Tag: gladness

Day 1 – Filing

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Writing into Life

Lydia is loving this summer.

She soaks up the sun when she wants to, and searches out shady spots when she needs to cool down.

We have a good walk together, mid- to late morning.

I still find the ‘waking up and getting out of bed’ bit of the day very difficult. But I do it, with the help of a routine which involves meditating and sitting quietly with a cup of tea before I do anything else. And this morning I did get myself out of bed a bit earlier than I have been doing, so something must be working.

Over the last couple of weeks, as well as preparing paperback versions of my two latest books, I’ve also taken part in an open mic poetry session at a local library. This was so inspirational not least because the library is in my home town, and I don’t have many positive associations with my home town, due to what I now realise is the trauma I experienced as a child. I disassociated, went into survival mode, and the rest isn’t history because I can hardly remember any of it. But it doesn’t matter.  I’ve realised it doesn’t matter because it’s in the past, and I’m living my best life today.

What constitutes a ‘best life’ for me though, doesn’t mean that I need to go on exotic holidays or do ‘special’ stuff all the time. It’s the ‘small’ everyday stuff that does it for me, most of the time. Yes, I like to go out for meals, have treats and takeaways, holidays occasionally, but I don’t want to miss out on what I have around me, in the here and now, every day.

And that includes attending to my own personal paperwork – and filing.

Historically I haven’t been the best at this, although steadily, during the process of my recovery, I have been pulling chaos into order, establishing priorities and making sure that I don’t leave a pile of debris in my wake (literally, in my wake, i.e. when I do ‘pop my clogs’ my affairs are going to be so simple for the Executor to administer).

I first started developing a set of ‘rules for self-management’ some time ago, as an antidote for having been badly managed by others.  Ideas for these rules popped into my head from time to time and I wrote them down, not knowing what I was going to do with them, or when I would be able to do anything with them.  The self-management rules became ‘poetry rules’ for a while, as I related some of my poems to the inherent principles within.

Now I’m back to thinking again in terms of self-management, and I’m going to steadily work through my rules, applying them to my life as I continue to walk and work with Lydia, write this blog, live with my partner, meet up with friends and neighbours, write more poems, make more pots. I’m going to do my own filing as well along with a lot of other things I want and need to do.

Ambitions

Gleeful

Wild

Outrageous

Contagious

Cheerful

Fearful

Full

Respectful

Disrespectful

Mad

Sad

Glad

Cook

Read a Book

Make Tea

Dance

Romance

Work

Shirk

Naughty

Nosy

Silly

Me.

Available on Amazon for Kindle and Kindle Unlimited:

Rules, Rhymes, Recovery, Recipe, Random – Glad About Life – https://amzn.eu/d/1ljZIDA

A Woman, a Dog & a Blog – Writing into Life – https://amzn.eu/d/0wj6lWa

The paperback versions will be available soon.

Day 28

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Continuing the story of Lydia and Me

As this 28-day cycle of journaling/blogging comes to a close, I reflect on how far I’ve come in being able to make the most of every day as I do, after the journey of mental health breakdown and recovery that I’ve had, for most of my so far 69 years.

I’m now going to have a short break from writing while I put together a two-volume book of the story of Lydia and me so far. While I’m doing this, I will re-post a blog from the past every day.

A full collection of my earlier blogs, from March 2020 to September 2024, is now available on Amazon for Kindle:

Rules, Rhymes, Recovery, Recipe, Random: Glad About Life https://amzn.eu/d/gAIIf8A

‘Rules’ came originally from a set of ‘self-management rules’ that I devised, largely to reflect on some of the very negative experiences I’d had of being managed by others. I later developed these Rules into ‘Poetry Rules’, relating them to poems that I wrote or had previously written.

‘Rhymes’ are my poems, even though not all my poems rhyme.  I just like writing them, expressing myself through words in whatever way I choose.

‘Recovery’ pieces reflect on different approaches and factors that influence mental health and wellbeing, including barriers to recovery.

‘Recipe’ is largely focused on one dish, but it’s an important one: Leftovers Soup.

‘Random’ – well, anything that didn’t quite fit in to the other categories but wanted to include anyway.

Step by step, day by day, the story of Lydia and me continues, and I’ll continue to record it at https://gladabout.life/.

Bon voyage!

Day 18

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Continuing the story of Lydia and Me https://amzn.eu/d/99yW3Qk

The Buddhist teaching at last night’s meeting was led by a nun from the local Centre.

She introduced the idea that the children’s story of Polyanna could be likened to the teachings of Buddha, with reference to Polyanna’s ‘glad game’. I’m not familiar with the story of Polyanna but I was surprised and pleased to hear about the glad game, bearing in mind the name of this blog site – gladabout.life – and the name of my ceramics business – Glad About Ceramics.

I came up with these names because I wanted to be glad, to move away from sad.

I think, finally, that I have. I can’t say I’m deliriously happy, but I don’t need to be. I can just let myself be.

I have no doubt that I will have blips down and bump backwards but I am now feeling a lot lighter in myself.

It was also helpful when the nun suggested, during meditation, that as we breathe in white light we think of peace and as we breathe out black smoke we think of anger.

The dog field that I took Lydia to this morning was covered in clover flowers. We’re expecting a high of 27o here today; not as hot as it will be in a lot of places around the world but a good temperature for me, here. I can cope with hotter but that will do for today.

Later this morning I’ll be heading out to drop off the 28 small pots that I made a few weeks ago, for their first firing. I have a few glazed pots to be fired as well. I’m not in a big making phase just now, preferring to take things at a steady pace and work with what I’ve got. I’ve got a few pots, of various shapes and sizes, that I’m going to plant up as jardinière, ready for the Aldborough & Boroughbridge Show on 27th July. Aldborough & Boroughbridge Agricultural Show

I am, however, going to the Potterman Studio this afternoon – www.thepotterman.co.uk – to do a bit of work on the wheel. I’m going to concentrate on one particular shape, and discard any that I’m not happy with. I’ll then use these pots to further develop a decorating technique that I’ve been working on. It’s a technique that I haven’t seen anywhere else – yet – and one that I think has much potential. It’s something that’s good to work on in the winter, so any pots I make this summer will help to keep me happily occupied later in the year.