An image from the film 10 Things I hate about you, showing Heath Ledger, and Julia Styles lovingly gazing into one another’s eyes. Because I love that film and the title of this blog is a good excuse to use an image from it.
In this 8th episode, season two, of the Mindful Writer, author and blogger, Anneliese Knop tells me about her life with seeing dog, Greta, and shares many words of wisdom. It really is a fascinating interview.
Before I introduce you, let me tell you about my writing journey. Yesterday I wrote The End. Woo Hoo. It’s a fantastic feeling when you finish writing the first draft of a novel. The idea for writing about a sunken village has been with me for about seven years, after seeing an image of a church spire in the middle of a reservoir. I knew it would not go away until I found my story. It took several months of playing with ideas, then a visit to Yorkshire to visit the reservoir, before everything clicked into place and I had the outline for a story. I started writing it soon after Christmas aiming to complete the first draft by the end of March, so I am ahead of schedule. There’s lots more work to do. I always say the first draft is you, the writer, telling yourself the story. I do a lot of planning before I write so hopefully it is structurally sound but I will be relying on my developmental editor to tell me what needs fixing. Then starts the first round of edits.
In the meantime, I will be preparing The Last Act for publication in July.
I am very focused about achieving my goals, but this strength has a downside as my guest this week explains. So, let me introduce you.
Anneliese Knop, is an author and blogger. She writes fantasy with co-author Galadriel Coffeen and her blog, Look on the Dark Side, gives a fascinating account of her life with seeing dog, Greta. Anneliese was born with a genetic degenerative retinal condition, but this has not limited her in any way. She quotes:
‘Where is it written that all our dreams must be small?’
In this episode Anneliese explains:
Toxic Positivity
Toxic Perfectionism
Why we should love the things we hate about ourselves
Why dog owners and their dogs might benefit from couple’s counselling.
Anneliese has already achieved what some people might consider big dreams, and I don’t doubt there is more to come. I was excited to meet Anneliese and asked her to tell us a little more about herself.
Anneliese explains that genetic degenerative condition means that she is blind. ‘I am passionate about good stories, good mental health for all, and promoting professionalism and career advancement in the blind community.’
I love Anneliese’s blog as it is so informative and well- researched. In one blog post, she discusses toxic perfectionism and toxic positivity. I asked Anneliese to explain these and the impact they can have on a person.
I feel most passionate about Toxic Positivity.
A lot of pressure is put on people, particularly disabled people to put their best foot forward, all the time.
In the disabled community, we put pressure on ourselves and each other not to appear bitter, or angry. We do not want to become an emotional burden as well as a physical one. And we don’t want to give disabled people a bad name.
Toxic positivity is about denying reality – clinging to a positive mindset to the exclusion of the negative or unpleasant sides of reality. An unwillingness to acknowledge that sometimes life is just hard.
We all have bad days, and that is normal. The toxicity comes from denying this reality, which then isolates people and gives them no out-let for finding and giving compassion to one another.
Toxic perfectionism comes from a very healthy desire to be excellent at what one does, that becomes toxic when anything less than perfection is completely unacceptable and triggers anxiety, self-loathing, anger, either turned outward or inward. So, both of these things can come from a good place, but they are taken to unhealthy levels.
I suggest we are perhaps all on a spectrum, from the healthy to unhealthy positivity and perfectionism.
Anneliese agrees, describing how a positive attitude enabled her as a blind person to achieve what seemed like impossible dreams.
There are two sides to every attribute, I observe. What we perceive to be positive attributes can have a negative side and vice versa. I am very motivated, a self-starter, and that is great because I am focused and work hard, but the downside is, I beat myself up when I don’t meet my personal expectations. I am compassionate to other people, but I am not always compassionate to myself.
Anneliese agrees and says that in couples’ counselling, she sometimes asks a couple, what character trait in your partner really annoys you? That trait has always been there, and it is why you fell in love with them. So, which part of this trait is the part you fell in love with? In revealing that we discover that the thing which is annoying them the most is the very thing that attracted them. It’s just not working well at the moment.
The same is true for yourself. The things that you find frustrating are also the things that you love about you. They are just out of balance.
I love Anneliese’s approach. When we feel angry and frustrated with ourselves, soften a little and view ourself with compassion, find the positive side of what we view as a negative attribute and be thankful.
Anneliese says, I like to tell clients and fellow writers:
Your inner critic is doing you a favour. She might be over-zealous in doing it, but how is she helping you? You should be thankful for that.
I agree with Anneliese and say that our inner critic is trying to protect us. When they tell us: ‘You can’t do that. You will fail’, they are trying to stop us from getting hurt. We need to say, ‘Thank you. I can hear you, but it’s okay. I’ve got this.’ Be loving to that inner voice and understand its intention, but have faith that it’s okay. You can do this. I call them the goblins.
Anneliese laughs. ‘That’s cute.’ In family therapy, she tells me, there is a popular approach called Internal Systems Family Therapy. It’s basically that we have lots of parts of ourself – goblins of yourself, inside and you have to work out how to get them to all work together. Sometimes, one of them has been exiled by the others, or wounded before they can do their job. And so, another goblin is working harder to make up for it and in order to find balance you have to find the wounded, exiled part, heal them and invite them back into the birth of yourself.
I reflect. So, love all of them? And balance them. Because they are working together with the common goal that they all want you to succeed. This was perhaps an over-simplification, but Anneliese kindly agreed.
Anneliese with seeing dog, Greta
On to my next question, which again came from Anneliese’s excellent blog. I read that Greta, her seeing-eye dog, experienced behavioural problems, which Anneliese researched to understand her better. I asked, ‘You have a Master’s in Christian counselling and so this must have been fascinating for you. What did you discover and how might this relate to us humans?’
Anneliese replied, ‘That is kind of the core of my blog right now. Describing our journey as a working team to explain different mental health concepts.’ She went on to say that when Greta had some behavioural issues, she approached it like couples-counselling.
Because when a dog has issues, then the human does too.
It doesn’t necessarily mean the human caused the issues. Parents of dogs tend to blame themselves almost as much as parents of humans do. You and your dog live together in companionship and so you are bound to impact one another. So, if your dog is anxious, you are aware of that and will respond. Or, if your dog is fearful, energetic, or hyper, that has an impact on you. And so, when you work with your dog, you have to work with yourself too. Just like in couples’ counselling. If one partner has an affair, a traumatic injury or a job loss, this will have an impact on their partner as well as on them. So, it is important that couples acknowledge that and are prepared to work co-operatively as well as independently.
When I recognised that Greta had what I liked to call post high-school stress disorder, after interning at a high-school, brought on by the rambunctious activities of the teens – they did respect her, but she didn’t like the way they were treating each other and frankly, I don’t blame her – then I got myself a therapist and a dog trainer who I refer to as our doggie couple’s therapist.
I asked what behaviour Greta was exhibiting.
Barking at people when she was distressed. She wanted to restore order and so she barked. I felt, everyone is going to think she is an aggressive, badly behaved dog, and we are going to destroy the reputation of service dogs and access law. And I’m going to ruin the world for all blind people, ever. And that’s why I needed a therapist! See, another example of toxic positivity.
I remarked that by working with Greta and the dog-trainer, Anneliese had learnt something about herself.
What I didn’t recognise is all my life I heard definitions of anxiety that didn’t match my experience. People expressing concerns about what might happen in the future.
I didn’t worry. What I did was rehearse and resolve the same problem over and over again. And that is also a definition of anxiety.
It took Greta’s issue for me to realise that I spent hours a day resolving and planning for every possible conversation where someone would criticise us for the slightest misbehaviour on her part. I realised; Oh, I have anxiety. That definition I heard isn’t the only one out there. If I had realised there were things such as rumination and repetitive thoughts, I might have taken action years earlier for myself, not related to Greta.
I could identify with the anxiety Anneliese describes. For me, meditation helps to stop the repetitive thoughts.
Again, we come back to balance, Anneliese reassures me. It comes from a good thing: the ability to look out for potential problems ahead and plan for them, is a healthy natural skill that people ought to be able to develop. It’s a good thing. It’s just a problem when you can’t stop doing it. When it gets in the way.
Your brain is designed to move in and out of threat mode easily. When you can’t get out of threat mode, that’s when you have anxiety.
I understand, I say. ‘It’s learning how to still your mind and understand what’s happening.’
Anneliese says: Mindful meditation can allow us to watch our thoughts, disentangle them and then, in a way, consciously reach for the on/off switch to take us out of threat mode.
I add: And to be compassionate and kind. It’s always easier said than done, but we are all works in progress.
Cover of book: Jubilant. The First Book of the Shallic Sea Chronicles by Galadriel Coffeen and Anneliese Knop.
I ask another question from Annelies’s blog. As a writer, you experience the world differently to sighted people. In your blog post, Overcoming the sight barrier in world building, you explain touch don’t tell and how you envisage the world through your hands. Can you tell us more about your approach to world building?
World building tends to happen more in science fiction and fantasy genres, but it can happen in historical fiction. It’s where you construct a world or part of a world that doesn’t exist. For example, Tolkien’s Middle Earth, or C.S. Lewis’s Narnia.
Being blind from birth, I’ve not been able to experience the world visually, so I don’t care what a person’s clothes are like, for example. I found I felt disengaged from many books because they did not engage all the senses. But then, I read books like the Redwall series by Brian Jacques and he spends a lot of time describing the texture, scent, and flavour of food, and the sound of singing, the accents different characters have, and the scent of trees, flowers, and damp earth. He is a multi-sensory author. And I thought:
Well, my world is pretty rich even though I can’t see, so how can I convey the wealth of experience that I have to people who are so used to limiting themselves to their eyes as their primary sense? How can I make them experience my story with their whole body?
So, when I write about an experience I have not encountered before, for example, firing a cannon; the first thing I will do is research the mechanics of how it works, then I will look up recordings of the sounds, or I will go to a museum that has a cannon and I will put my hands on it, with permission. I get away with a lot because I am blind and they recognise that just looking at something in a museum doesn’t cut it for me. I look for as many experiences that I can experience with my full body and translate that on to the page in the same way that another person might look up an image on the internet and describe it visually on the page.
I could have talked to Anneliese for hours, but sadly, we ran out of time. She shared some fascinating insights. But you can hear more from Anneliese by visiting her blog https://comelookonthedarkside.wordpress.com
A woman walking in a field of tall grass carrying a young boy on her shoulders. Image for giveaway short story by Deborah Klee A World of Difference.
After meeting Anneliese for this interview, I asked her to read the draft of a short story I had written about a sighted boy living in a world where everyone was blind and his sight was considered a disability. The observations in her feedback were invaluable. For example, a blind woman in my story touched the face of her love interest to discover his features. Anneliese pointed out that a person blind from birth would have no interest in what a face looked like. Her comments enabled me to write a much better story. You can access a free copy of A World of Difference by signing up to my newsletter. Or read more about the value Anneliese added to my story as a sensitivity reader, in my blog post: What would the world be like if everyone was blind?
So, until next time, take care of your beautiful self, and trust the journey.
In this fourth episode of season 2 The Mindful Writer, Leah Bailey, talks about the power of words and explores how they can change our perspective.
Before I introduce you, let me update you on my writing journey. Publication day for The Forever Cruise gets closer, and I experience as many highs and lows as a cruise ship on a choppy sea. The paperback is already out, as I wanted to be sure I had copies in time for the launch party on 1st December – which is the day the eBook goes live.
Highs – I’ve had some wonderful reviews from readers who ordered the paperback, and advanced readers who received a copy of the eBook in exchange for an honest review.
Lows – I noticed some typos in the paperback and had to correct and re-order for the launch party. What have I learnt from this? I have reviewed my proofing process so that there is less chance this will happen again. Having beaten myself up for not being perfect, I have reflected and concluded that it is okay – we learn from our mistakes. I’ve been charging ahead at a million miles an hour, wearing myself out, and making mistakes. I set high standards for myself, and so, when I fail to meet them, I am tough on myself. I am learning to be kinder to me. To slow down. And to be grateful for where I am now on my writing journey.
I am looking forward to celebrating the publication of The Forever Cruise with my wonderful readers, friends, and family. It is with their support and friendship that I have been able to write and publish this book.
Sometimes we are so focused on what we have not achieved that we forget to cherish where we are now.
My guest this week, lives very much in the moment. I found her interview fascinating. So, let me introduce you.
Leah Bailey is a poet, and teacher of English language and literature. In this episode, Leah explains how we use language to:
Connect with other people
Make sense of our world
Express how we are feeling
Process thoughts, and emotions.
Leah also shares some practical exercises to write for wellbeing and reads two beautiful poems.
Leah Bailey
Deborah: Hi Leah, I am really pleased to welcome you to the mindful writer podcast. So, before you introduce yourself, and I shall do a bit of an introduction for you, I should just say you are recovering from the cat knocking over your mug of coffee.
Leah: Yes. Two of my key things for my sanity is my cats and my coffee. But unfortunately, they do sometimes collide.
Deborah: So welcome. Leah, you are a poet, with three collections of your poems now published, including the most recent, Coffee and Paper Cuts. I love the title of that one. The English language is your passion, and one that you share with others, both as a poet, and a teacher of English language and literature. So, let’s start with why you think it’s important to use the written word to communicate our thoughts and feelings.
Leah: I think that language is how we approach the world. It’s how we think; it’s how we communicate. And so, to be able to understand ourselves, using language, through reflection, and then to be able to communicate our understanding to someone else, connects us to other people: whether the language is our own, or someone else’s.
I did some travelling recently. And so, you know, when you’re in a country where you don’t speak the language, you have to communicate. And so, you find the words – you find the sentences – you find the capacity, using everything you have to get something across. That is quite important and valuable.
But language, and the words that we choose to use, can be both helpful and harmful.
And so having the right ones, and communicating what we actually want to say, instead of what we think we want to say. Miscommunication, can cause huge problems in terms of language. So, knowing and understanding the right words to use to communicate what you actually mean is vitally important for anybody: adults, teenagers, students, and teachers alike.
Deborah: And that is a skill, isn’t it? I remember my aunt years ago – I overheard a conversation; she was talking to my mum. And she said, ‘Oh, my husband gets so crossed with me, because he says, when we have arguments, you always win because you know, the right things to say, and I don’t have the language or I can’t express myself like you do.’ So, he felt powerless compared to her.
Sometimes there’s a bit of an imbalance or an inequality, when somebody hasn’t had an education, or they can’t express themselves so well, to actually be heard. So, I wondered how teaching language and working with students, adults and children, and young people, how you can help people to express their emotions.
Leah: Well, it’s important to try and get them to think for themselves, and not just parrot other language that they’ve heard. One of the most important parts of my job is not telling them what to think. Because obviously, that would be me imposing my ideas on them. My language, my words. It’s trying to get them to understand their own responses and their own thoughts, and put those thoughts into words, because all too often, they are just repeating something that they’ve heard in the playground, or just repeating something that they have heard in the classroom, or out in society, or on TV. So, the concept, you know, the concept of trying to get them to express themselves, but making sure that it’s them. Making sure that it’s their own thoughts, and not just the thoughts of someone else that they are copying because they think that that’s in fashion. So, the thing I suggest to all my students is to read as much as possible. It doesn’t have to be classics or poetry or, or even something beyond the fashion magazine. But any reading at all.
Any reading at all exposes you to more ideas. And the more ideas you have, the easier it is to express your own ideas.
Watching how a great writer does it, or how someone you admire does it, helps you do it better yourself. So, finding language – finding language to be able to suit your own ideas, is vital to being able to argue for yourself, being able to defend yourself, or support yourself.
And all too often people use it to manipulate others just because they’re better at it. So, you know, we know that language has a double-edged sword. It can be used for great, good things: persuading people to step up and do the right thing. And unfortunately, persuading people to engage in horrible things. So, you know, using the power of words is a dangerous tool, but is vital to be able to use yourself.
Deborah: As you said, at the beginning of your response, words can be used for good or for bad, and they can influence. They’re very powerful.
What about using language to help you understand your feelings, your emotions, and to understand yourself, when you’re in a dark place? How can writing help you to make sense of your world?
Leah: Well, writing for me has always been a kind of therapeutic use – a therapeutic effect. My process for writing is – usually when something occurs to me, or I have an emotion, or a feeling that’s happening, that is intense, especially whether that’s intensely good or intensely bad. But those intense feelings you have inside. My process for writing is to usually write down a single word, or phrase or something that I see in front of me. And that’s where I start. And then I write it by hand, and I just kind of splurge. I don’t worry too much about the technical things. And then when I take the handwritten and type it up, I can start to shape and develop it.
And for me, especially when it is negative, it’s taking it outside of my head, and putting it onto the page, so that I can look at it and observe it, and deal with it outside of myself.
So, whether your type of writing is poetry, or prose, or any kind of thing, it’s taking the feelings and trying to find the right words. And then shaping them, and dealing with them, and developing them outside of yourself on the page that I find the most helpful, because then it’s not in a tangle inside your brain. It’s in a defined – it’s online. It’s you know, in letters and words, and punctuation marks, and you can you can deal with it. And then when you have dealt with it, or when you’re satisfied that you understand it, you can shut the book and put it aside.
Deborah: That’s a really good way of describing it. It’s almost as if you can have a conversation with yourself, because you can get it out. And then, as you say, look at it objectively with fresh eyes. And it’s almost like a dialogue between you and your inner thoughts. Excellent.
Leah: Hmm. Wrestling with it.
Deborah: We were talking in another conversation we’ve had outside of this, about when a person is in dark place – a person experiencing depression. And they may not understand. How do they understand what’s going on? And how can loved-ones help – understand what’s going on? Because trying to give voice, or to be heard, or to explain – can words help with that?
Leah: Well, you know, obviously, in that previous conversation we had, you know, I deal with a lot of people who have different types of mental health issues. I myself, have dealt with episodic depression. So, it’s part of that kind of word tangle I said was in my head.
A lot of times people don’t, who have not experienced any mental health problems, will not understand the experience of it.
So, if you are able to somehow put it into words, that gets them closer to being able to understand the experience of it. But likewise, one of the main problems with things like depression is that there isn’t a reason. Loved ones and people that we are in relationships with, and friendships with, they desperately want to help. But it’s difficult to communicate reasons for something feeling the way it does, when there isn’t a reason. Because a lot of the difficulties with mental health, is that they’re irrational. They are just parts of our brain that are making us feel, and do, and say, things that we wouldn’t necessarily want to if we didn’t feel the way we do. That there’s no source. There’s no reason for it happening. And if you have experienced that, it’s difficult to communicate to someone else that there isn’t a reason. That you just feel the way you do. And so, using writing and using poetry to kind of communicate that helps someone else understand it.
One of the main purposes for all of my writing is to share experience good and bad: emotions, events, experiences.
To try and connect with someone who might not be good with words, as you said, someone who struggles with knowing words or knowing what to say, it’s helping that person say, ‘Yes, that – that’s what I feel. I’m not alone, thank God. I’m not the only one. Or someone who has never had that experience, to kind of feel it, however briefly, while reading the poem. And think, ‘Oh, my gosh, that’s incredible how that feels.’ or ‘That’s horrible. I wish I could help someone who feels that way.’ So that the concept of shared experience with writing makes it resonate.
I can’t tell you, there’s any number of poems that I’ve talked to with people that I know have read them. Then like that, you know, that made me cry, or that made me laugh, or I saw myself in that. And it’s not that I have anything necessarily special about putting those particular poems out there.
It is just, from my experience, from my observation, from my reflection, trapped in words and stuck on the page, and shared with someone else. Not just as a relief to me, so that it’s outside me and I can deal with it, but so that they themselves can see it, and know that they are not the only one feeling it and, and have a way of expressing it themselves.
Deborah: I’m glad you said that, because that’s really powerful. And especially to people who might be listening, who live with loved ones who go through depression. I hear so many people say, ‘I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to help them.’ So that’s really helpful.
Leah: It’s important, you know, when you read these poems, or you read these experiences, or when you listen to people who have experienced it – putting it into words; it’s not about necessarily actively doing something. Just like there isn’t an act of reason that necessarily starts it; there’s not necessarily one trick, or one thing that you can do to help that person other than not give up on them.
You know, we people who experience depression, have a tendency to push people away and to isolate themselves, either because they feel like they deserve it, or because they don’t want to burden their loved ones in their relationship. They see someone trying to help them, and trying to help them, and trying to help them, and they feel like a burden. That you know, their completely irrational feeling is harming someone that they care about.
And so, the important thing with a loved one who’s experiencing mental health is simply the effort of trying to understand and not giving up on, you know, that continuing process, as they try to understand themselves, you work with them on that – you go on that trip with them. So that you both learn kind of together and deal with it.
You know, it’s something that I’m quite passionate about – trying to help the students and adults that I work with to be healthy in themselves. With that wellbeing in trying to explore those thoughts and emotions: positive and negative, that come from, from everyday experience.
Deborah: Thank you. And that leads me to my next question about your writing for wellbeing workshops. You work with adults, and you work with young people. So how does that work? How might somebody who doesn’t consider themselves to be a writer – they’re not going to write a novel, a story, or a poem – but they want to use writing to help them get in touch with their thoughts and feelings? How would they go about that?
Leah: Okay, well, that’s like a two-part answer. And the first one, and the reason I started the workshop, is because we have responsibilities all the time. We have emails to write and reports. And in this – in the academic context – were where I live, essentially, we have to write essays and we have to write stories. And even when we’re writing poetry and creative writing, it’s for a grade or it’s for a parental report, or it’s for an office email. And it doesn’t matter what job you’re in, a lot of the communication that we have to do day to day is our responsibility. And I started the writing for wellbeing workshop simply as an outlet and a one-hour a week outlet for people to just write for fun. To just write whatever’s in their mind, just for the sake of doing it, not for any other purpose, or any other responsibility.
Just to enjoy going through the attic, of their mind and kind of getting it out there without actually having to produce anything, or be anything other than what they want.
So, when I start the workshop, I’ll give you the other answer, which is: I provide stimulus. And so, if you don’t consider yourself a writer, that’s fine, you don’t have to be. The idea of writing for wellbeing is starting with something small.
I have writing prompts that I provide. For me, I have them on my Instagram, once a week. But when I come to the workshop, I have maybe lists of them, and I put them out and people can choose a particular prompt. Or there are tonnes of books that contain writing exercises that you can do. I use one called The Five-Minute writer, which is great, it has like 50 different five-minute exercises. The exercises or the writing prompts are just a start. It’s whatever comes to you from that.
There are ways of doing it using abstract nouns or random words. Like you can almost literally cut up a dictionary, and pick out a word. And then whatever comes to you from that word, that’s what you write about. Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, whatever. And then it doesn’t have to be 100,000 words, it can be 10, or it can be two sides of A4, or it can be whatever it needs to be. But the idea is to just kind of go with it. Whatever Association you have. We hear it all the time; people hear a song on the radio and it reminds them of a memory. Or they hear a certain phrase or quote from the film or TV show that they’ve seen, and it reminds them of something else, or the moment. So, that’s the kind of thing we’re talking about. You start with a writing prompt, or a word or an idea, and whatever is associated with that, that’s where you start developing it.
The next step obviously, could be a picture. When we take photographs, we don’t take photographs of everything and anything. I mean, you know, I do, because I’m weird. But I mean like observation of what’s around you – what’s important. So, when you are thinking about taking a picture, you kind of frame it. You look at it; you get the right angle; you get the right content in the photograph; it’s the same with writing. There’s information around us all the time – stimulation. I’m sitting in a room with the fan going. I can hear the buzzing of the fan. My cat is sneaking around under the bed waiting to destroy another coffee cup. The light outside is a particular threatening to rain kind of look. And I’m in just one moment here, feeling those things: temperature wise, topical wise. It doesn’t have to be a great metaphor of our time. It can just be what your senses feel around you.
Same with a photograph. When you take a photograph, it’s because you want to remember it. The whatever,that is in the photograph, is something that you want to remember. So, you can look at the photograph and do that same sort of sensory input. What temperature was it? What was the weather like? What were you feeling that made you want to take the photograph? Why do you want to remember it? Why is it important to you? Has that memory changed since you took the photograph? Does the feeling change since you took the photograph? So, all of those observational skills of what’s coming at us all the time is fodder for writing. You’ve got to do it. It’s being aware of what’s around you, and then putting it into words. And that’s just the external stuff. Once you start to develop that you can reflect on it, and turn it on the inside of what that stimulus on the outside does to your brain.
Deborah: And how does it help with health and wellbeing?
Leah: Being aware of what affects you is extremely important. Whether that’s noticing that every time it rains, you get a certain feeling. Or if you have a favourite coat, or a favourite bag, or every time you wear a certain shirt it reminds you of a certain person, or a certain day when you wore it before.
So, that awareness of what stimulates those feelings is extremely healthy because then you can start to pick and choose what makes you feel good.
And what makes you feel more yourself; what makes you feel your best self, and start to discard or minimise the things that don’t make you feel good, or don’t make you feel yourself. So, by extending our awareness, and for our observational skills in order to write about them, you start to notice things you might not have noticed before. And in noticing them decide whether they are beneficial or healthy, or includes your wellbeing. If you know that a particular – if you start to write about a particular voice, or a particular stimulus outside of yourself, that is not very healthy, not very helpful you can start to minimise it, or avoid it, or detract from it, to improve your wellbeing. And then, over time, the observation – the more you observe, the more you understand, the easier it is for you to decide what you keep inside yourself.
Deborah: Excellent. I think in addition to getting a greater self-awareness through writing, the relaxation of writing – going to a quiet still place, it’s quite meditative, isn’t it?
Leah: Yes, I do write in quiet places. Sometimes I do find that nice, quiet still place. When we have the workshop, it’s usually after school in a quiet classroom. We don’t always interact. I give out the stimulus, which they’re free to ignore. And then they just write and then people share, but they don’t have to share to get feedback. So, that nice quiet space.
I also write in the noisy bar, because that’s very stimulus heavy as well. So, I think both. I’ve met loads of writers and they all say they all have their place where they go writing. So, I think that it can be just as fun in a noisy bar as it can be a quiet classroom.
Deborah: But it’s the going there. In fact, that leads well into the poem that I hope you’re going to read. Because in this poem, when you wrote it, you were in a public place but you went very much inward to write it. So, it’s a good example. I shall let you introduce it.
Leah: Okay, so this is from my first book between Hindsight and Foresight, which is best of all the poetry I’d written from the time I was 14 Until I was 38. So, it spans a whole wide range of feelings and emotions and experiences in one volume.
This particular poem was written the first time I lived on my own – basically in my entire life. I’d never lived on my own, it was family or partners or uni. But this was the first time I’d lived on my own and I decided to go out to dinner, even though I was on my own. And so, the poem follows that process and it’s one it’s one of my favourites to use as an example because it was a sneaky poem. I thought it was going to be about one thing, and it turned out to be about something completely different.
Deborah: Lovely. It gives me shivers. It is beautiful. Tell us about what you thought it was going to be about, and what it ended up being about.
Leah: Well, this happened obviously, like I said, when I was living alone for the first time, but it was like a really dramatic change in my life. I’d never lived on my own. And so, it became,
it became … I thought it was going to be an exploration of me being lonely. And you know, how it felt to be lonely, or how it felt to be on my own for the first time. And
instead, it turned into kind of a – almost a mantra of realisation that just because I was alone, didn’t necessarily mean that I had to feel lonely. That I could still enjoy the twilight. I could enjoy a night out. I could, you know, just listen to the quiet, and the echoes, and the reflection, and have it not be negative, to be on my own.
So I started the poem thinking that it was going to be an exploration of how I felt being so lonely. And it turned out to be like, well, no, you’re alone – not the same. And it was very sneaky. Poems – ideas are not always in the charge of the writer. Sometimes they take over. And they’re like, No, no, this is this is what you want to write about. This is what you’re thinking; not what you thought that was.
Deborah: What it says to me, is that you’d gone out with one feeling – feeling like, I’m going to this restaurant on my own; I’m going to feel lonely. And this is what I mean about the process of the writing, because you were very much in the moment. You were picking up all the sensory cues around you, as you wrote them down. You were very much in the moment, and that enabled you to go inward. And as you went inward, you found that sense of inner peace, and the reassurance within that this is okay. So that’s where I think that writing can be quite meditative, and help you connect with your inner self.
Leah: Yes.
Deborah: It demonstrates this beautifully.
Leah: Yes, and as we were saying in another conversation about when we are in relationships.
When we are with other people – family, or partners, or friends – we change. We have different facets of ourselves, and we become that person that they relate to.
But when we’re on our own, the only person we have to relate to is ourselves. And so, the mirrors, the bouncing off of who we actually are, and how we actually are and how well we are or, our wellbeing, or how we are feeling. We have nothing to bounce off of when we’re by ourselves.
And so, within relationships: that is who we are. And it’s not always bad to be the person within the relationship. But our identity separate from our relationships, is also important to explore, which is where that kind of went. Define Alone is how I relate to myself when there’s only me there.
Deborah: I find that interesting, because I’ve been married to my husband for 38 years; I’ve been a mother for 33 years; and sometimes when I’m meditating, I just I just go back to who I was, before I was a mother, before I was a wife, to connect with my younger self. Because sometimes I feel that I can see myself so much through their eyes and their impressions of me.
When you’ve got a partner of many, many years, you kind of partly absorb part of them, as you do with your parents. Since my mother died, I can hear her voice in my head all the time with her views on things. I think all your loved ones – you get all of their noises in your head. And sometimes, finding that quiet still place that is you, is quite hard. Because you love them all, and your relationships with them are important, but there’s also a part of you that is uniquely you. And we lose sight of that sometimes, don’t we?
Leah: Sometimes, and it’s important to get back to it. And that is another benefit for the wellbeing of the writing, because
if you do write over time, you can then revisit that writing and remind yourself of a good thing. Or you can remind yourself of a negative experience you had and realise how strong you are to have overcome it when you’ve when you’ve gone past it.
So, by pinning it to the page, you’re not just dealing with it at the time for your wellbeing. But also, later on when you go back and you look at these things and you remember those pleasant experiences, and you relive those pleasant experiences, and you relive the darker ones realising how strong you are to have gotten past. And it’s like, you know, so it puts everything in perspective if you can look at it over time. So, it helps you at the time, and it helps you later to revisit it.
Deborah: That’s great. I’m going to ask you to read another poem, but this time, I would like you to read a poem that has influenced you. Because you were saying that sometimes you read a poem, which means that you don’t feel so alone. So, I’m interested in the receiving of poetry and hearing, as well as the … the two-way process of the words coming from you and receiving. So, I’m going to say goodbye to you in a moment but before we do that, please could you say something about receiving poetry – the other part of the two-way process?
Leah: Obviously, I read a lot because I am a teacher, and so I read constantly. My preference for reading is pre 1900 poetry and things like that. I do read some modern poetry. There’s a series published by Bloodaxe called, Staying Alive: Being Human, which is all very modern poetry written in the last one hundred years. It is very good – encompassing many, many topics. It’s good to dip into and dip out of when you need that kind of exploration.
The poem I want to read to you comes from an anthology that a friend gave me as a present when I was a teenager because she knows I love poetry. I love exploring other people’s feelings and seeing if it’s like, or unlike, my own feelings. It helps me to express. This particular poem that I’m going to read to you is by Grace Stricker Dawson. I’ve used it many times to express to other people who I feel that they have helped me, because the experience is similar. So, If I don’t have the words someone else might – kinda thing.
Deborah: Thank you Leah. I am going to say goodbye to you now, and then we will close the show with the poem you are about to read.
YOU ENTERED my life in a casual way, And saw at a glance what I needed; There were others who passed me or met me each day, But never a one of them heeded. Perhaps you were thinking of other folks more, Or chance simply seemed to decree it; I know there were many such chances before, But the others — well, they didn’t see it.
You said just the thing that I wished you would say, And you made me believe that you meant it; I held up my head in the old gallant way, And resolved you should never repent it. There are times when encouragement means such a lot, And a word is enough to convey it; There were others who could have, as easy as not — But, just the same, they didn’t say it.
There may have been someone who could have done more To help me along, though I doubt it; What I needed was cheering, and always before They had let me plod onward without it. You helped to refashion the dream of my heart, And made me turn eagerly to it; There were others who might have (I question that part) — But, after all, they didn’t do it!
A moving poem to end this episode. A reminder to be kind, and not just to others but to yourself. Would you speak to your best friend the way that you talk to yourself in your head? Our work for today – to love ourselves and to be the person described in this poem in the way that we take care of us. If you find it hard – think of the person who loves/loved you most and imagine what they would say to you. Feel their love.
So, until next time … look after your beautiful self, and trust the journey.
In this second episode (season two) of The Mindful Writer, author Gabriel Constans, tells me how being mindful and finding balance in life has enabled him to achieve his life purpose.
Before I introduce you to Gabriel, let me update you on my writing journey.
I have just returned from a writing retreat with a wonderful group of writer friends. We have been meeting as a group for nine years. Everyone in our group of nine has developed as a writer and each of us taken very different journeys. One of our group became a best-selling Times author which made us all proud.
We celebrate each other’s success whether it is finding the emotional courage to continue writing despite feelings of self-doubt, publishing a debut, or having a short story published in a magazine. I would not have survived this writing journey without the support of my writing group. It is perhaps the best advice I can give any writer – find a group of writer friends. We have critiqued one another’s work over the years learning from the critique process as well as the personal feedback. We beta read each other’s work, talk through writing problems, and are loyal cheerleaders. When one of us succeeds we all do as we are invested in one another’s journey and share the excitement.
When I celebrate the launch of my 3rd novel The Forever Cruise on the 1st December, I know that my writer friends will be there cheering me on. I honestly could not have written this book without Ellie Holmes urging me not to ditch the idea because it was too difficult and then inspiring me to create a fantastic plot, and Janet, Catherine, Peter, Ellie, and Anita, beta-reading because they helped to make the book shine.
The group was formed when one of the group moved in to the area, leaving behind another writer’s group. This founder member put out a request on a local Facebook group and an advert in the independent bookstore. The rest is history. My point is, you can make it happen. If there is not an existing writers’ group in your area start one. It could be the best thing that you do to improve as a writer and to enjoy the writing journey.
The FWG 2022 Writing retreat. Top left me and writer friend, Janet Bridger. Photos by Catherine Rendall
Now, let me introduce this week’s guest.
Gabriel Constans is the author of fiction, and non-fiction. His book A Brave Year (52 Weeks Being Mindful) draws on his lifetime practice of daily meditation.
In this episode Gabriel explains how writers can:
Find balance in life
Achieve writing goals with a calm and quiet mind
Fulfil their potential and purpose
You can spend more time with Gabriel by visiting his websites.
Deborah: Dr. Gabriel Constans has an impressive CV both as both as an author and a caregiver. His catalogue of fiction, nonfiction and short stories is too long to list here, but I will provide a link to Gabriel’s books in the show notes. Gabriel has served the community over the past few decades as a grief counsellor, a social worker, a massage therapist, a certified thought field therapist, a mental health consultant working with teams and ex-convicts on substance misuse, and as an advisor for the street children of Rwanda project. He has a doctorate in death education, a master’s in pastoral counselling, and a Bachelor of Science in Human Relations and organisational behaviour.
Wow, your achievements are breath-taking. What has driven you on this journey, Gabriel? And what have you learned along the way? I should say welcome and hello, first of all, before I throw the question at you.
Gabriel: Oh, welcome, and it’s a pleasure to be with you. And thank you for that question. I think in some ways, it’s interesting what started me on this journey was a couple things when I used to work – as far as caregiving, I worked as a nursing assistant on the cancer unit at the local hospital.
I saw a person in pastoral care, and how she interacted with people, and supported. And I decided, that’s what I wanted to be when I grew up.
So, I went back to school, and got all the degrees I needed to do it. And that’s why I about three years later, no, four or five years later, started working in pastoral care at the hospital. Before that I had already been involved with hospice for a long time. So that way, I was able to combine really a lot of what I did as a volunteer, with my work and vocation.
Deborah: Can I just ask you something there. First of all, how old were you when you saw that person working in pastoral care? And the other thing really is, do you think sometimes when we see something or hear something, it triggers something – a sense of purpose? I wonder if you could explore that with me.
Gabriel: Yes. I already had felt a sense of purpose. For other things I was involved with, such as hospice and in counselling and that I had been doing since I was about 16 in different formats. But this was the first time I saw that, and thought,
‘Oh, I can do this and have enough money to live on. And do something that is also perhaps the most helpful for other people at the same time. So, it gave me a purpose as far as my job, vocation.
The purpose as far as being with other people, and helping other people came before that. But this – when I saw Rosemary Helmer, who was the person who was in pastoral care at that time, that’s what inspired me to see it was possible to do both at the same time. I think I was about 20. See, we had one son, one daughter, one son we hadn’t adopted anybody yet. I was around 25. So, that’s what happened.
Deborah: So, where did you go from there in your life? You’ve had such an interesting life. Can you tell us a few of the milestones?
Gabriel: Well, I started actually, around that same time. I started writing again, a lot more. I hadn’t written since I did an alternative newspaper in high school years before and I started writing fiction again. That was a big turning point for me because I started realising two things, one that I enjoyed it, and that I have a lot to learn to make it better. And part of that started, in some ways, like you, when you were making up stories to a younger brother, and then to your daughter. When the children were little, I would make up stories and start just creating them as well as reading comic books but and then I realised there were stories that I wanted to start telling talking about. And I think it wasn’t. So, I started doing fiction and then after a while, I started doing a lot more nonfiction, doing profiles of people that I thought were inspiring. Getting things accepted in different newspapers, journals, and magazines in the US and around the world. Then, after some time, I started going back to writing more fiction. As the kids got older, the fiction changed.
Deborah: I was reading about one of your novels, the Buddhist’s Wife, and I wondered, do you have Buddhist beliefs yourself?
Gabriel: I do, although I don’t per se state that I’m Buddhist, because in many ways, it’s – for some people, it’s become a religion. But in other ways,
it’s essentially practising being mindful and compassionate to people, and to yourself, and finding out what works and what doesn’t.
So, there’s no – in its pure essence in Zen and Buddhism, there is no hierarchy. There is no church, or group. There are just people that are seeking what is true – what they discover what is true, in order to connect with other people.
So, I started going to a Zen monastery when I was 16. It was the only thing in the area where I grew up – a small town and a lumber mill in Northern California, that I really connected with. And it was about an hour away. So that was my first introduction to it. And actually, the first time I got married, that’s where we got married at the Zen Buddhist monastery. So, in some ways, I guess I have been a Buddhist – in quotes since then.
Deborah: How have your spiritual beliefs influenced your daily life and your life as a writer? Either / or?
Gabriel: I think primarily spiritual beliefs because through the years I went through different phases of girlfriend, a Jewish girlfriend who wanted to be Catholic, so I became Catholic. And we worked with Mother Teresa co-workers. And then at another time, I went to Quaker meetings for a long time.
I think primarily,
it’s influenced me by realising there’s something beyond myself. And that we all have a similar connection of being human.
I think those are the two primary ways it’s influenced me. I found that through different practices, by paying more attention to myself, I was able to let go of myself more. And so, in that way it has helped me to be more present and helpful with other people, as well, the more that I practice in my own life. So, in that way, spirituality, which can mean a lot of things I know to a lot of people. That’s what it means to me. A way to get out of myself and connect with others.
Deborah: It sounds simple, but it’s incredibly profound. And it’s a work in progress. I should think, for everybody.
Gabriel: Absolutely. It’s ongoing.
It’s like I’ve been meditating for over 50 years, and I feel as though I have just started.
Deborah: Really. I’m new to it then because I’ve been meditating every day for four years and it seems I’m very much on the nursery slopes compared to 50 years.
Gabriel: You have all the time to serve. The time is irrelevant in a way. Just now is now. So yes, I think the thing that meditation – actually with a lot of spiritual practices, that probably is the most difficult for me which is one reason that I learned over the years and wrote the book, A Brave Year (52 Weeks Being Mindful) to make it easier for people to do.
The thing that I forget the most is to just remember to be present, and to pay attention to what I’m thinking, feeling, and sensing with my senses.
Because it’s so easy to get caught up in what our mind is telling us. All the things we’re doing, or all the things we think we need to do, or what comes next, or what already happened. And that’s what our mind is, that’s for.
Deborah: It’s part of being human, isn’t it? Very hard. It leads me to talk more about the writers’ journey and the process for writers, because I know lots of writers and other creatives listening will really be wrestling with the wanting to control and the difficulty in letting go when they’re thinking about their work, and getting it published – getting their voice heard, getting it out there. So, what advice or help might you pass on to other creatives?
Gabriel: Probably what I learned and keep remembering is –
really be clear why it is that you are writing? What is your intention for writing?
No matter what it is, you’re writing – nonfiction, fiction, fantasy, regardless of the genre, what is your intention? Why do you want to write? Or why are you writing? I think that’s probably the most important place to start. And also come back to asking yourself that question. Because if it’s to have other people reaffirm you or to become well known, or to make money, or just to be creative – to create different worlds that take you outside of yourself. Or whether it’s journaling and writing something just about your own life and your experience as a way to take it out of your life and look at it and also to externalise it and let it be cathartic. All of those reasons are okay. Any reason as to why you are writing is okay. But if you’re doing it for some of those intentions, such as wanting to make money or being well known, or want lots of people to read what you write, or have people tell you positive things, ‘Oh, you’re such a good writer,’ or to reaffirm who you are, or to give meaning in your life, for those reasons, it can be very lonely and a long, long time. So, that’s why it’s important to look at why you’re doing it, and then doing it because you enjoy writing. And to continue doing that, regardless of the outcomes can be really life-saving as far as your energy, and your grief, and disappointment, and dealing with rejection.
Because the more secure you feel in yourself, the more okay you are with who you are and how things are in the moment. Then you don’t get as attached to the outcomes.
I still do sometimes. But it comes and goes more quickly. And it’s not so overwhelming.
I still get excited about screenplays accepted or, you know, after years of trying to get something produced. I get all excited and, you know, dance around and etcetera but the other times when three producers don’t want to look at it. One or two finally look at it and then months later say they aren’t interested – the feelings that that brings up, I’ll acknowledge them as well. Usually, sadness and disappointment. But it doesn’t last as long and doesn’t prevent me as much as it used to in the past from continuing to keep writing and keep doing it.
Deborah: I agree with you entirely. Really helpful. And hearing you say it in such a thoughtful way is really helpful. I think it’s something that people will listen to and find really calming on this journey, which can be very rough, and tumultuous? How do you self-care? Because you will have times, as we all do, when, as you say, when you have had a setback or disappointment, or just life gets in the way and it’s a bit overwhelming. How do you self-care apart from the meditation? Do you have other things that you do to keep your equilibrium?
Gabriel: Yes. I balance out the day quite a bit. And it’s easier since I work at home now with pretty much everything. It is more difficult when you’re out at a job, or working, or doing other things or with raising children. I remember those times. Even though I’m still like raising children as adults sometimes. So, it’s much more difficult but having a balance helped the most when I had a really packed day. All those things are pretty much the same things I do now. Just not as much as I do now. And what those things were, and are: doing yoga in the morning. Meditating every morning. Doing tai chi. I love being outside, and we have a small garden – I never used to be into gardening at all. And then all of a sudden one day it just became my thing. I don’t know why. So, being outside if possible.
Nature is something bigger than yourself, other kinds of living creatures being around.
You can do it in the city too, if you live in a city, if you live in London or a big city, and it’s pretty much all concrete. There are still little places you can go. You can find little parks. Just going for a walk, being out in the air and paying attention to yourself and not necessarily all of the people and things around you. I love watching movies and reading books which are all things that take me outside of myself – my own cares and worries and stress.
Deborah: Sounds like you have a similar sort of life to me. I wake up I do my yoga. I have a lovely walk by the sea. I do my meditation, and I write, and I spend time with my lovely husband. So, yes, is it’s a good life.
Gabriel: Yes, wonderful. That sounds really wonderful.
Deborah: Like you I did work hard before I retired. So, life brings different things in different seasons.
Gabriel: Yes. What was the work that you did? It was in health care, wasn’t it?
Deborah: Varied. I started off by training and then working as an occupational therapist. And then, my husband gave up work when daughter was born. She’s now 32. And he didn’t go back to work. So, I’ve been the main wage earner, which was great, because that propelled me to fulfil my potential, I guess. And I’ve always loved what I do.
So, I went into managing health services, and then into regulation. And in the latter years – the last 15 to 20 years, I lose count, I’ve had a management consultancy for health and social care. And I’ve been writing safeguarding adult reviews, independent inquiries, you know, domestic homicide reviews and chairing boards for safeguarding adults. So, I’ve been doing that in the latter years, but most of my career was working with older people. So, I did lots to do lots of work, both as a clinician and in informing government policy through national reports and things. So, my work also was very much writing before I was writing fiction, I was writing national reports, I was writing my safeguarding adult reviews. So, it was always writing, it’s just changed to writing fiction now. And I always say that now I write happy endings for people because they were never happy safeguarding reviews.
Gabriel: Yes, so many things are beyond your control. How wonderful. Thank you for the support and what you’ve done for so many people for so long to help them in different circumstances,
Deborah: And likewise, to you. I don’t know about you but I feel that it’s been a privilege and a pleasure, being able to work with people in health and social care. And I don’t know about you – you must tell me. But I feel that for so long, I’ve been listening to people who have experienced adversity, and have had to cope with incredible challenges in their lives. Perhaps feeling on the outskirts of society, and unheard. I’ve listened to them. And my paid job was making sure those voices were heard, and fighting for them, really. So now that I write fiction, those voices still kind of play out in my head. These characters come into my books, which are almost like the ghosts of the voices from my health and social care career. I don’t know whether you find that you carry a lot of that with you still in your work?
Gabriel: I do and actually especially with hospice because I went into homes and people’s families, as a social worker and bereavement counsellor for many years, and in all kinds of situations. A lot of those stories, and people have been reflected, not the same names, I changed the situations and stuff. But they had a big impact on me, and influenced how I write characters, as far as fiction. And then of course, with a lot of nonfiction I wrote. A lot of that is about death and dying, and trauma, and resilience, and how to live your life without – so obviously, those are drawn a lot from those experiences as well. But it has come out in fiction as well, in different ways. I think I learned a lot about, about people. And the variety of ways, the endless variety of ways, of how we comprehend and how we act. And what happens in our lives, and the beauty of how different people are. And yet also how similar in some ways so that we can all relate to a character. Even if it’s a fantasy that takes place somewhere zillion times in the future. I try to write fantasy. There are still certain characteristics about it that we can identify with.
Deborah: So why do you write? You were saying we should consider our purpose for writing? What is it that makes you feel you need to write?
Gabriel: For nonfiction, when I started writing a lot of nonfiction articles and books, there was very little about death and dying available to people. And it was still – it still is, but even more so – something people didn’t talk about or deal with grief and loss. It was the same with birth and midwives having it back in the home (home births). You’ve had it in the home a lot longer in UK, but up until the 70s it was still illegal in the US because the medical community pretty much hijacked it and said it was a whole technical thing that had to be done in hospitals. So, with hospice, and with people dying, it was very similar having it be in the home, as opposed to in the hospital. So, when I first started writing, I wanted to make it more available to people, what a natural thing grief and loss is. And reaction, and the differences between just grief and normal reaction to loss and complicated grief and how to get support.
So, I think for a lot of nonfiction when I first started writing, it was to help support people, and inform people, help them make a difference. And with fiction, I always came up with a story, with ideas for things. And stories that I hadn’t seen somebody else do exactly the same way. Even though all fictional stories are the same, in many respects. Just those little things and different combinations of stories or characters, I just felt compelled to write about. Actually, the first fiction book – this may sound weird, being a male,
I wanted to empower women’s voices in characters of women who have never been talked about – hardly ever in fiction, let alone nonfiction, for their experience to be available to people, or what I imagined their experience might have been.
So those are some of the primary reasons I think that I still write fiction.
Deborah: I’m sure that your stories are helping people in the same way as your work and caregiving did.
Gabriel: I don’t know if it is or not. It’s something that I love doing.
If it makes people laugh, or something touches them and gives them a break from other things going on, or something that was a bad they identify with. That’s wonderful.
Deborah: It’s a great thing as a writer, when you get feedback from readers that you’ve touched a chord and something’s meant something to them. I think that gives writers great joy, doesn’t it?
Gabriel: For sure.
Deborah: Well, you’ve shared many words of wisdom with us, is there a parting message you’d like to share?
Gabriel: A message I think that is probably the most vital is:
If you are clear why you write and continue doing that, then be consistent about it.
People with a lot of things, especially with writing, try it for a month or two and if they don’t have what they determine success, or people don’t say it’s ‘Oh, it’s wonderful’, then they stop. I think one reason that I’ve been able to have so many things published and produced etc. was not because I’m a fantastic writer. But because I’ve been consistent and kept getting better, as the years went along. In the first years, I thought, ‘Oh, this is the best thing I’ve ever written’. Now, oh my gosh, I look back and think oh, this is horrible, how could I have thought that.
So, being open to constructive criticism, getting somebody who’s willing to be really honest with what you write, I think makes a huge difference.
And then being open to changing things completely from how you thought they might go. And keep working on things.
Deborah: Have you taken any of your early works down of have you left them out there?
Gabriel: I haven’t taken any of them down but I think some of them aren’t available anymore, because magazines don’t exist. Some of the publishers of the players I first wrote, I think they don’t exist anymore.
Deborah: Thank you very much Gabriel. I really enjoyed meeting and talking to you. I wish you continued success.
Gabriel: Thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time and having this conversation. I hope it is as enjoyable to you as it has been to me.
Great words of wisdom from Gabriel. Why do you write? I write because it brings me joy. Of course, I love getting feedback from a reader that they have enjoyed a story. Entertaining a person, triggering emotions, or memories is a wonderful accomplishment. Connecting with readers through the written word is why I write.
It has taken a couple of years and a lot of hard work finding my readers but now, with my third book about to be published, I am reaping the rewards. I have found my readership and I write with them in mind. It may only be a few hundred people today but I value each one of them and I know that my tribe of readers will continue to grow. Be patient and consistent writer friends. And above all find joy in writing.
So until next time. Look after your beautiful self and trust the journey.
In this ninth episode of The Mindful Writer, author, Sherri Leimkuhler tells me how training for the Ironman and yoga have taught her valuable life lessons.
Before I introduce you to Sherri, let me update you on my writing journey as it has been particularly exciting this past week. I have had an adventure! Earlier this year I decided to write about a sunken village that I had seen in an image on the internet many years ago. It was a photo of a church spire just visible in the midst of a newly created reservoir. I did some research and found out that this reservoir was in the wilds of North Yorkshire. I was travelling by public transport and had no idea where I might stay or how I would reach the reservoir. By a stroke of luck or serendipity I found a lovely woman, Sheila, who no longer provided B&B but was willing to provide accommodation in her home. She lived just three miles from the reservoir. We started chatting by email. Sheila was incredibly helpful. Not only did she offer me comfortable accommodation – she hosted an afternoon tea so that I could chat to her friend who had grown up in the now submerged village, she drove me around the area so that I could explore, and put me in touch with a local historian among other locals who each spent considerable time sharing their knowledge and memories with me.
I was overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of this community. I am excited to write this story and hope that it will now more accurately reflect real life experience of the flooding. I love writing about communities. Meeting people and hearing about their experience is one of the things I love about being a writer.
None of that has much to do with the topic of today – but I had to share my excitement with you.
Now to the interview.
Sherri Leimkuhler is an author, athlete, and yoga instructor. In this episode she shares some valuable life lessons on how to survive the writing journey by developing stamina, resilience, and a quiet mind.
Deborah: I’m delighted to welcome Sherri Leimkuhler to the podcast today. Sherri is the best-selling author of What’s Left Untold. She has also been writing a health and fitness column, For the Fun Of IT, for Carroll County Times, for nearly a decade. As well as being a writer, Sherri is a former pilot, a competitive triathlete, a two-time Ironman finisher, and is also a yoga instructor. So, hi Sherri.
Sherri: Hi, Deborah,
Deborah: I should say, Sherri’s joining us from Maryland.
Sherri: Thank you so much for having me.
Deborah: So, you’ve achieved a great deal, Sherri. And you’re evidently highly motivated and determined. Yoga and meditation are part of my daily routine. And I get loads of inspiration out of my weekly run. Both of those things have become so important to me – meditation, and yoga. Then, once a week when I’m running, that’s where I get all the ideas for my blog, because your mind is resting and it all comes as inspiration. So, what I wanted to ask you – because, you teach yoga, what has yoga taught you about yourself? And how have you applied that to your life?
Sherri: Yoga has taught me that I need to slow down. And I need to appreciate a slower pace. I know that you were talking on your blog about focusing on the spaces between the breath, and that’s something that I have been working to be better at. I do spend a lot of time focusing on the breath. But it’s those pauses in-between that I need to be better at letting them rest and not always trying to fill them with something. As you read in my bio, I’m a very active person, not an idle person. And so, I’m often running with all cylinders firing and wishing for that moment to just slow down and breathe. I have a terrible habit of every time I do get that moment, I fill it with something else immediately. It’s just – I’ve always been that way. And so, yoga has really allowed me to silence the noise a little bit. Taught me how to draw my awareness inward and listen to what I really need – what my body’s telling me. And to try to appreciate those quiet moments when they when they make themselves available.
Deborah: I think that’s hard to do. Because the on the other side of the coin from being determined – having all that energy – what’s the name of the yellow chakra around the navel area? What’s it called? Has it got a proper name?
Sherri: The solar plexus chakra?
Deborah: That’s the one. When it is really strong, and you’ve got lots of energy and motivation, which you have, it’s great. But then there’s also the downside of it, that it’s fire could kind of get a bit out of control. And that’s when we wear ourselves into the ground and we get burned out.
Sherri: Absolutely, yes. That fire quickly does get out of control. And so, just learning to give myself permission and help my students recognise that and give themselves permission to let go of guilt. I think there’s a lot of us carry around a sense that we always need to be doing something there’s a lot of, should. The word should I’m trying to get that word out of my vocabulary, because a lot of times it can be associated with positive things. But it’s also associated with things that just bring us guilt – like, I should be doing this, or I shouldn’t be doing that, or I should have done that. And so, I think it’s important to just enjoy the moment and give ourselves permission to do that without always feeling so obligated to do other things.
Deborah: And to be in that moment and not be thinking about what you ought to be doing instead of.
Sherri: That’s right. That’s right. And that’s why savasana is so difficult. It is often considered the most difficult or most challenging part of the yoga practice to stay in that moment. Breathe in that moment – exist in that moment, instead of trying to stop our minds already racing to what’s next. What’s happening. What am I doing after my practice? What am I doing next, instead of staying in the now? It’s a challenge.
Deborah: Absolutely. Absolutely. There’s another thing I think about with the pause between breaths. It is the pause between events in our life. When you’re driving yourself to achieve something, or perhaps you’ve come to the end of a project and you don’t know what’s coming next. Trusting that space, allowing the space so that the right thing comes to fill it and you’re tuned in to receiving that right thing. Because when we are constantly filling every gap of our time – project to project, we don’t leave any gap for anything new to come into our life.
Sherri: That’s so true. And it’s so important to allow that space.
Deborah: I had a friend recently who was reducing her hours to semi retire. And she’s a very busy woman all the time, and she was cutting down her days. She’d barely done it for a week, when she said, ‘I can’t do it, I can’t do it, I’ve got to fill my days.’ And I said, ‘Things will come to you, those days will be filled. But you’ve got to leave them free long enough for the right thing to come into your life. Don’t keep filling them out of fear. And maybe it is just fear that makes us want to fill every moment of every day, and not allow space.
Sherri: Yes, that’s an important word, the fear – maybe what we’re trying to ignore, maybe what we don’t want to see or find when we stop and have that quiet time to reflect – sometimes those are the difficult things that we’ve been putting out of our mind. So, we don’t have to deal with it. And as long as we stay busy and keep moving, you know, maybe that what we fear – that’s resting within – we might not want to acknowledge and we can ignore it that way.
Deborah: That’s really important. You’ve brought back a memory for me. It was several years ago. I had booked myself the whole month of August off work, because I worked for myself. And I thought I’m going to really relax for August and just do all the wonderful things I planned. Just restful things, you know, picking fruit, cycling, days at the beach. And as soon as I stopped working for that month, my world fell apart. Absolutely fell apart. Because I found myself having to face up to things in my life that I hadn’t addressed in probably a year since my mum had died. It had an effect on my relationships. Just everything came in at once. And I spent the whole of that month in absolute emotional turmoil. But then, when I think now back to that now – that’s probably exactly what I needed, because I resolved things and moved on. But we push things away, don’t we? We don’t deal with things. We don’t listen to our emotions. And sometimes you do have to stop still, and not be afraid to face up to some feelings that you are repressing.
Sherri: That’s right. And I think it’s important to also note that there’s a lot of freedom on the other side of that, you know that all that you were holding inside was probably maybe weighing you down or affecting how you felt, and then trying to avoid addressing that uncomfortable feeling or the sad feelings. It’s always still within you, weighing on you and keeping you from really being free of that and feeling that sense of peace.
Deborah: Do you ever go on writing retreats?
Sherri: I have that as a member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association. I have been on retreats that are very interactive, in that they were less introspective and more about learning the craft, and networking, and connecting with fellow writers. So, I have always wanted to go on a retreat that was a little more. I love that women’s fiction writers experience. But I think it would be a fully different experience to have the retreat that’s really just time set aside, to be quiet and to write. There’s actually a group here in Pennsylvania, it’s actually called the Mindful Writer’s Retreat. And that is on my list of things to hopefully do. The group comes together for meals. But other than coming together for a common meal that shared, it’s quiet. It’s a quiet experience. There are hiking trails or walking in nature. I think they do have a morning meditation, that’s optional, but the goal is just to be in that shared space and that shared silence with other people and allow that creative muse to just come out and be free. And try to be in that moment instead of you know, focusing on conversation, or connecting, or learning craft and really just see how that creativity will speak to you in that type of environment.
Deborah: Sounds blissful. It sounds like sinking yourself in a warm bath.
Sherri: Yes. So, if I ever get there, I will let you know. They do four a year, one each season. And so, the timing hasn’t been right. I’ve still got children at home. So, the timing hasn’t been right for me yet. But when my oldest heads off to university, I’m hoping that might be something I can put into the schedule.
Debotrah: I was just thinking there’ll be listeners here, authors who perhaps have young children – they might be working full Time and caring for young children. They’re probably thinking, If I just had 15- 20 minutes to myself it would be blissful.
Sherri: Exactly. Time is … the most elusive element of time – that we’re always trying to work everything else around. And it’s always shifting. It’s always different.
Deborah: You do lots of physical training, which compliments the yoga, doesn’t it?
You know the Ironman and the triathlon. Remind me what the Ironman is? Is it? No, tell me what tell me what the Ironman is. I think I know but please tell me.
Sherri: Ironman technically is the brand name for an ultra-distance triathlon. So, there are ultra-different distance triathlons that are the same in physical aspect that aren’t necessarily called the Ironman, but that’s sort of the gold standard for what is a two-and-a-half-mile swim 2.4 mile swim, 112 miles on the bike, and then a full marathon at the end.
Deborah: Wow, you must be incredibly fit.
Sherri: Physical Fitness is important to me, for my own wellbeing. I’ve always shaped it around how it makes me feel and never about how it makes me look. That was very important. Raising my daughters – for us in our house eating is for nourishment and exercise is for health and wellbeing and not to fit a certain image or size or anything like that.
So yes, I think it’s almost an extreme. Ironman training was a challenge.
I had three children in four years. And I was just looking to make sure that that wasn’t going to be the only thing that was defining me. And it was something my husband and I did together. I don’t know how couples do that survive that with only one. Because it’s very time consuming. It is like a part time job. And while other couples might be going out to dinner, and a movie for a date night, which is lovely. We often were having a babysitter, and going for a swim and a bike ride. And that was how we spent our time together. But I loved it. I’m so grateful for that experience.
But after 10 years, it was too much. And that was one of those moments where I was listening to myself and my body – on the other side of it was starting to break down a little bit. There was a lot of fatigue, physically, emotionally. And I knew it was time for me to take a step back and, and really make sure I was again, just focusing on it for my own enjoyment and fulfilment and not time goals, and speed goals, and distance goals. And so, that’s where I am right now. I don’t even wear a GPS watch. I don’t want to know how fast I’m going or how far. I just go out on the trails in the woods and nature and just run because it feels good.
Deborah: There’s a parallel there for people surviving the writing journey. There is what feels like a marathon, especially when people start out and haven’t even written the first draft – writing a book and getting it published. That is like surviving a marathon. And then the wanting to do better, better, better. The bit about looking at how are your sales? comparing yourself to others? I can see lots of parallels there with the writing journey. What What can you take from your experience as an athlete to help writers to sustain that journey?
Sherri: There are so many parallels there. I think probably the best way to start that conversation is that it’s never wise to just wake up one day and go out and run a marathon. You don’t go from zero to 26.2 miles. Without the training, without the patience, without putting in the time. You need to set a goal for yourself. And there’s so many steps to take before that goal.
Creating a training plan, creating a progression that makes sense. The little steps along the way to achieve that ultimate goal is to develop strength and patience and realise that there’s going to be setbacks and obstacles and that doesn’t take you off of your course to the point that you won’t be able to achieve your goal but to just recognise they will be there and kind of have a plan on how to deal with those things when you come off course. Not to look back to keep moving forward.
When I was training for Ironman, there were two golden rules. One was that you never skip rest day. There always had to be a rest day. And the other was that you didn’t try to make up workouts that you missed, you kept moving forward. So, you didn’t deviate from that plan in that way. You just kept looking to the ultimate goal.
And enjoy. Remember to enjoy the journey. The goal is just one part of the whole experience. But there’s so many moments of joy and things to appreciate along the way. It’s important to keep that in sight as well.
Deborah: Some absolute gems in there. Just thinking about the setbacks. When we get setbacks, when you are disappointed, you can experience rejection, you think you’re going down one route, and then it doesn’t happen for you the way you thought it would. That’s really hard for writers. They might then start to feel imposter syndrome, or It’s never going to happen for me and get disheartened. But you’re saying, accept those setbacks just as you do as an athlete. Are there any words of advice you can give for people going through that emotional turmoil?
Sherri: Oh, absolutely, definitely stay flexible, and open minded. But I think the important things – I wrote a blog article, and I’m able to send you the link to it about Seven Tips For Writing Success and Sanity. And a couple of those in there were, first to write the book that you want to write. There’s so many different expectations in the industry, or maybe there’s a fad genre, like when Twilight came out, there was suddenly vampire books everywhere. And that’s it’s so rapidly changing. I think it’s really important for an author to tell the story that’s within them, that wants to come out. And stay true to that, and know that there will be readers for that story, people who want to read that book, and publishers who want to publish that book. And it might take some time to find the right home for that work.
I think there’s a difference between taking craft advice and making the work the best it can be, versus completely changing the story that you want to write. So, I think it’s important to stay true with that. And if it’s helpful at all, it took 11 years for my first book that we published – 11 years from the point that I had the spark of inspiration when I knew what I wanted to write about to actually putting that book out in the world. It is a little different than traditional women’s fiction. Some of the rejections I received were because publishers weren’t necessarily comfortable with a controversial ending in my book. And it was a risk they maybe weren’t willing to take with an unknown or a new author. I might have been able to find a publisher sooner, if I had changed the way the book ended. But I really wanted to stay true to the story. Embrace what was unique about it and different about it. And I did eventually find a very supportive home for that book. And that’s What’s left Untold (link to buy).
Deborah: Yes. Excellent. I will sure that we there are links to your author page and the book in the in the show notes so people can find out more. And you’ve had great success with it.
Sherri: Thank you. I was so excited. One of the high points of the journey, for sure was when the book hit the USA Today bestseller list. So that was a really exciting moment. It was a difficult time in the midst of the pandemic to release a book as a debut author was not able to meet in person, you know, with readers and with bookstores, the way I always imagined it would be. The moment that I learned about the USA Today list, I was out on a boat with my husband celebrating my 25th wedding anniversary and we always envisioned we would be in in Italy, cycling the Amalfi Coast. And of course, that didn’t couldn’t happen at that time. So, we were kind of just in a remote location on a boat by ourselves. And I got word, you know, I didn’t even have reception on my phone some of the time. And so, it was a really unique and exciting moment to learn that.
Deborah: Fantastic. I’m so happy for you, and 11 years. So, what advice would you give yourself when you were going through times thinking, This, is never going to happen for me? What advice would you give your younger self looking back?
Sherri: Definitely. It would be to never, never give up. Never give up on the story and never give up on the process. It should be a labour of love. I don’t know that there’s any reason an author should want to write a book that’s any greater than – it’s just because they have a story they want to tell, and they want to share it with others. I definitely didn’t set out to make any lists or win an award or, you know, even sustain myself as a full-time career. I just wanted to enjoy the creative process of writing. And so, it was frustrating, because I do think – one of Stephen King’s – he has a book called On Writing. And one of his tips is to write every day, even if it’s only 15 minutes write every day. And that was a very hard thing for me to do. But I could see the value in it, because the longer I would be away from the story, the more disconnected I felt from it, and had to go backtrack, to kind of get back into the pace, in the spirit of the story. So that’s definitely if writers can find the discipline to just do a little bit each day, and try to keep connected with the momentum of the story, just to never give up, it will happen. If it’s meant to happen, it’s going to happen. If it’s a passion of your heart, and your spirit, it’ll get there and there’s not a deadline on it.
Deborah: I believe that. I believe that if you’ve got a passion for anything, whether it’s to write a book or music, whatever it is, it’s in your heart, it’s in your heart for a reason. And when you listen, you go inward, and you listen, that’s what your soul wants you to do. And if that’s what you’ve got to do, then as you say, it’s going to happen. It may not happen the way you expect it to, or in the timescale you want it to, but it will happen. And I always say trust the journey.
Sherri: Trust the journey. And what a journey it is!
Deborah: How do you relax? Maybe you find your physical exercise a way to relax, but your life sounds very, very full. How do you self-care?
Sherri: I do get do something physical every day. That is a non-negotiable for me – every day, even if it’s just 30 minutes, I do something. And if I’m very protective of my personal time, in terms of finding a work life balance. I’ve learned to be very strong in protecting that space. And to say no, it’s okay to say no.
I try not to work in the evenings. And I try not to work on the weekends, because that’s the time with my family. And I need that downtime away from work. And that’s one of the things I remind myself all the time, kind of dovetailing back to your previous question. I take time to remind myself that I already have everything I need. I have my health, I have my family, I have love. And those are the most important things above all, above all of these other things. And those are the things I want to make sure that I continue to nourish. So, I definitely take breaks and make sure I protect that. That special time with my husband and my kids is precious.
Deborah: Thank you. That’s great.
Sherri: Before we leave any other any other words of wisdom you want to pass on to any listeners?
Sherri: Oh my goodness. I definitely think – just you know, enjoy the ride is a big thing. To let go of the guilt and the ‘shoulds.’ One thing that I always say to my kids is to sleep on it. Everything always is better in the morning, being tired and having a muddled brain that’s just exhausted after a day of stress and doing so many things and trying to be everything to so many people. It can get overwhelming and it can put things out of perspective and seem a much bigger problem than it might be.
One of the visualisations I use in my yoga class is to let my students acknowledge anything that’s worrying them any troubles or concerns, acknowledge that it’s there, and then actually visualise putting it inside a drawer and closing the drawer and putting it away. It’s not lost. It’s not forgotten. It’s not overlooked. But it doesn’t have to be dealt with right in that minute. You can come back to it when you have a better perspective, when you’ve had some rest. When you’ve had a break. And then you might find solutions that that weren’t available before in that moment of stress.
Deborah: I’m glad I asked you for the final gem of advice because that’s a wonderful one. I love that one. Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure talking to you, Sherry.
Deborah: It’s been so wonderful to talk to you as well, Deborah. Thanks so much for having me here today.
I hope you enjoyed that episode as much as me. We may never achieve the Ironman but surviving this writer’s journey with a calm and quiet mind takes stamina, resilience, and patience. How do you keep your sanity? I’d love to hear from you. Drop me a line at dkauthor@btinternet.com or leave a comment on the blog/podcast.
So, until next time … Look after your beautiful self and trust the journey.
In this eight episode of The Mindful Writer Author and Life coach Matthew Williams tells me how he wrote himself out of what he describes as a shit place to write himself a better life story. Although Matthew hit rock bottom in his personal life he used this experience to create something amazing.
Before we launch into the interview I will update you on my writing journey.
After escaping Covid for more than two years it finally caught up with me. Like many others I picked up the virus whilst on holiday. To be precise Sherman, my husband contracted it on the last day of our holiday and I caught it from him four days later.
It is 14 days since I tested positive. One week in I tested negative and thought right – I’m fit. Back to work! I thought I had recovered 100% and wanting to make up for lost time threw myself into work and catching up on social engagements. Two days later I had an almighty migraine.
It is hard to let go of a busy agenda and resign ourself to what is. Being unwell filled me with appreciation for my usual state of good health and gratitude for the scientists who developed a vaccine and those who administered it.
We cannot control the things that happen to us only how we react to them. Matthew Williams is an incredible example of this. In this week’s podcast he tells me how he was compelled to share his story with the world so that others could journey with him from what was a very dark place.
Let me introduce you.
Matthew Williams is an author, public speaker, and life coach. In this episode he tells me:
How writing took him from a ‘shit place’ to achieving remarkable things
How you can change the story of your life by taking control of the pen.
Deborah: I’m particularly interested in exploring with you today your story, how you journeyed from what you describe as ‘a shit place,’ to where you are now as an author, speaker and coach. So welcome.
Matthew: Thank you very much for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here. And like you said, describing where my journey, my story started – it’s, yeah, it’s a long way away from there. And to have the opportunity to be sat here speaking as an author when it seemed like a million miles away. So yeah, it’s great to be here.
Deborah: Excellent. And we’re going to explore that with you because you have had a remarkable journey. But let’s just start with telling us about the significant changes in your life, which were a divorce, and struggles with mental health, which led you to becoming a published author, and an active campaigner for mental health, and setting up an online course to help others change their story.
Matthew: Yes, so my blog was where it all started really. That was, where are we now? So back in December 2015. So maybe seven years ago now. And it was a year on well, over a year on, from a marriage breakup. We’d been together 20 years, and married for nearly nine of those. And, and the year following the breakup I thought I was kind of running on adrenaline really. And again, all this is kind of, in hindsight, but once the initial kind of shock, you know, shock of what was happening – you have to start looking forward and obviously how your life is gonna be. I think then your focus is on the immediate term, and the practical things, you need to get sorted out – find somewhere to live – all of this kind of thing. I think the biggest thing for me is adjusting to the changes with my kids, my children. So, you know, from being there every day to suddenly not being there was very difficult. But like I say, I was mostly taken up with those kinds of practicalities.
I met someone and so, you know, one of the things I really found difficult was not being in that kind of family unit anymore. It was something that had always been very important to me. So, you know, I met someone and I felt that I kind of had that again. But you know, it’s such a tumultuous time. That relationship didn’t last – about 10 months. It was kind of a few months after that ended. And that was all very amicable. We were in different places, really.
It was one night in December 2015, when a lot of things kind of hit me all at once. You know, my ex-wife was kind of moving on with her life with a new partner and my ex-girlfriend was the same, and then you know, facing my first Christmas on my own and yeah, it was just a lot of things hit me all at once. I felt shit to put it mildly. It was not a nice time.
But it was really strange that I was in this hotel one evening, I was working away and I just felt compelled to write about it. And I’ve never, never done anything like that before. I mean, I’ve always been an avid reader, but I never thought that I could write. I just felt compelled to. That’s the only way I can describe it. I just knew I had to put it, put it down on paper. Type it on the screen and So I did. That evening, I just wrote how I was feeling and what I was going through at that particular time, downloaded the blogging app and published it, and so there wasn’t really a huge amount of thought, I just did it. And I had no idea what to expect.
But, you know, I got really encouraging feedback from people. I was obviously able to articulate what I was experiencing in a way that connected with people. And then, once I’d started, it just didn’t stop it. Again, I felt compelled to do this. There was loads more stuff I wanted to say. The mental health side of things – now, it was something I had already experienced twice, by this point. So, in 2006, and in 2013, I’d had some really difficult struggles with depression. And so, when my marriage ended, that was kind of at the back of my mind that obviously, I didn’t want to go back there. And same for over for over a year, I like to say, I’ve been kind of going on adrenaline or whatever, I’ve never felt any sign that I was slipping back. But at that point, it when I started writing I knew I was struggling, so it helped me really kind of process things. And so, I didn’t set out to write about mental health, you know, but I realised that it was such a big part of what formed me that I had to. It was about my third post that, I wrote about having suffered with depression. And again, that had a really big impact with people. I got opportunities to write and publish on different websites and things and yeah, I guess, I found my voice. I found what I was passionate about. It’s such an alien experience to go through, you know, a severe episode with your mental health. And to find that I could articulate this in a way that people understood and could relate to, you know, I realised it was something that I needed to use and make the most of really. As I say, I wanted to help people. And so yeah, through that I got involved in campaigning – various campaigns working for big charities. And, and that whole process led to the creation of my on-line course.
Deborah: Excellent. Let’s just stop there to unpick a few things there. Listening to you – it’s a really emotional journey. And you wrap it up as if it happened just like that. But it must have been incredibly painful time for you. And the growth, the emotional courage that you had to survive that and the growth you went through, to get from where you were to where you are now is incredible. And I just wanted to talk to you about a couple of things. One is that point where you were in a really dark place, which you describe as a shit place – which I think is a great way to describe it – from that shit place you had this sense of purpose, I need to write this down. And I just wanted to explore with you how that feeling of purpose drove you and reflecting back, what your thoughts are about the things that drive us to do what’s in our heart? What is it that leads us to do these things? And how do we listen to them and act on them? Perhaps just explore that with you a bit?
Matthew: It was a really emotional time and experience. Initially, I had a bit of an argument with my parents, my dad in particular. Back then, I was putting stuff out there that was very raw. And, you know, and they were my parents and were kind of concerned about me, a lot of people were, you know, seeing what I was writing. And what, yeah, I did, I felt driven to do. But initially, I think it was a really good way of me processing what I was going through and I, you know, my dad said, ‘Why can’t you just write about it? Why does it have to be public?’ And I really had to reflect on that because I’ve never been someone that wanted the limelight or attention. But I felt a real need to put it out there and I questioned myself about that. And what I realised was that by writing about it, I had to find a meaning for it. I had to find a purpose for it. It couldn’t just be, oh, look, I’m going through a shit time, you know. It had to mean something. And so, I had to find positives. I had to find a way of reframing it so that’s what I wanted to put out there. And this may be weird as well but I had a sense, right from the start that it was significant. When I started writing that it was a significant moment in my life, and it was going to mean something. And I just knew it. Even though I was in a really bad place, even though I’d never written anything before – I didn’t think, you know, I’m gonna be this great writer – I just had a sense that it was going to mean something. And one of the things that drove me one of the things that drove me
is that, at some level, I had this sense again – it’s not like I was consciously thinking, This is what’s going to happen. But somewhere, it was almost like, if I show myself at this real low ebb where I’m feeling vulnerable, exposed, and, and all of that kind of thing. At some point, there’s going to be a point at which to say, look, what all that led to. It was because of all that this happened. And by exposing myself in real time, it was almost like, people would see that. And people would know that yeah, you know, whatever- good does come out of it they’ve seen all the crap that happened for me to get there. That these things don’t just magically happen. There’s always a real struggle behind it. Again, not saying that, you know, I ever imagined some great pinnacle that I’d be on. But, you know, amazing things have happened.
I guess, it’s been difficult, again, isn’t that things, you know suddenly everything kind of falls in your lap. By being out there and putting yourself out there and making the connections that enables this because you’re coming from a place that is real, and people identify with that. I just felt a drive to do that.
Deborah: You’ve put that very well. And as you’re speaking it through, it sounds as if you are doing exactly what you say you do – you talk about changing your story. And as you’re talking about the process of writing down what’s happening to you with the faith that it would all turn out, okay, you’re kind of taking control of your story and writing it. But you’re doing it very publicly, which took a lot of courage to expose yourself in that way, which we’ll talk about. But you’re also sharing a narrative that other people can identify with. And you went out there doing that with a faith that it would end up okay. And it has, which is remarkable.
Matthew: Yeah, and that to be honest, that’s been one of the things that my struggles with mental health taught me. You asked about – I can’t remember exact wording, but you said something about people in a similar situation. But it wasn’t that… I’m trying to think how to put it. It’s almost that you have to strip away what’s stopping you doing it. So, again, I felt a need and a compulsion to do it. The challenge is then, do you take that step? And to me that’s about stripping away. I think a lot of people are held back from their potential because they are scared of what other people will think, or scared of failing, you know, whatever expectations people have on them and how they should live. And so, it’s more about removing the things that are stopping you. Because I think inside us, you know, that it’s there – you have to kind of uncover it and clear away the crap. It’s there in us and, and for me, it was actually my experiences with depression that helped me to do that, because it kind of freed me from fear and other people’s expectations because where it took me too and how bad it was – nothing can be worse than that nothing. And, you know, when I was in this room, and I could barely move, it didn’t matter what anyone else thought about me all that mattered was whether I could somehow find a way out of it. And at that time, I didn’t think I could, but I did. So, having got through that I wasn’t going to let what someone else thought of me stop me from living my life. Because when it comes down to it, when you’re in those places, you know, there’s no one around. There was no one who could drag me out of it but myself. And so yeah, it’s given me a great a trusting and faith that I can push through things because what I’ve already been through is, you know, nothing can be worse than that.
Deborah: And doing it once and getting that reinforcement that yes, this works. I can push through and achieve. It gives you more confidence and faith to do it again. So, you go on a positive trajectory, don’t you? It just gets better and better.
Matthew: Yes, absolutely. And it’s interesting you say that you know about fear. For me, one of the things I realised was that I think I’d always thought that I’ve been lucky. And I was constantly thinking, what if my luck runs out? But then I’m 47 now, and I’ve got enough life experience behind me to be able to trust more that things always have worked out, and not only has the crap time gone away, but something good has come out of them. So, I feel more that I can hang on to that. It’s always with me now. And that sense that at some point, my luck will run out – I don’t feel that now. I think there’s so much more at play. And a big part of it is knowing who you are and trusting your gut, your instinct and eradicating those fears and the blocks that hold you back. And yeah, I guess I trust in that a lot more now.
Deborah: In your online course Change Your Story, you work with other people to help them change their story. Can you tell us a little about that? The sorts of things that hold other people back and how you help them to tackle those obstacles just as you did?
Matthew: Yes. I’ve done a lot of work over the years. My career previously I was in sport, but I very much work with people on self-development, personal development.
And then I did the same in mental health for a while. A lot of people found it difficult to articulate their strengths, and would often underplay – downplay, their strengths and minimise them. Almost taking them for granted. Not even recognise them – you know, that’s just something they could do. And, you know, I think we’ve got this thing certainly in the UK, I think that we do that – kind of apologetic about the things that we can do well, especially if it’s something that we haven’t had to work at. But actually, there’s this focus that we identify weaknesses and try and get rid of them. I think well, one is the thing about knowing your strengths, and are you making the most of your strengths? And then that’s where, you know, you really live a kind of rich life where you’re using those strengths and can use them to help others in particular and that, is very fulfilling and rewarding. And also, reframe your weaknesses as, just characteristics, attributes. And what might be a weakness in one situation can be a strength in another. So again, it all came back for me as about being in the right story. Like you’re using the analogy of you being the leading actor in a story of your life. Well, that story needs to be the right story for you. And if it isn’t, that can cause a lot of mental distress and potentially mental illness. And so, I sum it up as like you wouldn’t put Rocky in a romcom – boxing is my kind of big thing – because it doesn’t fit the character. And that seems to resonate with people.
I think we often do drift in life and this is what happened with me, it was divorce, and mental health. It’s when things come along, that just shake you out of that and drifting along just isn’t an option anymore. Certainly, for me, clearly the mental health because you’re just not yourself anymore. I really questioned a lot of these things, who you are and what you’re doing in your life? So yeah, and I think that the analogy of a story, it puts some distance – it helps people to view their life more objectively and see things differently. We get very tied to the stories we tell ourselves. And the idea is that, well, it is just a story. And you’ve got the pen and you can rewrite it. Again, I think that’s an analogy that people can relate to. And it’s really interesting the realisations people have – little light bulb moments. You know, say I’ve done my job, when people have those lightbulb moments, but it’s true – I’ve given them a framework to look at things differently.
Deborah: I love that framework. I read somewhere, that at the end of your life, you’ll look back, and your story will all make complete sense. And being an author myself, that really resonates with me, because as writers, we put our protagonist through hell, but we know they’re going to have their happy ending. And all the little breadcrumbs we drop in our stories of things happening, that the protagonist has to pick up on to find where they’re meant to go, that happens to us in our lives. And it’s only when we can see that– just as you were able to go inwards, and pick up what it was you wanted to do, and understand who you were and what your story needed to be. And so, it’s only when we do that, we kind of pick up all the hints around us which are leading us in the right direction, if only we open our eyes, heart, ears and listen.
Matthew: Definitely. And it. Was writing that really taught me that and writing my own story. It is amazing how you recognise threads and themes in your life. And again, this is something that became part of my programme about, you know, What’s the plot of your story to date? It reveals things about how, again, how we view our life and what we’re capable of in life. And yeah, it was amazing how, again, different things, you know, seemingly disparate events suddenly form part of a bigger whole.
The quote that sums all that up for me from Steve Jobs, and it opens my book about the connecting the dots. That you can only connect the dots looking backwards. So, you’ve got to trust in something. And you’ve got to trust that those dots will connect in the future. And so, you have to have faith in something, whether it be your gut, intuition, God the Universe, wherever it is, but you have to trust that something is leading you to that. And that is so powerful to me. I think it echoes in everything that I do, really that, you know, that idea that whatever is happening, finding some sense of meaning and purpose from it and turning it into something that, again, where there’s a moment in which I yeah, that’s why that happened.
You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So, you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future
Steve Jobs
Deborah: There’s some wonderful insightful gems there, which I’m looking forward to sharing with listeners. I will give the Steve Jobs reference in the show notes, and a link to your on-line course Change Your Story.
Before you go, can you share with us your words of wisdom? What is the key thing – you’ve told us about sharing the story, can you put that into a mantra or something that listeners can take with them?
Matthew: Oh, the big thing for me is that we as a species, we’re storytellers. We create narratives around everything that happens in our life, who we are, our relationships to others. All of that is a story that we tell ourselves. And the question is who, who is holding the pen? And who is writing that story? Are you consciously creating the story of your life? Or are you allowing it to be written for you by other people’s expectations – by a particular person in your life, whether it be a partner, a parent, an employer? Are you handing the pen to somebody else? At any point, you can take that pen and you can create your story. And so what this is about – it’s about taking more control over the pen that writes your story. And talk about plot twists – you can’t control everything, and the last couple years have shown that more than more than most, I guess. But we can always choose how we respond to it. And again, and we can use the lessons from those changes to take a new direction, to learn new things about ourselves, to become more who we’re meant to be. And it all comes back to that. You taking control of the pen and you deciding which direction your story’s going to go in.
Deborah: Excellent. Thank you.
Matthew: That’s a bit of a long mantra that.
Deborah: No, no, you’ve said it very well. Take control in writing your own story. Perfect. Thank you, Matthew.
How has writing transformed your life? I know that I would not have gone through a journey of self discovery had I not experienced disappointment and frustration on my writing journey. I would not have started my blog or this podcast. I would not have met amazing guests from across the world or connected with you. Writing brings us so much more than the end product of a book.
I would love to hear from you. You can write to me at dkauthor@btinternet.com or leave a message here.
So, until next time … Look after your beautiful self and trust the journey.
My thanks to yoga instructor, Jocelyne Leach, for inspiring this week’s blog post.
The world feels as though it is full of extreme views right now. When we listen to the news, it is no wonder we feel the antagonism. In recent years, conflicting views about politics, policy, and the behaviour of world leaders, have divided families, and friends – certainly here in the UK, and from what I hear, in the USA.
We take these thoughts and feelings into our daily lives, as we absorb the negative energy. So, finding our equilibrium – a fulcrum on which to find a balance between extremes is needed now more than ever.
Creatives are prone to extremes in emotional response. It seems agents/publishers are fond of saying I/we loved … before going on to give an honest and balanced critique. It is IMHO an overused word in the publishing world – used, maybe, to manage our fragile egos.
Authors want readers to love their books and fear that they might hate one. It is always love or hate. We swing between feelings of elation and despair. Those great highs are often followed by an adrenalin dip, and/or the need for another high. That is perhaps why we feel the need to constantly check sales, reviews, or social media comments. It is an addiction to receiving positive reinforcement.
I know that I have a need for approval. For most of my life I have had a habit of ending my statements with a question – isn’t it? Don’t you? A boyfriend once pointed this out to me.
Like many new writers, it was important to me to receive validation. I have had this through the belief of my agent, feedback from editors, book reviewers, and readers. This should be enough but l find myself swinging from either end of that scale – it’s all fantastic or doom and gloom. I am trying to focus on that steadying fulcrum in the centre, to accept the reality, the ways things are – perfectly OKAY.
I know that my need for approval goes back to my childhood, wanting the approval of my parents, particularly my father. There are some painful childhood memories that I have buried but there lies the root of my need for approval. Understanding myself is the first step to letting go of that need.
There is nothing sexy or exciting about OKAY. To accept what is and be still with it will take time and patience for me. I am trying to break the habits of a lifetime. I will do this through meditation. By noticing my emotional responses with compassion and then letting them go.
Julia Cameron wrote in The Right to Write, Keep the drama on the page. Creatives love drama, but there is no need to play them out in our lives. Let’s try and find that quiet, mindful path, between extremes.
In this fifth episode of The Mindful Writer Grace Sammon talks about the advantages of writing novels later in life, and shares her wisdom on coming back from a dark place.
Before I introduce you, let me update you on my writing journey. I have been focusing on two important lessons as a mindful writer.
The first: Know yourself. This lesson found me through another writer’s blog post (I’m sorry I cannot find the source, despite searching for the past 20 mins), and was then reinforced in a yoga session the following day. I love this synchronicity – making sure we hear the message.
Photo courtesy of Congerdesign – Pixabay
We are all unique individuals and we know ourselves better than anyone else can. So, listen to yourself, check in. This is why we should not compare our journey with others. How and when we write, what we write, what we need to thrive, our natural rhythm, our strengths and weaknesses – which can also work to our advantage. We have the greatest text book on being our best self, we just have to look inside.
And the second lesson I found through this interview with the inspirational Grace Sammon. When I felt a bit downhearted about my writing journey I did as Grace suggested and counted each and every blessing. There are so many! My writing journey has more joy than disappointment. This week’s guest, Grace Sammon, can explain this much better than me, so let me introduce her.
Grace Sammon
Grace Sammon, is an entrepreneur, educator, speaker, and author. She has written three non-fiction books and recently published her award-winning debut novel The Eves. Grace is a radio show presenter for The Story Tellers, and Launch Pad, and founder of Author Talk Network
Deborah: I’m delighted to welcome Grace Sammon to The Mindful Writer podcast. Grace is the author of The Eves, and other stories. So welcome Grace.
Grace: Good morning and thank you for having me.
Deborah: It’s a delight. Whereabouts are you in the world? And what time is it where you are?
Grace: It is 8.30 in the morning in Sarasota, Florida.
Deborah: Excellent. I am just outside London in the UK and it’s afternoon here. So, Grace, you have been traditionally, independently, and hybrid published. You’ve written fiction, and nonfiction, which you describe as very different journeys. Like me, you write book club women’s fiction. Your radio show and Podcast for Storytellers captures the experience of those who choose to leave their mark on the world through the art of story.
So, let’s start by talking about leaving our mark on the world. You had a full and varied career founding and managing four companies – two of them not for profit, before you embarked on a career as an author. So, what led you to write.
Grace: I love that words magically appear on a page and speak to our hearts in ways that touch us and stay with us. And it gets to that question that you are asking about leaving our mark on the world. I’ve always written, you know, as a small child I wrote stories about my siblings. I wrote in each of my careers. What’s different now is that, I’ve switched to the world of novels.
So, I actually have three other books that are in the field of education. But this novel is a different journey to the three other books; they focused on education and how to improve the American High School. And they were both independently published, and traditionally published. This book is really a book that I wrote for myself thinking I was done.
I was at that in-between place in life where I wasn’t a full-time mom, because I had adult children. I wasn’t working the way I had been working traveling 200 days a year and my parents – one was deceased, and one was quite elderly. I asked the question, now what? And I wanted to solve that question the way I’ve done through many parts of my life.
Some people journal. I don’t regularly journal, but I wanted to sit down and write and pose a question for what does a woman – this woman, do to transition and leave their mark on the world. And suddenly it went from a small writing project to a novel. And then so many things that I did not anticipate.
Deborah: I find the transitions in our lives very interesting. People can take them two ways. Transitions come sometimes because of age, sometimes because of circumstance, sometimes they’re welcomed, and sometimes they come uninvited and unwanted, and there’s two ways you can deal with it. You can either be completely thrown off track and go into a depression or anxiety thinking, what am I going to do with my life?
Or, as you did, you can say, now what’s next? And see it as a great opportunity. What age were you when you came to write – fifties or sixties?
Grace: Well, I started writing in my forties for my profession, but when I switched to being a novelist, I was mid-fifties, I think.
Deborah: So, 10 years. It’s funny. It’s very similar to me. I’ve always written because I was writing papers for government, and reports, domestic homicide reviews, all sorts of things I was writing, but I started writing novels seriously in my mid-fifties. I think it’s a really good time to come to write – later in life, because I think that we come with so many advantages that we didn’t have when we were younger.
And it’s interesting because I’ve read debates on social media and in, and The Guardian newspaper, there was one where an award was being given for younger writers, not older writers. Or was it the other way around? Anyway, it stimulated a lot of debate, almost as if it was a competition.
Well, of course there’s no competition. Writing should cross all divides. It’s what connects us. But I personally I find there’s lots of advantages to writing later in life. What are your views on that?
Grace: I agree with you entirely, for several reasons. First, I think we have more life experience so we can reach back to our younger selves.
We have a different perspective on the older people that we’ve met and engaged with. So, we have a broader bandwidth of experience, but also, and this is, I think very true for me; I’m much more compassionate. I’m more compassionate for myself. I’m more compassionate for the younger me. I like that, that age experience has given us the gift of maybe not being as judgemental, so we can treat our characters differently.
Not that all of our characters are lovable and certainly my characters are very flawed, but I love that we can get into them in a way I don’t think I could have. I would’ve been pretending too much.
Deborah: It’s a really good point. It’s an emotional growth, and maturity, that you have later in life that you can bring into your stories.
I think there are other practical advantages too. If we are fortunate enough to be financially secure, we don’t have that, ‘I must earn a living through my writing.’ And having the time, if you’ve got young children. I have so much admiration for writers who are managing families and work, and still finding the time to write, because I don’t know that I could have done it.
I probably couldn’t, which is why I waited until I was able to manage my time better.
Grace: Oh, I agree with you entirely on that. I am involved with so many different author networks now. And to be watching these what I consider young moms who have kids and they’re still driving to soccer and they have that pressure of still having a regular job.
I find it amazing, the passion they can bring to the work that. When I was writing my books in my educational life, it was very tailored. It was a process. Also, when I was younger, we didn’t have the opportunities and the obligations of social media.
Deborah: That’s right. But you and I both have been successful business women and still are as authors. What we bring then from our work experience is: we are confident at public speaking, at marketing, at managing our finances. The list goes on. The different things that we’ve acquired through our work, which perhaps if you are younger, you haven’t got all that work experience either. I think the other thing is, is the confidence that we have in ourselves because we’ve already succeeded at things in our working life.
So, we perhaps have a bit more self-esteem and confidence about what we can achieve.
Grace: Yes. And I think with that, is that very real pressure that we don’t have. We do not need to make a business out of this, and that is a luxury. And I’m very aware that it is a luxury and to have the gift of self-confidence, but also to have the gift of not having to make it work and being delighted when you do get the royalty cheque or the speaker engagement. That is all now, at my age, a bonus. And I also want go back for a second to that idea of compassion, because I realize that this sense of self confidence is in part earned, but it’s also in part a gift in that I have been gifted with not having anxiety, not having chronic depression.
When I look at people in my sphere, whether they’re younger or older – that compassion I spoke about earlier. I used to poo poo quite honestly, you know? Oh, get over. It. Don’t be anxious. Or why are you depressed for this long? I think situational depression is something that I’m familiar with, as you alluded to in the beginning about, you know, sometimes these life changes come unexpected, but I’m very aware of the gift of not being anxious, not being chronically depressed.
So, it’s an opportunity to embrace the world every day in a way that not everyone can. And I want to be compassionate about that.
Deborah: Absolutely. A really good point. I think writing in a way is very cathartic and a really good way of helping people when they are in a dark place as well.
Have you always had a sense of purpose Grace?
Grace: That is a fabulous question because I don’t think I’ve always had a sense of purpose, but I do think what I had, and have, is always trying to find meaning in the moment. So even if it’s in a dark place, there’s that question of, How do I make this change?How do I get out of this? How do I learn from this? So, there have been many times, I think, where I don’t, or didn’t have a sense of purpose and meaning, but there were ways to find out about, How does that turn my life around? I’m not shy about expressing the fact that I was sexually abused as a child, and that was something certainly I wish I could have avoided, by a family friend.
But if I look at the ways that made me more compassionate, that it led me to my early work in education, to work with underserved communities that did not have a voice – their educational system, or in the volunteering that I have found always gives more back to me than I seem to give. So, I’ve done work with what we call here in the United States, Guardian ad Litem programs.
They’re basically. Programs where children are taken away from their families for neglect or abuse, and you don’t become their physical guardian, but you become their guardian for medical and legal, and the whole case management. So, I have found ways from a previous experience to give voice to a little girl that I was, who did not have a voice, but I’ve healed through that.
I’ve done a lot of work with Hospice. Giving voice to families as they release their loved one and giving love and support to that individual when they are in the process of dying. So, while there have been certainly many points in my life where I felt adrift, if I take that time to figure out, What is the meaning in this? What do I learn from that? Then, I begin to find purpose. And then I begin to find meaning, and then I find joy.
Deborah: That’s really interesting. Through your writing, you are giving voice to that child and I suspect you are giving voice to the people that you’ve spoken to and whose journeys you’ve shared professionally and throughout your life.
That connects us, doesn’t it. When you write something in a book and then somebody reads it and they respond to what you’ve expressed, that’s an amazing feeling. When you connect with readers.
Grace: That’s absolutely the best part of doing this. I love doing podcasts and, and you are so kind to have me on your new show, and I’m so excited about what you’re accomplishing here.
So, the opportunity to talk about writing, and our characters, because we all know that in our hearts, they’re very real people. I love it. Just this week, I got a letter, an email, and I love it when readers do that. And when I get that letter that says your book touched my soul on so many levels. Because what I try to accomplish in my book, The Eves is that the youngest character is 15. The oldest is 94. And there’s the main character who is hopelessly broken and she doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life. She has no sense of purpose. Her children are gone from her life. And the subtitle of the book is, when our stories are told- everything changes. And Jessica, that main character goes and meets this group of older women who are living on a farm in Maryland, above the beautiful Chesapeake Bay. By telling their oral histories, she begins to find her footing. So, I got this beautiful email the other day that said, You know, my children don’t talk to me. I don’t think there’s hope. I feel so broken. Like the main character in your book, I drink too much. And it was such … I was weeping at the gift she had given me.
And that is something that you hope to accomplish. The other thing that I really wanted to accomplish with the book was that people value the stories of older people. And to listen to those and to not stereotype those older people. Whether they’re authors of our age, if you will, or whether they’re much older, I want us still to have value, to be able to leave our mark on that world.
Deborah: Absolutely. And that is where we started: Writers leaving their mark on the world. It sounds like that is exactly what you are doing with your beautiful books. I’m really looking forward to reading. As you talk about it, I want to read it more and more, because all of my career I’ve worked with older people and now I’m in my entering my 60th decay. I’m probably becoming an older person.
My l first novel was about an older woman, and a younger woman, and about a community. So, lots of parallels. And that yours sounds wonderful. I’m really looking forward to reading it.
Grace: We’ll have to exchange novels, my friend.
Photo courteously of Timur Kozmenko Pixabay
Deborah: Absolutely. Yes, most definitely.
So, where do you think all that courage and resilience you have comes from? Because your life is a life well lived from how you’ve described it. You’ve had such challenges in your life, but you have this sort of radiance, strength, and compassion – as you say, for yourself. Where has all that come from? And have you always been like that or have you had to nurture it within yourself?
Grace: Oh, you know, I think I’m just lucky. I don’t know the answer to that. It was interesting, at some point when I was abused, I was twelve, my sister unfortunately was seven and we decided to confront all of this when we were in our late twenties. It was not a positive experience at all. When we tried to go to an adult, it happened to be a priest. So that was at the height of the priest scandal here in the United States. But one of the things that was a real jewel that came out of it was that one of the people we were trying to litigate said to me, You have turned your scars to stars. And I loved. I don’t know that it was true, but I loved the idea that not me – but that someone, could turn (because it didn’t feel that way to me), but that someone, could turn their scars to stars.
I don’t know where that sense of resilience comes from. I don’t know if it’s, you know, my parents were a – pick yourself up by your bootstraps, as we might say here.
I think also I got divorced, very young. I had a three-year-old and a six-year-old and I went two weeks to the day before Christmas. And I put my little son on the counter at the post office. I thought I was picking up Christmas presents, and it was my husband who I was still living with and thought, all was okay. Married to. And it was our divorce papers. Oh! And I went, Oh my goodness. And I still had to go home and have dinner on the table and make it Christmassy for the children. I would be the first to admit, I probably have gotten through a large portion of my life by, not denial – repression. So, you know, you deal with that later because you’ve got stuff to do now. And I think, you know, sometimes that old saying of fake it till you make it. But there still has to be – and this is my older wisdom, you’ve got to find the joy in every day, even in the bleakest of moments you’ve got to find that at least I had a proper cup of tea or I got a phone call from someone.
I think now, that is one of my big life lessons to find that joy in every day.
Deborah: That’s amazing. I love that. Turn your scars to stars. I’ve not heard that expression before. It’s beautiful, amazing. And find joy in every day. Do you go through a gratitude meditation or anything every day – systematically? Or do you actually think to yourself, What is the joy from today?
Grace: I do. I didn’t always. Several years ago I had a friend and we sat down and we talked and she was talking about gratitude. And she makes gratitude lists. And she gave me a pad where I could write the 10 things I was grateful for. And she shared her story so beautifully.
She had talked about a point in her life where she had a very cantankerous divorce, and she would just go to the beach and cry. And someone told her she needed to find joy and gratitude every day. And she thought that was preposterous. So, on her list, she would write down sand. Sand. Water. Beach. But what she found just from that act of mindfulness, she was able to grow that list and cry less because it was that: Sand. Seagull. Bird. Wave. Sunlight. Cloud. Rainbow. People chatting. People walking. And her list, really unbeknownst and unplanned to her, grew.
And I find that I do, when I put my head on the pillow at night I think, What a day. I don’t want to paint a rosy picture. There are so many times where I am overstressed and there are family issues to deal with and health issues within the family. I am at an age where sadly we have had 10 people since the first of the year – and we’re recording here in early April, who have died. So, I am at that age where that is going to be more common. You know, when we were younger, we went to lots of weddings. Now we go to lots of celebrations of life. So, I think that I do – I do put my head on the pillow every day and say, Oh my goodness, look at the things that happen.
I’m also incredibly lucky. There’s a character in my book, The Eves, his name is Roy Gill. Roy is the most upbeat, always happy, walks in the door, going, Greetings. Greetings. And he’s just a delight. He is also the least fictional character in my book. He is my husband. It is very hard to have down moments when you live with someone who finds joy in every day.
So, we look out the window and we go, ‘Oh, look, the storks are here. Or, ‘Oh, look, the Cardinals are at the bird feeder.’ We live in this perpetual moment of finding joy, even in the midst of wrestling with something very, very difficult.
Deborah: You bring joy. Just listening to you fills me with joy. So, thank you for that gift.
Grace: Thank you.
Deborah: You’ve imparted, so many wonderful words of wisdom. I won’t ask you specifically for words to a younger self, because you’ve got so many here – unless is there anything else that you would say to people who are perhaps at a difficult time in their life struggling, perhaps creatives, or people who think that all sounds great, but how – How do I do that?
You’ve given some great tips, like using gratitude to build joy. I love that. Is there anything else you’d like to impart?
Grace: Well first, I would say I’m not a Sage at all. I’m not a Sage on the stage. This is me today. And you know, that could change tomorrow. I’m very aware of that. Well at any age, it can change in a moment. Right? But I want people to know to be patient with themselves.
On my website, http://www.grace salmon.net. There are life lessons. As I mentioned, Jessica in my book is so horribly broken. She writes down what she hears people say, because she wants to remember. So, on my life, on my website and in my back of my book, there’s things that I call Jessica’s life lessons. And some of them are so mundane, like: Be kinder than you need to be. First do no harm. There’s a doctor in the book that she learns that basic truth from.
But I want us to be compassionate for ourselves, to set realistic expectations, to realize we are all going to fall. ‘This too shall pass,’ is something both of my parents said all of the time. And I think that when you’re in that dark place you don’t know that – you really don’t believe that. I know after my dad died my fabulous husband now, he decided that we weren’t going be together any longer. We’d only been married, nine and a half years. So, when my dad died 12 years ago, I took to my bed for six weeks. Not entirely, but pretty close. And I had a bossy girlfriend who finally came at like week five and said, ‘Stop this. This is nonsense. You have a life to live.’ And there’s a similar character in my book who tells Jessica the same thing.
So, listen to your bossy friends. They will be a lifeline for you. But basically, just be gentle with yourself. This too shall pass.
Deborah: That’s lovely. I’m going to end there because it’s so such a beautiful statement to end on. You’ve shared with us some wonderful thoughts that I shall include in the show notes, so people can return to them. Also, links to your book, The Eves, and to your website.
And so, thank you so much, Grace. It was absolute pleasure meeting and talking to you today.
Grace: It was a gift to be with you and great luck on this important podcast.
Deborah: Thank you.
I hope that you enjoyed that interview as much as I did. I was really inspired by Grace’s words of wisdom:
Turn those scars into stars.
Name something to be glad about however small and add to it.
As I said at the beginning of this episode, I now do that with my writing journey. It is too easy to focus on the things that disappoint us and forget our achievements, and joys.
Please drop me a line to share the joys of your writing journey, I would love to hear from you. dkauthor@btinternet.com
And so, until next week, take care of your beautiful self and trust the journey.
Deborah Klee 