Are you being kind to yourself?
Self-compassion is vital in a mindful life
In the work I am doing this month on the Year of Mindful Writing course, I am getting the writers to practice self-compassion. Doing so made me realise that I haven’t been practising what I preach. I’ve noticed that I have been giving myself a hard time lately about the many things I haven’t achieved.
In no particular order, these are some of the things my monkey mind has been beating me up about:
I haven’t written a post for The Tao of Storytelling since July.
The craft post for WestWord is due to be published and I haven’t decided what I’m writing yet.
I was a week late posting the Short Story Spotlight for WestWord. I was also a few days late publishing the results of the Flash Prize and the longlist for the Past Times Prize.
I’m behind with all the reading for WestWord and have loads to get through.
I haven’t completely kept up with the weekly Chat posts for The Mindful Writer readers.
I haven’t written any of my novel since August.
I haven’t got on with my Therapeutic Journalling course since August either.
I had to cancel a new short story course as I hadn't been able to get it ready in time.
I haven’t been very active in the Retreat West community.
I’ve been making myself feel very pressured by all the things I’ve not done. My inner critic (and drama queen!) has been telling me that it will all fail if I keep on like this. I’ll be destitute as nobody will want to work with me anymore as I’m unreliable.
So, I reigned my monkey mind in and reminded myself of what I have been doing over the past few months.
Since August, I have been visiting my critically ill sister-in-law in hospital regularly, which is a big drive each way and requires an overnight stay. I’ve been chatting often on the family WhatsApp with my niece, her daughter, and my other two sister-in-laws. I’ve been trying to learn all I can about the treatments they are giving her and to come up with some non-drug-based ways to help her when, if, she comes home. All of this has been taking a huge amount of energy and headspace. It’s been worrying, shocking, and desperately sad.
But I’ve still written a post every week for The Mindful Writer and read and shared lots of other people’s posts, as this community that I’m building here really matters to me and I enjoy the brilliant writing and thinking from the people I’ve met, befriended and discovered. I’ve also written a guest post for another Substack and launched a fundraiser to support St Mungo’s homeless charity.
I’ve run Zoom writing workshops and started working with new writers in two different novel writing courses. I’ve had mentoring sessions with lots of writers and completed manuscript reports on several novels.
I’ve been looking after myself — resting, eating well, exercising, practicing qigong, hanging out with my husband and dancing and laughing. As without my own wellness, nothing will ever get done.
If it was a friend telling me all of this, I would say to them give yourself a pat on the back for keeping it all going and achieving lots, for staying positive when you’ve got this going on, for knowing that looking after yourself and your family is what matters most.
So I’m saying, be gone with you to the voice that’s telling me off for being a bit behind with things. I will catch up. The world won’t end.
What about you? What has your inner critic been beating you up about and how can you find a way to quiet it? What would you say if a friend was telling you the same things?
With love,
Thanks for being a reader of The Mindful Writer. I really appreciate you being here. If you upgrade your subscription by 31st October, then you’ll help me raise funds for the UK homeless charity, St Mungo’s. I am donating 50% of all new annual and founding memberships this month to help them with the important work they do, which is especially vital as winter approaches.
Come write with me
The FREE Writing Hours are starting up again this week where I will be writing my novel!
The first of the new Mindful Writing Marathons is later this month.
There are 2 rooms left at the Short Story writing retreat next month.
Beautiful
I do try...I'm 92, so have a few 'mindful areas' - BP and knees...I have always been fairly mindful as I am a curious person, like learning and generally... am fond of people and fascinated by them. I also like exercising the limited mind I have. Joy Lennick