Hannah Braime's Blog, page 5

Starting something new? You need to embrace a beginner’s mindset.

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Hi writers, bloggers, and authors! If you have big writing goals and aspirations but struggle to sit down and actually do the work on a regular basis, I have something for you…

My new Udemy course, Write Every Day, is all about starting a maintaining a sustainable long-term writing practice so you can build a body of work, reach your big writing goals, and share your gifts with the world. To celebrate its release, you can save 50% on the course price when you register before July 10th by clicking here and using the code BWYAREADER50.

Right now, I’m in the “saggy middle” of my next book. The first draft is done, and the second, and third, and… well, I’m very ready for it to be finished now :)

This part—the 80% done part—is where my self-doubt starts to creep in, big time. The part where I start thinking “Is this even any good? Will readers find it remotely useful? Is it even worth sharing?” By now, I know this is part of the process, because it’s happened every. single. time. Even though I’ve finished books before, each new book is its own challenge, stretches me in its own ways, and forces me to grow as a writer and a person.

With any big project, I go through three distinct phases:

The novelty. It’s new, it’s shiny, I’m rocking and rolling, woohoo!
The dip. It’s hard, I suck, will I ever be any good at this?
The crossroads. I want to be better at this than I am, surely I should be better at this by now? Maybe I should just quit…

By now, I know when I find myself in the place I described above (somewhere between the dip and the crossroads), the best course of action is to persevere. But that requires facing what radio host Ira Glass calls “the gap,” where my vision of what my writing should look like exceeds my skill level right now. And this is where embracing a beginner’s mindset becomes crucial, because although that gap might never close completely, it’s a beginner’s mindset that will help me make it smaller and smaller.

As a typical type-A raised to believe in results and gold stars, being a beginner has historically been an awkward, uncomfortable and somewhat embarrassing phase to get through as soon as possible. But in rushing to graduate beginner-dom, I’ve closed myself off to new opportunities. I’ve avoided doing the work I need to do to improve. I’ve dropped projects prematurely.  Hardest of all, I’ve looked back with regret at things I didn’t do for no other reason than because they just felt too uncomfortable.

The fact is everyone starts as a beginner. And, it’s only through a willingness to embrace a beginner’s mindset, even when doing something I’ve done several time before, that I’ve found creative fulfilment and joy.

The Four Stages of Competence

[image error]Whenever you learn anything new, there are four key stages you go through. You don’t always reach all these stages. Sometimes, what you’re learning isn’t a huge priority. Sometimes, you decide where you are is good enough. Sometimes, you get discouraged and give up, losing the opportunity to progress to the next stage. In order to get started on this path, though, you need to embrace a beginner’s mindset.

When you first start out with a new activity or skill, you have unconscious incompetence. In other words, you don’t know much—and you don’t yet know just how much you don’t know!

The next stage, and the one that poses the most challenges when it comes to creative pursuits, is conscious incompetence. When you’re in this stage, you’re aware of how much you don’t know. Especially in the initial stages of this phase, however, you might not yet know how to change that.

If you’re willing to do the work, eventually you will move to conscious competence. This is where you are getting better at what you’re doing, but you still need to think about it to get it right. Although you might feel buoyed by progress, the amount of energy this stage takes can be draining.

Finally, if you stick with it, you reach the stage of unconscious incompetence. This is the hallowed stage where the skill or activity in question becomes as natural as riding a bike. It becomes second nature and something you can do on autopilot.

But your journey doesn’t end there.

Growth is a constant process. If you want to keep growing and improving yourself, your work, your creative pursuits, you’re going to keep cycling through these four stages. Once you’ve reached conscious competence in one stage of our business, as soon as we decide to level up, we’re going to be thrown right back into unconscious incompetence again.

So how can you get comfortable with a beginner’s mindset?

1. Remember the stages. I’ve found it helpful just remembering the stages of competence and realising “Oh, I’m in the conscious incompetence phase right now and that’s why this feels so hard.” I also know that if I’m willing to keep going, then it will start to get easier.

2. Deliberate practice. In his book So Good They Can’t Ignore You, Cal Newport talks about the importance of deliberate practice. This is the kind of practice that stretches you past your comfort zone and invites feedback on your performance. It’s not comfortable, it’s not always fun, but it’s necessary to move to the next stage of competence.

3. Be open to detours. Remember there isn’t just one right path to a destination. When life and work gets challenging, I am susceptible to looking at other people and assume they’re further ahead than I am. Appearances, though, can be deceiving. Whatever path you’re on is the right path for you, so embrace it and make it your own.

Over to you: how do you deal with being a beginner in life and work? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

 

Photo by Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash

The post Starting something new? You need to embrace a beginner’s mindset. appeared first on Becoming Who You Are.

               

Calling All Authors, Bloggers, and Writers!

The last few weeks, I’ve been working on a new Udemy course designed especially for writers. Today, I’m excited to share Write Every Day: Start and Maintain a Daily Writing Habit is available now.

This course is designed for authors, bloggers, and freelance writers who are working on big writing projects and want to build a body of work, plus anyone who wants to flex their creative muscles by starting a new daily creative practice.

It covers topics like getting started with and maintaining a writing habit, making time to write, mindset, your identity as a writer, and overcoming some of the most common obstacles and challenges regular writers face.

Over the last year, I’ve mostly been coaching writers, artists and other creators as they work through big projects (finishing novels, starting blogs, restarting their art practice, etc.). This course distills some of the most common questions and topics that have come up through that, shared in bite-size lessons, worksheets, and resources.

Here’s the description of the course from Udemy:

Create a regular writing habit that builds your confidence, creates solid, sustainable progress, and enables you to reach your biggest writing-related goals

Discover how to start and maintain a regular writing practice
Set yourself up for success with the right mindset and environment
Create a writing habit that supports your health and happiness, as well as your goals
Learn how to overcome procrastination, resistance, and other common challenges regular writers encounter

Harness the power of a daily writing practice and watch your skill and confidence grow

The difference between aspiring writers and actual writers is writing. 

Writers write. Whether you want to write a book, start a blog, finish your dissertation, or complete client projects, a regular writing practice will help you do so in an efficient and sustainable way. It’s the best and arguably only way to create a body of work without giving up on your writing goals and dreams or, at the other end of the spectrum, experiencing burnout.

Contents and overview 

This course contains 32 lessons and 2 hours of content.

It’s designed for new writers who want to make the most of the time they have and start their writing career with good habits in place. It’s also for more experienced writers who are struggling to maintain a regular practice and want to learn how to create a writing habit, as well as support themselves with the emotional ups and downs of the writing journey.

To start, you’ll discover a simple writing practice that works with any schedule and will help you kickstart your new writing habit. You’ll also learn how to grow your practice and dig deep into your identity as a writer, looking at what motivates you, what your ideal writing life looks like, and how writing fits with the other important areas and elements of your life. With a strong foundation in place, the course also covers how to deal with the most common challenges and obstacles writers face, including procrastination, struggling to finish projects, self-criticism, and more. 

Whether you’re writing purely for personal pleasure, to further your career, or as a side project, having a regular writing practice is a hugely rewarding and fulfilling habit that will enrich your life across the board. This course will give you the tools to get writing and stay writing, whatever else is on your plate.

From now until 10th July, you can save 50% on the course price and register for just £9.99 by clicking here and using the code BWYAREADER50.

If you have any questions, get in touch. I hope you enjoy the course!

 

P.S. I’m aware this is somewhat of a departure from the kinds of topics I usually talk about on Becoming Who You Are and won’t be relevant to everyone. Writers, I hope you find it useful, but non-writers, don’t worry, I’m not abandoning you! I will have more personal growth-related goodness coming for you very soon :)

Photo by Art Lasovsky on Unsplash

The post Calling All Authors, Bloggers, and Writers! appeared first on Becoming Who You Are.

               

How to Put Personal Growth Lessons into Practice

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I walk up to my dryer and begin pulling crisp, warm sheets from the machine into my bag, aware as I do so a man is hovering at the side of the shop watching—no, scowling. “These have all been done for at least 30 minutes,” he says, gesturing to the wall of dryers. “I’ve been waiting here the whole time for someone to come and get their washing.”

Trying to adopt a firm-but-not-defensive tone, I tell him I know my dryer only finished a few minutes ago because I set a timer. But inside, I’m on red alert. I’m already thinking I’ll probably let him use my machine when I’m done, even though I have another load of damp washing waiting to go in. And I do because I’d rather inconvenience myself than deal with the awkwardness and discomfort of him standing there, radiating annoyance in my direction while I transfer my clothes.

Five minutes after he leaves, I’m still standing in the laundrette, wondering what to do with my damp washing and feeling frustrated with myself for not responding like a mature adult who has as much right to use a dryer as everyone else.

Behind my frustration is the knowledge this is by no means the first time this kind of situation has happened. I have a history of panicking if I sense someone is annoyed with me and, although it’s getting better (sharing stuff on the internet is good exposure therapy), there was obviously a way left to go. After the incident with the dryer, I realised that although I knew the lesson on an intellectual level–somebody else’s negative feelings are not an emergency!–I wasn’t yet putting it into practice and living it.

Whenever a reader like yourself joins the Becoming Who You Are Library, I ask them what their main challenge is right now. This is something I hear often in response: “I know what I should be doing, but I’m just not doing it.”

I hear you: learning the lesson is one thing, putting it into practice is quite another. I know first-hand how easy it is to read personal growth books, watch videos, go to talks, seminars, etc. It’s quite another to put the lessons I learn through these opportunities into practice and actually live them.

Here are a few things I’ve found helpful with my own lessons so far:

1. Start with one thing and see it through

I am unashamedly obsessed with self-improvement, which can be fun, exciting, and filled with possibility, but can also leave me feeling like I want to change all the things right now.

Taking on too much change at once is overwhelming, disheartening, and one of the most common self-sabotaging ways to ensure you change nothing at all.

I find changes in my life are most successful and sticky when I make them one at a time, when I choose one thing, commit my full attention and focus to it, and see it through before moving on to something else.

2. Start small and make it easy

When I’m coaching writers, I suggest starting with writing for two minutes a day and building up from there. Two minutes isn’t much, but the duration isn’t the point—it’s the consistency. The more someone can get used to sitting down and writing on a regular basis, the easier it will be to continue that habit, however long they end up writing for each session.

The same applies to any new habit or behaviour you want to adopt. Starting small and focusing on easy wins creates a snowball effect, giving you a greater sense of momentum and, with that, deeper confidence in your ability to see the change through.

3. Expect it to be doable, but not easy.

A few years ago, during a birth preparation class, the facilitator shared the advice: “Hope for the best, plan for the worst.” This was great advice, not only for the birth process but also for life in general.

If we approach putting a personal growth lesson into practice thinking “Urgh, this is going to be so hard!” then we’re setting ourselves up to struggle. Likewise, if we go in thinking “This is going to piece of cake…” then the first challenge we encounter is likely to catch us off-guard and leave us doubting our ability to see this thing through.

There’s a sweet spot in the middle that looks something like: “This is doable. I don’t expect it to be easy, but I know I can make it happen.” Here, we’re expecting the challenges, we’re prepared for them, but we also have confidence in our ability to face any obstacles head on and make the changes we want to make.

4. Make time to review what you’ve learned

If you’re learning a language, part of the learning process involves reviewing new grammar and vocabulary in order to commit it to long-term memory. The same practice applies to your personal growth too.

I find it helpful to make notes on books I read, ideas I hear in podcasts and interviews, and anything I come across in daily life that resonates with me. Then, I review these ideas and lessons on a regular basis. The more I can do this, the more likely I am to internalise them. While I still only focus on actioning one lesson at a time, the review process helps me keep other lessons at the forefront of my mind and makes me more likely to remember them in relevant situations.

5. Clarity

Most personal growth lessons are abstract. Part of the challenge of putting these lessons into practice involves bridging the gap between the abstract lesson or principle and what it looks like in practice, especially what it looks like to you, personally, in your daily life.

For example, let’s say you’re reading something about boundaries and you see the following words: “Boundaries are a gate, not a wall. They keep the bad out and let the good in.” These sentences hit home and you re-read them, thinking “That makes so much sense! I’ve never thought of it like that before.”

So what do you do next? The first step is to ask: why does this resonate? What in my life does this make me think of, and what does it inspire me to do differently? Once you’ve identified that, I find it helpful to take a specific situation and rewrite it, imagining how I would have felt, thought, and behaved if I were living the lesson. This retrospective re-writing helps me practice the lesson in private, with the aim of eventually moving these changes into real time.

6. Patience

You are an amazing, complex, deep, and mysterious human being. And, like any amazing, complex, deep and mysterious subject, learning about yourself will take time. The bigger the lesson, the longer it will take. And that’s OK.

The good news, in the words of Pema Chodron, is that “Nothing goes away until it teaches us what we need to know.”

Be kind, be patient, and embrace wherever you are right now. The joy is in the journey.

 

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The Solution to Self-Criticism is Never More Criticism

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Jerk.


Gremlin.


Monster.


A-hole.

These are some of the many names I’ve seen used to describe our inner critic. You know, that voice in our head that tells us all the ways in which we’re falling short, screwing up, not good enough, and… well, you know what I’m talking about. No need for further explanation, right?

I understand the name-calling. If someone is screaming nasty, vicious, and character-shredding things, I have a choice: scream back, crumble, or leave (usually the best option).

But when it’s me saying those things to myself, there is no leaving.

So I try to ignore, I try to pretend it doesn’t exist, doesn’t bother me, I listen to positive affirmations that tell me yes, I am a beautiful flower, inside and out! But behind these words is my inner critic, chanting “Wrooooooooooong.” And at some point I  have to fight the urge to snap back, “For the love of all that is good and reasonable, please shut the f*** up.”

There is a special kind of frustration and fatigue that comes with a vocal inner critic, saying nasty things to you day in, day out. It’s soul-destroying, and telling it where to get off can feel bold! Empowering! Like you’re taking back control!

But I also think that’s when the self-war really starts.

Years ago, I heard someone (I can’t remember who now) talk about the dynamics between therapists and clients and how the therapist has a choice: he either allows the client to pull him into their world or he encourages the client to step into his.

I think the same dynamic applies to our inner critics. We can either lower ourselves—our behaviour, communication, standards—to their level. We can shout back, name-call, say things about it that are as nasty as the things they say to us. Or, we can encourage them to rise to our standards and model what fair, compassionate communication looks like.

The solution to self-criticism is never more criticism. Of ourselves, or of our inner critics.

So what is?

Compassion, yes. But when that feels too far out of reach, I prefer to go for acceptance. And when that feels too far out of reach, simply witnessing. Practising being an impartial observer. Noticing the thoughts running through my head, the feelings those thoughts provoke, and what I want (or don’t want) to do as a result of those feelings.  Noticing all of this with the lens of “Huh, that’s interesting.” Noticing these pieces all fit together in a jigsaw of “Stuff I’m still working on (and that’s OK).”

I once heard someone talking about what people want—really, truly want (again, I can’t remember who—I need to start writing these things down in the moment…). This person said it boiled down to wanting someone to see us for all and everything we are and say “I hear you, I see you, and I understand you.” I don’t know about you, but I think the person it is most difficult for me to say these words to with sincerity is myself, including my inner critic.

So I start with one piece at a time.

OK, inner critic, I hear you. I don’t agree with you, I don’t accept what you’re saying as de facto truth and I’m certainly not buying into these stories you’re selling, but I will not fight you anymore.

OK, inner critic, I see you. I see beneath your anger, vitriol and incessant nagging to fear. A deep well of fear and scarcity that has nothing to do with me as a person and everything to do with your beliefs about the world and my place in it. Here, I’m giving you back these beliefs because they belong to you. I see you as a part of me, and I also see you don’t represent me as a whole.

OK, inner critic, I understand you. I see you trying to keep me small, hidden, sticking to the rules and the script—to you, this is safety. I see that deep down you’re trying to protect me from the things you fear the most—rejection, abandonment, external criticism, and other psychological threats.

These pieces are not set in stone. Sometimes I need to stop and ask myself: how would I want to be treated if I were having a tough time? If I were mired in fear and anxiety?  When I respond to my inner critic, this is me responding to a part of myself. So it’s my responsibility to treat myself how I want to be treated.

What do you think about this and how do you deal with your inner critic? I would love to hear your experience so feel free to leave a comment.

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

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In Defence of Being “Average”

It’s average.

Imagine someone is describing a skill or project of yours as average. How does it feel to hear that?

For a lot of us, it’s uncomfortable, even painful. Most of us still use the same scale of judgement we encountered in school, where above average = the right place to be, below average = the wrong place to be. Even though average is bang in the middle, it’s not enough to be in the middle anymore. We feel to pressure to be excellent, stand-out, special.

So we avoid average like the plague.

We ditch that writing class we tried once—and secretly enjoyed—because “I just wasn’t very good at it.” We disown our desire to take our paintings to a local art fair because “There are going to be people there who are way better at this than me.” We squirrel away our big ideas, our rough drafts, and our creative lives until we can be sure they meet that magical standard of being “above average.”

Or, we kid ourselves. A few years ago, a study found that when it comes to driving, most people think they are above average drivers. But most people can’t be above average, that’s not how averages work! Sometimes, we’re so averse to being “just average,” we attempt to make the leap from zero to great without a) putting in the work and due diligence, or b) being open to and aware of feedback or evidence to the contrary. The unfortunate thing is when we do this, we don’t accept the reality of where we are and what we need to do to get to where we’d like to be. We’re so invested in proving we’re above average, we don’t give ourselves the space to do the work and make the improvements that are crucial to becoming so.

The truth?

Average is just a stop on a long journey towards being good, great, even excellent—if you want to be those things. But you also don’t have to be good at something to justify doing it. If you like doing yoga once or twice a week and are perfectly happy sticking with the beginner’s class (even though you could move on), that’s A-OK! Just because you can push yourself doesn’t mean you should.

If you want to be good at something, that is 100% doable. But you need to embrace your averageness first.

Average isn’t a state of being, a final stamp of quality. It’s simply a stop we all pass through, whether we like it or not.

Mastery doesn’t just happen. Before we can be great at something, we need to be good. Before we can be good at something, we need to be average.

When we vilify being average, we turn it into something to be ashamed of. It becomes something we avoid, hide from, pretend doesn’t exist.

But even the people who are the best in the world at what they do didn’t start out that way. They started out at average, even below average, just like the rest of us.

So forget the stigma that comes with being “just” average. It might be where you are right now, but that’s an exciting, possibility-filled place to be.

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Photo by Thomas Lefebvre on Unsplash

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How to Reconnect and Repair Intimacy After Conflict

This is a guest post by Sylvia Smith.

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In the course of your relationship, conflict is bound to happen. So what happens when the discord escalates from a mildly irritating disagreement to a full-blown heartbreak? Hurtful arguments and other forms of betrayal, such as infidelity, can create obvious problems in your love paradise.

Both the emotional and physical bond you share with your partner is important for a healthy, happy union. But it can be difficult to want to share your heart or your body with someone after you have been through a conflict together.

Recovering from an affair or another form of betrayal can wreak havoc on your healing process, especially when it comes to the intimacy that you share with your significant other. How can you restore intimacy in your relationship after a betrayal?

Here are 8 tips for recovering from the damages of a conflict or betrayal:

Talk and Talk and Talk

Bodies, minds, and hearts work in unison when a betrayal or relationship conflict has occurred. They all become closed off to your partner after there has been a strain in your partnership.

In order to restore your connection to your companion, you need to communicate openly about the conflict. Be calm and honest with one another about the problems in your relationship. Only then will you be able to establish intimacy and work on rebuilding trust.

Apologize to Each Other

It’s easy to focus on your partner’s wrongdoings during a conflict, but remember that it takes two to tango. In order to move on after things have turned sour, both offending parties should accept responsibility for the role they played in the incident and genuinely apologize before taking the next step to move on.

Problem Solve

How did the estrangement occur? Was it a lack of communication or too much alcohol that led you to say things you shouldn’t have? Was there a seemingly ‘innocent’ incident on social media that led to an emotional or physical affair?

Instead of attacking one another, focus on solving the problem at hand. The solution to your relationship upheavals may be as simple as practicing different communication methods or as complicated as seeing a marital therapist to work on your issues.

Whatever your method for problem-solving, you cannot move on and begin to restore intimacy unless you figure out what went wrong in the relationship and how to prevent it from happening again.

Build Your Bond

Whether you’ve been through an intense fight or a mind-numbing betrayal such as infidelity, it can be difficult to focus on anything else when you’re together.

Now that you’ve talked about your issues and you’ve both taken responsibility for the marital conflict, it’s time to start rebuilding your bond.

Ignoring your problems is not healthy, but sometimes you’ll need to table your conflict discussion. Healing takes time, patience, love, and effort. It can be difficult to move on and strengthen your relationship if your hurtful conflict is constantly being brought up.

Practice a regular date night together. This way you can have one day or night a week where you don’t bring up issues plaguing your relationship. Instead, focus on having fun together. Plan dates and focus on romance.

Focus on Emotional Intimacy

There is more to an intimate bond than having sex. One way you can work on reconnecting intimately is by using non-sexual intimacy.

Emotional intimacy comes from having deep conversations with one another and sharing in non-sexual touch. Expressing love or appreciation, hugging , kissing one another, caressing, and admiring one another without sex are all excellent building blocks to restoring a physical connection.

Reconnect Intimately

Reconnecting intimately after your bonds have been broken can be difficult. The last thing you want to do to someone who has broken your trust or hurt your feelings is create a sexual connection with them. Yet, that is what many couples need in order to start trusting one another again.

Thus, a vicious cycle begins:

1. Trust is broken.

2. You want to be intimate with your partner.

3. The thought of being intimate after betrayal then frustrates, repulses, or upsets you.

4. You draw away from your partner.

This cycle can cause irreversible damage. Of course, you do not want to force intimacy, and true repentance and forgiveness should occur before you begin fixing your relationship. Still, it is important to note how important intimacy is within relationships after experiencing a traumatic experience.

Being sexually intimate with one another creates an incomparable. The oxytocin released during sex makes you feel good about your partner and the relationship you created together.

Scientifically, these hormones are responsible for building trust and emotional connections. They’re brought on by sexual and non-sexual touching. This building of trust between partners is what you will need to restore your connection.

Intimacy Doesn’t Happen Overnight

Betrayal hurts, words hurt, and being in love, well, sometimes that hurts too. But it will get better if you give it time. Repairing the bridge to intimacy with your partner doesn’t happen overnight, so don’t be discouraged if you haven’t been able to get there yet.

Continue communicating with your spouse and work on restoring your romantic relationship and emotional connection. Intimacy will soon follow.

Whether an argument or a hurtful life event, restoring bonds of intimacy can be difficult after a series of distressful conflicts have happened. In order to restore intimacy in your space with your partner, you need to take time for yourself, accept responsibility for your role in the conflict, and communicate regularly with one another.

About Sylvia

Sylvia Smith is a relationship expert with years of experience in training and helping couples. She has helped countless individuals and organizations around the world, offering effective and efficient solutions for healthy and successful relationships. Her mission is to provide inspiration, support and empowerment to everyone on their journey to a great marriage. She is a featured writer for Marriage.com, a reliable resource to support healthy happy marriages.

Photo by Felix Russell-Saw on Unsplash

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Bonus episode: Journaling as Creative Self-Discovery with Tiina Mokvist (from the Your Own Kind of Wonderful podcast)

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I recently spoke to Tiina Mokvist from the Your Own Kind of Wonderful podcast about using journaling for creative self-discovery and I’m sharing our conversation with your today as a bonus episode of the Becoming Who You Are podcast. One of the things I appreciate about this conversation was that Tiina was new to journaling at the time of recording, so we talk a lot about resistance, dealing with our inner critics, and other things that can get in the way of our writing, as well as how to begin.

Here is what she says about the episode:

‘When you write, there is an act of slowing down. When we slow down our thoughts, it can help provide us clarity.’ Hannah Braime

In this month’s episode of Your own kind of wonderful, my guest Hannah Braime talks about Journaling and its ability to help us discover who we are. Hannah introduces us to what Journaling is, how powerful it can be and suggests some techniques to get us started. The resistances to starting this practice, such as time, our inner critic and privacy, are all approached with great clarity and Hannah’s personal experience and wonderful passion for this subject will inspire you to introduce Journaling in your life.

Head to Soundcloud to hear the whole episode:

Useful Links

The Your Own Kind of Wonderful podcast

Say Hello

Tiina


Facebook: facebook.com/ownkindofwonderful/


Twitter: @tiinamokvist


Website: ownkindofwonderful.com

Hannah


Pinterest: pinterest.com/hannahbraime


Facebook: facebook.com/becomingwhoyouare


Website: becomingwhoyouare.net

Subscribe to the Podcast

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Intro and outro: Stephanie Murphy

Photo by Hannah Olinger on Unsplash

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Using Journaling to Solve Life’s Biggest Challenges

Although I’ve journaled most of my life, the kind of journaling I find most helpful has shifted over the years. When I was younger, my journaling was mostly about what happened and what I did that day. In my early twenties, facing much deeper life challenges than playground tiffs and homework, I discovered the art of therapeutic journaling.

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Therapeutic journaling goes deeper than talking about bare facts and events; it’s about writing with the intention to process and heal.

This kind of journaling entered my life at a time when I was struggling with family issues, problems in relationships, a lack of clarity around where my life was heading (and whether it was even worth living), and a vocal inner critic that seemed determined to keep me feeling small and unworthy.

Although therapeutic journaling wasn’t the only thing that helped me through this time and the challenging periods I’ve faced since (among other things, talk therapy has also been invaluable), it is something I’ve been able to use to grow beyond these challenges and into a richer and more fully-lived life.

I recently shared some of the ways in which I use therapeutic journaling to grow through life’s challenges in a guest post on Purpose Fairy. These practices have been immensely helpful for me, and I hope they are useful for you too!

Therapeutic Journaling: How to Use Journaling to Help Solve Life’s Biggest Challenges

If you enjoyed this post and would like more prompts and techniques for your journaling practice, I invite you to check out my books The Ultimate Guide to Journaling and The Year of You: 365 Journal Writing Prompts for Creative Self-Discovery. Click the links below to view the books on Amazon or purchase them directly from the Becoming Who You Are shop.

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The Ultimate Guide to Journaling




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The Year of You: 365 Journal Writing Prompts for Creative Self-Discovery




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The Tale of the Two Arrows

When we face challenges or fall on hard times, when we are struggling in one or more relationships or experiencing some kind of professional or personal setback, what role does self-criticism play?

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If you had asked me this question a few years ago, I would have said self-criticism was necessary so I did better next time. But is that true? This is one of the many inner critic-related questions I’ve been exploring over the last few years. Repeatedly (although my inner critic wants to convince me otherwise!) the answer is “No.”

Recently, I heard an episode of the podcast Unruffled with Janet Lansbury in which she interviewed her sister-in-law, psychotherapist Tasha Lansbury. The podcast is about parenting so their conversation was specific to parenting challenges, but the analogy Tasha shared applies to daily situations that occur across every area of life. This inspired the post I share with you today:

Imagine a bow with two arrows, one of which has already been released.

The first arrow is a difficult life event, challenge, or issue. It’s arguing with your spouse or kid, it’s losing your job, it’s finding out you have a serious illness.

The second arrow, which is in the bow, ready to be released, is your judgement, criticism, or negative thoughts about the first arrow.

It’s beating yourself up, blaming yourself, sliding into a victim mindset, allowing your inner critic to take over and run the show.

When you shoot this second arrow, you do so straight into the wound caused by the first, making it deeper, wider, more painful.

You don’t need to shoot this second arrow.

The first arrow is painful enough; you already have enough to deal with.

Instead of shooting the second arrow into the wound of the first and making it worse, we can choose to begin healing. That starts not with self-blame or self-pity, but with self-compassion.

So how does self-compassion help during challenging times? We all know having someone show compassion and empathy for us is more helpful than having someone criticise us when we’re already down, and the same principle applies to our relationship with ourselves too.

Studies (such as this one quoted in Psychology Today) have suggested people who practice a self-compassionate mindset are more likely to take corrective action, improve on previous mistakes or failings, and do so with a greater sense of optimism than those who don’t. When I think back to times my inner critic has gone on the rampage in the past, the feelings of shame provoked by this inner voice made me more likely to bury my head in the sand and pretend nothing had happened than to course correct and learn from the experience.

One way to invoke a more self-compassionate response, as demonstrated in the studies above, is to use journaling. The researchers asked participants to spend just three minutes writing their response to this question:

“Imagine that you are talking to yourself about this weakness/action from a compassionate and understanding perspective. What would you say?”

So, when times are tough, put down that second arrow and pick up a pen instead! Look at the situation—and yourself—through a compassionate lens. Be open to exploring what steps you need to take to make things better, or what you could improve upon next time. And do so not from a place of self-blame or judgement, but from accepting the fact you are human and the best way forward lies in self-compassion.

Further reading: Evolution, Growth, and Finding Your Golden Buddha & What Japanese Pottery Can Teach Us About Feeling Flawed

Photo by Denise Johnson on Unsplash

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Daily Practices to Decrease Anxiety

This is a guest post by Marie Miguel.

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Life can be a stressful affair, filled with unreasonable colleagues, maniacal drivers and a thousand niggling distractions that sometimes seem to take up far more than 24 hours a day. While these frustrations and worries seem to just slide off some people, others tend to accumulate mental strain despite trying to relax.

Constant mental anxiety can easily make a person’s life a misery. A moderate amount can help us focus and face challenges more effectively, but anxiety that persists for too long can easily turn into depression, lead to panic attacks and even have a serious impact on your physical health.

The good news is that there are some habits and exercises that anyone can use to get rid of anxiety. If you’re frequently nervous, find it difficult to concentrate and tend to expect the worst outcome in every situation, simply learning a few tricks designed to help you relax may be all you need to improve your overall happiness.

Devote Some Time Each Day to Reflection

In between work, taking care of family and all of the distractions modern life entails, we often neglect actually thinking about where we are in life and where we are heading. Setting aside a period each day specifically for examining your circumstances and how you feel about them can be a great way to get clarity on your emotions and what to do about them.

Journaling every day about whatever happens to be on your mind is not only a great way of managing your state of mind, but allows you to look back over previous weeks to discover what common themes exist in your life. Other options are meditation or simply taking a few minutes at bedtime to review the important events of the day.

Join a Gym or Buy Some Running Shoes

As more and more people are learning, regular exercise lowers your blood pressure in more ways than one. Aside from the health benefits and making you feel much more energized, even moderate amounts of physical activity have been proven to contribute greatly to better mental health, including feeling less anxious. Exercise also improves your sleep cycle, makes you better able to remember things and of course reduces your risk of several types of chronic disease.

Learn to Talk About What’s Bothering You

A child learns to talk within only a few years, yet surprisingly, most people never really learn to communicate. In particular, many of us haven’t mastered the skills involved in handling contentious issues or explaining how we are really feeling.

This is unfortunate: being able to talk about such things not only helps to avoid and defuse conflict, but is also a great way to gain a broader perspective on life in general. For many people, regularly talking to a trusted friend or spouse is all that’s needed to keep them from making emotional molehills into mountains, but professional counseling is also a good choice – especially if you often feel anxious.

Pay Attention to Your Breathing and Posture

Perhaps due to the modern, sedentary lifestyle, most people are used to breathing very shallowly. Using only a small fraction of your lung capacity means that less oxygen makes it into your bloodstream and from there to your brain. This can, by itself, make you feel more tense and decrease your mental acuity. Even worse, the more stressed you get, the more your chest tends to close up, leading to a catch-22 situation.

Although none of us want to be conscious of our breathing all of the time, practicing deep breathing is one of the simplest, fastest ways to stop your thoughts from running away from you. Simply place a hand on your abdomen and feel it expanding as you breathe through your nose, making sure that you empty your lungs completely on the exhale.

On a closely related note, not sitting up straight or slouching your shoulders will certainly affect your breathing, but also plays a more direct role in how you feel. Scientists studying how humans show emotions have found that our posture and facial expressions actually affect our feelings, so if you’re under pressure, “turning that frown upside down” may be less trite advice than you think.

About Marie

[image error]Marie Miguel has been a writing and research expert for nearly a decade, covering a variety of health-related topics. Currently, she is contributing to the expansion and growth of a free online mental health resource with BetterHelp.com. With an interest and dedication to addressing stigmas associated with mental health, she continues to specifically target subjects related to anxiety and depression.

Would you like to submit a guest post to Becoming Who You Are? I’d love to hear from you! Find out more and read the posting guidelines here.

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