for the medical professionals. 

As they grow in mindfulness, medical professionals can enhance their physical wellbeing, reduce the risk of burnout, improve their care of patients and develop emotional regulation.  Training in mindfulness, undertaken by hospitals and medical institutions, is designed “to train doctors to actively listen and engage with patients mindfully” thus increasing empathy amongst doctors and improving the accuracy of diagnosis.

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Image by Alexa from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Listening to Our Interior Story

Dr. Rafael Campo, in an interview for the Boston Globe, spoke of the ability of poetry to reveal the “interior story” of the creator.  He highlighted the rhythm of poetry and how it mirrored the rhythm of the body.

Dr. Rafael Campo, a Harvard trained doctor, is a highly acclaimed poet, essayist and medical specialist at Harvard Medical School.  He is an untiring advocate and health professional for HIV infected patients.  Rafael is the author of nine books of poetry and other publications.  He is also the poetry editor for the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA).  He teaches primary health care at several medical institutions, including Harvard Medical School. 

Rafael has received many awards and honours for his poetry and prides himself in using a “palette of poetry” by adopting a diversity of poetic forms, thus reflecting his “hybrid” experience.  Rafael uses his poetry to express his feelings for his cancer and AIDS patients as well as emergency room patients who have encountered the brutality of racism and homophobia in America.  He also teaches poetry to patients and medical professionals alike.

Listening to the rhythm of poetry

Rafael considers poetry to be “the opposite of silence” because it expresses the stories of patients and medical professionals.  He maintains that patients are often silenced by the biomedical focus of doctors who are trained to be “relentless in the pursuit of facts”.  He argues that doctors are taught to suppress their own feelings and adopt a “detached” stance.  In the process, doctors don’t listen to the life stories of patients and lose valuable insight into the “context” of the patient’s illness.

Rafael contends that just like listening to a heartbeat with a stethoscope, doctors can listen to “the physical rhythms of the body” expressed through the language of poetry.  In his own words, “poetry is full of the music of the body”.  He highlights the corporeal nature of poetry because, in his view, it fundamentally expresses “in a visceral way what it is to be human”. 

Rafael argues that listening to patients’ poems and writing poetry makes him a better doctor because he is more attuned to the “context” of an individual’s illness and their “interior story”.

Writing prompts for our Creative Meetup Group inspired by Rafael Campo

I participated in the June, online Creative Meetup sponsored by the Health Story Collaborative for writers-with-chronic-illness.  Our facilitator, Jennifer Crystal, read an extract from Boston Globe’s interview with Rafael.  When Jennifer introduced Rafael’s perspective on the human rhythm of poetry, it immediately struck a chord with me.

The interview extract served as the stimulus for our writing during the Meetup.  We were invited to write poetry or prose around the theme of the stimulus piece and the related writing prompts offered by Jennifer.  I chose to write a free-form poem about my experience of chronic illness while addressing both the writing prompts.

Writing prompts:

  1. What are the sounds and/or rhythms of your medical story?
  2. If you could hold a stethoscope up to your interior story, what would you want us to hear?

After we had completed 20 minutes of writing, Meetup participants shared their writing which was rich with metaphors to describe the sounds of their medical story and the nature of their “interior story”.   The metaphors employed by the participants focused on both disruptive/disturbing sounds and soothing sounds:

Metaphors of disruptive/disturbing sounds:

  • like war sounds
  • the storm that couldn’t kill
  • church bells ringing
  • loud chaotic concert
  • waves crashing
  • noisy, electronic hospital environment
  • like trumpet blasts.

Metaphors of soothing sounds:

  • sweet melody of harp
  • whispers of nature and beauty
  • soft pattern of soothing sounds
  • silence and solitude.

Poetry affords the opportunity to blend opposites (e.g. noise and silence) and change metaphors to break frames and create a new mindset.  Poetry has the power to transform our perspective.

My response to the writing prompts is reflected in the following poem:

The Sounds of My Medical Story

A story that lacks rhythm,
a staccato effect.
Flare-ups like trumpet blasts,
Disrupting and interrupting.
Periods of silence and solitude,
A soft pattern of soothing sounds.
Poetry as alchemy.

Reflection

I have been inspired by The Book of Alchemy authored by Suleika Jaouad in which she explores the art of journalling with 100 very accomplished contributors.  As Suleika was writing the final chapter of her book she received word that her aggressive leukemia had returned.  While preparing herself and her house for another extended hospital stay (for chemo and a third bone marrow transplant), she recalled the alchemy of writing a journal.  This led her to write a poem about how journalling alchemizes isolation and suffering and leads to new insights and a newly envisioned future.

In her poem, Suleika draws on multiple analogies to express how she has experienced the alchemy of journalling:

  • a companion to untangle the knots in her life
  • a source of memory and reverie
  • a teacher of mindfulness (through paying attention to the simple things in life)
  • a mirror for her past, present and future self
  • a refuge and hiding place and “finding place”
  • a means “to write her way through”
  • a co-creator of a future self.

On reading her poem about the alchemy of writing and journalling, I was inspired to produce an “erased poem”(in Haiku format) from her words:

An Ode to Poetry

Friend for company,
finding place for future self.
Create my way through.

As we grow in mindfulness through writing poetry, blogging or journalling, we can access our “interior story”, develop creative approaches to challenging situations (such as illness) and build a new level of acceptance of “what is”.  We can also draw inspiration from others by writing in community – accessing the power of storytelling and sharing.

Rafael reminds us that a poem is “crafted” around a theme and structural elements such as rhyme. rhythm, alliteration, metaphor, length, format, and language.  I found that I had to craft this blog post when I became overwhelmed by the volume of information about Rafael and his poetry.  In crafting the post, I needed to reduce the focus to one key area, find ways to integrate disparate sources and explore avenues for integrating the material.  The content and structure evolved through multiple edits and rewrites.

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Image by Olle August from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Journalling for Creativity

In the Book of Alchemy, Suleika Jaouad provides ten themes for journalling, with each thematic chapter prefaced by her own essay on the focal topic.  Each chapter, in turn, has ten authors who contribute to the chapter theme by providing a short essay and related writing prompts.  The book thus provides an excellent source of inspiration for journalling for creativity as well as practical hints on how to overcome writer’s block when attempting creative writing.  The sub-title of the book, A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life, highlights the intent of the book to stimulate creativity and provide inspiration.

One of the many contributions that had a profound impact on me is that of Natalie Warther who wrote about “Poetry by Erasure”.  Natalie was awarded a Master of Fine Arts in poetry from the Bennington Writing Seminars.   Her essay in the Book of Alchemy, in the chapter “On Seeing”, explains the process of writing poetry by erasure and states that she started this practice in the early months of quarantine during the pandemic.  Natalie found that the erasure practice helped her to overcome overwhelm as it provided a way to be creative without having “to start from scratch”.

The process involves starting with a piece of text – a poem, newspaper article, book you have read or a novel you are reading – and progressively whittling away at it until it is transformed into “the thing that needs to be said through you”.  Words are lifted from their context and studied as discrete entities with a disembodied meaning.  Your “creation through elimination” results in the original text being unrecognisable – the context, sequence and meaning of the employed words have changed.  You can give your created poem a new title to communicate the change in focus and meaning.  Natalie cites the famous poet Mary Ruefle as saying of her own erasure poetry process that she doesn’t read the page of the original text but rather just the words.

Erasure poetry

I found that starting with an existing poem made it easier for me to come up with an erasure poem.  My initial attempts were basically a restating of the theme of the original text while using some of the words employed by the original author.  This involved elimination but little in the way of creativity.  Here are two examples of my early attempts:

Acts of Kindness

The simple act
sending love
when I was terribly low.

I trust acts of kindness
live in my body.
I am made of them.

(Erasure poem drawn from The Making – a poem by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer)

The Gift of Solitude

Suddenly a solitude,
an enormity, an empire.
It’s gigantically different!
Thank God.

(Erasure poem drawn from It is Difficult to Speak of the Night– a poem by Jack Gilbert)

As I made further attempts with erasure poetry I started to move away from the theme of the original creator and establish a new focus and meaning.  Here are two examples of these transformations:

The Pursuit of Science

Commitment and wonder,
passionate and precise,
no detail too small,
noticing the smallest of things.

(Erasure poem drawn from No Detail Too Small – a poem by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer)

The Wonder of Stories

Listen to stories
I carry everywhere
for sharing.

Break open the vast ache
that all of us carries
for wonder.

(Erasure poem drawn from The Elephant in the Room – a poem by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer)

Rosemerry Wahtola  Trommer provides a poem-a-day so her poetry is a good source of inspiration for erasure poetry.  What I found in reading her daily poems is that the lack of structure seemed to get in the road of my appreciating the full meaning of her poems (I’m used to reading other people’s poems that are more structured although I write “free form poetry” myself).  However, by taking out individual words and examining them closely and then putting them back into the context of Rosemerry’s poem, enabled me to really appreciate the meaning of her original poem (I saw her poem in a new way as if the light of understanding illuminated the meaning of the original poem).

The benefits of erasure poetry

Besides helping the reader to see the original poem in a new light, erasure poetry can be (in Natalie’s words) “freeing” and “playful”, even “meditative”.  It can free us from writer’s block and get the “creative juices” going.  It can be inventive and creative, opening up new insights, perspectives and different ways of looking at things and situations.  Natalie suggests that erasure poetry creates a space where we can be a writer without using an original word – thus taking the pressure off to start from scratch, particularly when we are exhausted or overwhelmed through the challenges of daily life and the human condition.

Reflection

Several of the contributors to Suleika’s Book of Alchemy are experiencing (or have experienced) chronic illness, including Suleika herself who has leukemia (diagnosed at age 22).  The contributors discuss writing for healing and explain how journalling has helped them through the highs and lows of chronic illness.

Suleika turned to journalling during her periods of treatment including chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants.  In her words, “journaling went from a favorite pastime to a lifeline”.  Initially she started with the 100-day project, developed by Michael Bierut, which basically involved undertaking a creative act (of your choice) each day for 100 days. Both her parents were supportive and led by example (her mother being creative with ceramics while her father “wrote a daily memory from his childhood”).

Suleika chose journalling for her 100-day project and indicated that instead of giving in to a sense of hopelessness, she was able to “trace the contours of what she was thinking and feeling and gain a sense of agency over it”.  However, after “four harrowing years of treatment” she gave up journalling.  She was “lost in translation” for a year – having to process her new reality that had negatively impacted her heart and body. 

Suleika became fear-driven and stale.  So, to break with this downward spiral, she undertook a 15,000 mile solo road trip across country and visited people on-route, capturing their stories in the process.  A key journal entry at the time stated, “It is possible to alter the course of my becoming”.  

On returning to New York Suleika moved “to a log cabin in Vermont”.  There she faced the challenge of writing her memoir – with self-doubts abounding.  Her way through was to “set a daily word count” for her memoir writing.  However, her inner-critic about writing a memoir overtook her.  Suleika then returned to journalling and used the “morning pages” method made popular by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way.

When this new method of journalling failed to stimulate her creativity, Suleika turned to the writings of inspirational authors such as the Journals of Sylvia Plath.  She also drew on the creative works of women who shared their stories about chronic illness and its effects on mind, heart and body.  Suleika concluded that reading, just like journalling, can “alchemize isolation into creative solitude”.

Reading, too, can help us grow in mindfulness and increase our self-awareness, awareness of the world around us and of the people in our inner and outer circles.  Suleika’s book not only provides her own story of resilience through the pursuit of creativity, but also gives snippets of the lives, challenges and successes of the 100 contributors through their short essays and writing prompts.  The Book of Alchemy  offers endless stimulation for our own daily journalling.  The benefits that accrue as a result include enriched creativity, heightened gratitude and enhanced equanimity.
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Image by Warren Griffiths from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

The Art of Journalling

Suleika Jaouad brilliantly illustrates the art of journalling in The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life, which she published in 2025.  In explaining the practice, she drew on examples and stories from her own life and that of others.  The book grew out of a 100-Day Project she started during the Covid-19 Pandemic. Suleika, experiencing the negative effects of isolation, decided to start a newsletter to encourage people to start journalling daily to manage their challenging situations as a result of the Pandemic. 

Suleika provided a short essay and writing prompt with each newsletter to encourage people to write about their experiences. She first approached some well-known people she knew but before long the project went truly viral beyond anyone’s expectations.  Participants in the project were encouraged to share their journalling to create a sense of community and shared challenge.  The Book of Alchemy draws some of these contributions together.  In the process, Suleika shares her own experiences and wisdom, sometimes painfully achieved, as well as the insights and personal changes experienced by the contributors to the book.

Each chapter has an introduction by Suleika around some theme such as “On Beginning” and “On Memory”.  The contributions of people such as Sharon Salzberg, Elizabeth Gilbert, and Esther Perel are grouped under one of the ten chapters, with ten contributors in each chapter.  Thus the book provides essays and writing prompts for our own 100-day project. 

In her book, Suleika, as well as many contributors, offer suggestions on how to overcome blockages to writing a journal.  At the outset, she points out the need to avoid expectations about output volumes, just the admonition to write daily.  Suleika explains that there were times when she had to accept a paragraph in her journal as her output for the day.  She points out that no one has to see what you have written.  There is no coercion (apart from self-messages) to achieve coherence, cohesion, clarity or content in a journal entry. 

Overcoming blockages

Suleika found that by reading a poem or an excerpt from something someone else has written (e.g. a memoir or novel), she was able to progress her writing even when initially “stuck”.   She maintains that reading can prompt ideas, offer creative solutions and provide inspiration.  It can also propose alternative perspectives, stimulate lines of enquiry and identify new aspects on which to focus.  Erin Khar, in her contribution to the book, states that when she feels blocked she pulls a single sentence from one of her favourite essays or books to use as a starting point.  She often uses the sentence as the opening for her journal entry. Erin is the author of Strung Out,  

Ash Parsons, in her story in the book, discusses her “Ten Images” approach to journal writing.. She had adopted a son who was premature, football-size and confined to an Intensive Care Unit (ICU).  Being with him and holding him close to her was “all-consuming and not conducive to writing”.  She had to rely on creating “mental notes of images” of whatever was around her, e.g. the scrub room used before entering the ICU.  She would write about the images once she returned home after hospital visits. Unwittingly she was effectively “writing her life”.

Marie Howe, author of New and Selected Poems,  shared her “Radical Receptivity” story in the Book of Alchemy and explained her own process of journal writing.  When she is overcome with the pressures of her “to-do” list, she clears her desk and gathers a pile of clean paper and begins to write with her non-dominant hand after setting a timer for a specified number of minutes.  She then repeats the cycle and finds often that her mind slows down and she can more readily access her subconscious. 

Suleika suggests too that we don’t have to only resort to writing for our daily journalling.  We can draw pictures, paint with water colours, build a collage (e.g. from photos), or create a poem.  Kim Rosen reminds us that writing poetry can be transformative.  Poetry, like other forms of journalling, can enable us to “blend opposites and break frames”.

Carmen Radley offers the idea of mind maps as a way forward when we are stuck.  She adopts the practice of creating a mind map by putting a year, place or person at the centre.  The mind map can be developed by extending out from the centre using any other items of association such as words, feelings or events.  Carmen describes the process as surprising and exhilarating as it effectively “mines the memory for things long buried”.

Overcoming the self-critic

Suleika suggests that we have to find our own ways to overcome the self-critic so that we can “let the words flow without self-censure”.  There is a natural tendency to be self-critical, to perpetuate negative self-stories.  She proposes the  idea of addressing the ego directly by saying “You are sabotaging my writing, be quiet!”  The processes of  challenging expectations (about output and quality), writing with the non-dominant hand and writing freehand are also ways to help overcome the “internal censor”.

Even the very best and most experienced writers have to deal with the inner critic.  Dani Shapiro, author of 11 books, suggests that no matter what you are attempting to write “you must first gather up an unreasonable, unearned confidence bordering on lunacy”.  She talks about the inner voices that say something like, “You will fall flat on your face”, “People have done this before”, “Who do think you are to talk about your life?”, “How many followers do you have on the Internet?”.   Dani ignores these voices and tells herself, “Here goes nothing!”.  She says to get to this point in self-awareness and beyond self-censure, you need to believe that you have “nothing to lose”.

Even highly successful writers such as Elizabeth Gilbert have to deal with negative thoughts that can attack self-esteem and derail creative endeavours.  After the outstanding success of her first book, Eat, Pray, Love, she was beset by negative thinking about her second book and whether it would be good enough – the challenge of expectations, our own and that of others.  Elizabeth addressed the related anxiety in her TED Talk, Success, failure and the drive to keep creating.  She found that reflection, meditation, mindfulness practices and writing herself “daily letters of love” enabled her to overcome the natural inclination to “self-hatred”.   She explains this “letters of love” process in Suleika’s book and offers a writing prompt based on this approach.

Why people journal

Suleika explains that people journal for all kinds of reasons, reflecting where they are at in life.  Some use journalling to deal with grief, to manage transitions (such as leaving home for college), to gain self-understanding, to manage a relationship break-up or to help them to live with a chronic or terminal illness.

People who journal find that the process is transformative – they gain new perspectives, insights and creative ways of moving forward in their life.  Suleika describes the process of journal writing as alchemy – a metaphor for inner transformation or purification.  She maintains that journalling creates space for exploring alternative responses to those generated by our habituated behaviours.  In her view, journalling provides the tools necessary “to engage with discomfort, to peel back the layers, to uncover your truest, most laid-bare self”.

Reflection

I was stuck for what to write for this blog post until I started reading The Book of Alchemy by Suleika.  Her book provides 100 essays and writing prompts by accomplished writers as well as extended essays by Suleika at the start of each chapter.  There are numerous prompts available online including poetry prompts by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.   Rosemerry contends that poetry enables us to blend opposites, break mental frames and change perspectives.

The barriers to daily journalling are typically internal – our own self-criticism, mental blockages and excuses we give ourselves (such as not enough time).  The secret is to start small and build on an existing daily habit like having a cup of coffee or undertaking an exercise routine.  What will help to maintain the habit of daily journalling is develop your own personal strategies to deal with expectations, mental blockages and self-criticism.  Suleika and her hundred contributors offer numerous suggestions for strategies that you can employ to achieve these goals.

As Suleika and her contributors attest, there are numerous benefits to daily journalling, not the least being that we can grow in mindfulness and tap into “flow” as we experience “being-in-the-zone”.  As we commit to daily journalling we can grow in self-awareness, enhance our creativity, progress a writing project, and find creative solutions to life’s daily challenges.

If you need community support to start your journalling, you can join a journalling club or start one of your own as Sheri Campbell did (she provides some guidance for others who want to do the same).  You can also access Suleika’s Journalling Club Guide here.

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Image by Penny from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Tai Chi: Releasing Creativity

Tai Chi is often described as “meditation in motion”.  I have previously written about the benefits of Tai Chi for physical health, energy and psychological well-being.  I subsequently developed a mnemonic (F.R.A.I.C.H.E.) for capturing the benefits of Tai Chi in terms of improvements in physical and mental aspects that are beneficial for  playing social tennis:

  • F – flexibility
  • R – reflexes
  • A – awareness
  • I – integration
  • C – coordination
  • H – heart health
  • E  – energy .

More recently I have had to play pickleball instead of tennis because of personal, physical limitations such as osteoarthritis in my hands and wrist, osteoporosis, exercise asthma and multi-level disc degeneration.  Tai Chi can assist in reducing the impact of some of these limitations.  However, I have also found that Tai Chi practice has helped me release my creativity when playing pickleball.

Releasing creativity.

Overcoming the pressure of expectations can have a freeing effect in terms of creative pickleball play.  This is partly why I have chosen to play “intermediate recreational” pickleball games rather than “intermediate competitive” – the former places emphasis on fun and social interaction, while the latter is focused on winning.

Tai Chi practice adds another range of benefits by releasing creativity during pickleball games.  Based on my personal experience, I have identified these benefits as follows:

  • Overcoming a blind spot – in the past, I have had a blind spot in relation to using a  topspin backhand in tennis.  I had developed the false self-belief that this stroke was beyond me.  This belief was founded in the fact that my early tennis training involved the use of a  one-handed backhand that utilised either a flat shot or a slice, not a topspin.  I sustained this belief when I started playing pickleball.  However, a recent game experience proved that this was indeed a “blind spot” – that there was no basis for sustaining this belief when playing pickleball. This blind spot had been restricting my creativity during intermediate recreational games (which typically involve competent pickleball players who use a range of spins in serving, driving and volleying).
  • Activating body memory – especially procedural memory.  This form of body memory relates to “sensorimotor and kinesthetic faculties”.  Thomas Fuchs explains that “well-practiced patterns of movement and perception become embodied as skills or capacities” that we can use in everyday life such as bicycle riding, keyboard use and tennis strokes.  We can experience the impact of body memory on the procedural level when we sit down unconsciously on a car seat when someone else has lowered the seat.  We tend to feel a sudden drop and the discomfort of landing heavily in the seat (because our body expects the seat to be higher).  A similar experience occurs when trying to place knives in a drawer after someone has changed the order of the cutlery trays – we keep trying unconsciously to place the knives where they were originally.   The change in order can even create a sense of cognitive dissonance for us.   I found recently that despite my “blind spot” re the topspin backhand shot, I spontaneously executed such a shot during a game of pickleball – my body remembered how I had used this shot extensively when playing table tennis.   The Tai Chi practice enabled me to bypass my self-imposed limitations of the related “blindspot” and enabled me to activate my procedural memory in relation to this shot. 
  • Heightening instinctive physical responses – I have found when I regularly practise Tai Chi that my ability to access instinctive responses is heightened.  For example, when playing tennis I have executed a backhand, half-volley lob and a backhand half-volley drop shot – neither of which I have been taught or practised.  The same has happened when I have played pickleball, e.g. a half-volley drive off an opponent’s smash.   What Tai Chi enables us to do is not only to access procedural memory but also to bypass the “self-critic” that tells us that we can’t do something.  Tai Chi frees the body to respond instinctively to what it confronts when playing a sport. 
  • Accessing unconscious competence – Tai Chi has helped me to more readily access unconscious competence (mastery of a skill prior to playing pickleball).  After completing a Tai Chi practice session, I find that I can seamlessly adapt skills acquired in other sports to the challenge of playing a pickleball game, e.g. I can readily use six different spins in pickleball that I have developed through playing tennis, squash and table tennis.  The six spins are a forehand topspin, a slice (forehand and backhand), backspin (forehand and backhand), underspin (forehand and backhand) and spins that I have labelled “outswinger” and “inswinger”.  Also, I find that I can tap into acquired skills such as “anticipation” (reading an opponent’s shot before they actually play the shot by acutely observing body movement).  The power of concentration and “being-in-the-now” are acquired skills that are enhanced through Tai Chi and readily accessed by me during a game of pickleball.

Reflection

While Tai Chi develops strength and flexibility, one of its key benefits is the cultivation of stillness – leading to calmness, clarity, vitality and joy.  Creativity lies in stillness – the dynamism of silence and internal spaciousness.  In stillness, we are in touch with the present moment – not disturbed by thoughts of the future or the past.  We can readily dismiss negative self-stories and open our minds to creative possibilities. 

Tai Chi is only one form of mindfulness practice that can be cultivated in concert with other related practices such as mindful walking, meditation, and reflection.  As we grow in mindfulness, we can better access our positive instinctive responses, adapt our unconscious competencies, cultivate calmness and clarity and strengthen our capacity to concentrate and focus.

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Image by Gianni Crestani from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

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