Tag: blog

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others self

Do It For Yourself

A fascinating tree near Red Wharf Bay. Photographed by myself May 2025

Love your neighbour as yourself

Mark 12:31

I know I’ve mentioned this verse many times before but I had a new revelation today. And this is what I love about the Bible. It is the living word of God not a static set of rules. It has something new to say to us often if we are willing to listen.

I was doing some QEC work around writing my memoir novel and exploring why I’d stopped not just sharing on Substack but stopped writing almost completely.

What came from it was that I’d got into writing for submission, for sharing with the new writing support group I met whilst on the memoir writing course, and got into wanting to make it “right” – which is another word like “enough” which is not quantifiable.

What I had stopped doing was writing it for me; writing for the joy and love of writing. At the end of last year and the start of this I just let the words pour from my finger tips and learned loads about myself as I let it flow. Yes I do have a dream of publishing it but back then my first goal was to get it written for me; was to write for myself.

So where does the above bible verse come in? Well as I’ve said before it has been translated the wrong way round. The original read “love yourself so you can love your neighbour” and as I’ve said previously if we don’t love ourselves then we can’t love our neighbours, can’t love anyone else fully because too often we are trying to love people so they like us. If I love myself then I don’t need others to love and affirm me. I like it when they do but that isn’t my reason for befriending and hanging out with them.

So it struck me in the middle of this QECing was that I need to love and want to read my book, that I need to be writing it for me and no one else, that I am doing it for me not for publication, not for anyone else, but for me. Then I will be able to write my story my way which will then be the way it is meant to be [possibly the “right” way!!]

But that isn’t just for my story but for everything I do whether that be housework, running writing groups, speaking to others, when I’m on my dog walks, driving my car, cooking tea, being with my family. I must be doing it for me not for others and if I do that then it will flow and I will be at peace and I will be kind and generous, not fearful, not checking if it “works” or if I’ve “got it right” but will just flow, will just be me, will not be doing it to get a need met.

I think it is why I enjoyed my birthday this year because everything we did was what I wanted to do. Yes there were tweaks due to dogs not being able to walk as far as they use to and my children tired due to traveling up to us. But it was tweaks for me to enjoy it more not to make it “right” and trying to please others. And guess what? Yup everyone had a good time because I was going with my flow.

Too often we are taught that we are being selfish if we do what we want to do but I think that is a lie. Most of us, if we love and respect ourselves and are doing what gives us joy, will not do harm to others but actually will be nicer people and people others will enjoy being around because we flow with what we want rather than double checking what others might want.

So I would also write that verse as “do all you do with love, peace and flow, without worrying about what others might want, and then that will give others space so they can flow around with you in love and peace”

Renly by the fascinating tree. May 2025

Categories
hiraeth lake ocean

A Stake in the Ground

Llyn Idwal October 2024 photographed by myself

I feel like I haven’t blogged for a while and don’t have much in my head for blogging because I’ve been writing. But then I got a little nudge to suggest that maybe I share on here what I’m writing around and about.

My main project – which definitely has become a project thanks to my lovely ladies at the writing group I run – is fictionalising my teenage-hood. It was quite dysfunctional and traumatic and has had some long lasting influences, but recently I did some QEC intergenerational healing and that seems to have given a firm foundation to be safe writing from.

Then in Write Club – an online group I meet with at 8am on a Wednesday morning – we were commissioned to write something around lineage and our lives. So this is what I’m going to share because I feel in sharing it I am putting a stake in the ground to say “this is who I really am and I’m going to stop chasing something I’m not”.

So here goes

It is inspired by Memet Murat Idan’s phrase ‘not every lake dreams to be an ocean’, but also of discovering that my Hireath is not just a physical place but a heart place. It is as much about belong with the authentic person God created me to be as it is being in the physical place I belong. And it is from this places of belonging with the authentic me that I feel i can write about the things where I was trying to be something non-authentic – like many of us go through in childhood.

The poem is called “I am a lake not an ocean“

I am a lake not an ocean

Though for years I railed against this.

I wanted to be an ocean with a capital O

Roll with the big ships, change courses of people’s lives

Kick arse with the big boys.

Be part of the noticeable team.

I despised the majestic mountains that hemmed me in

Rolled and pushed at the wild flower strewn banks that encased me.

Did not appreciate who I was and what I was called to be.

Now? Now I can look clearly.

I see where I end and where land begins

Appreciate the flora and the fauna of experience that surround me

Relish in the mountains that contain me.

Remain in place though storms blow and buffet my surface.

Let the pebbles chatter and churn on my shores without trying to hold them,

can trust the process of the flowing in and through.

As a lake I am always here, but now I know where here is.

The waterfalls flow in and the bubbling stream empties onward to the sea.

I glory in it as I watch the sky change above me.

I can contain the storms and sadnesses,

know when to release the glories and the joys.

A boat is tied to the wooden jetty that reaches into my waters

My children, family and friends are free to use it when they wish.

They can rest or row or glide or sail across my waters

Even if the waves rise high from unexpected breezes

I am always willing to keep them safe.

I maybe a lake but what happens within me eventually changes the oceans of the world

if I am willing to release the flow.

When I read this to The Write Club group I felt something shift in the atmosphere as if now I had spoken it into the world something had shifted. I am now the most contented little lake ever with no desire be anything else

Some references –

Hiraeth is a longing for one’s homeland, but it’s not mere homesickness. It’s an expression of the bond one feels with one’s home country when one is away from it. The only English word that comes close to translation would be longing/longingess https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-English-equivalent-to-the-Welsh-word-Hiraeth-I-come-from-a-Welsh-speaking-family-so-I-know-what-the-word-means-in-Welsh-but-I-am-stuck-for-an-appropriate-English-translation

Find out more about Memet Murat Idan on https://mehmetmuratildanresmiwebsitesi.wordpress.com/

Categories
forgiveness sorry

Sorry/Forgiveness

My beautiful dipstick dog stuck under the throw
My beautiful dog after being released from captivity

Yes I know one picture is from the other day but I thought you’d like to see the sequence

I think the dog forgave the throw for capturing him but I’m not sure. As the “kind” dog-mummy I am I did make him wait for his release until I had taken the first photo.

This is a follow on from my post the other day looking at Sorry. Please, if you haven’t read Beth’s comments about what they get up to at her kindergarten with their children around forgiveness/sorry do go back to read them. They are awesome. I wish I’d done that with my children when they were little

As I’ve said before there are times when God/The Universe just keep highlighting things and this is what has happened with the Sorry/Forgiveness things. I was watching The Way on BBC iplayer the other day and there is a part towards the end where one character says to the other – “I forgive you” and the response is “But I didn’t say sorry”. [I won’t tell you who says what to who because you might want to watch it. Be warned the link has spoiler alerts!]

What stuck me in following on from that previous Sorry post is that it is the forgiving that releases us rather than the saying sorry. The forgiver is able to let go, to move on, and to find their own direction. It doesn’t need someone to say “Sorry” for each of us to be able to forgive.

As happened on the Cross Jesus says “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing” Luke 23:34 [which is actually quite similar to the thing the one character does to the other. She thinks she was doing a good thing but he did not see it that way] Jesus didn’t wait until the people who crucified him said they were sorry. And it is possible some of them never were sorry because they did not see what they had done was wrong.

As with Beth’s children it is not about saying Sorry and moving on but about the child who has been hurt being able to say what they need to make them feel better.

Within the context of the TV program she had said and done things along the way that had help restore his self-worth, had given him the things that made him feel better for the slight that had been committed.

As with all things we have to slow down, to understand what our hurts are and what would make us feel better. As I heard on Drew Jackson’s podcast about Poetry as a Spiritual Practice often anger can be the surface emotion to something much deeper. But we do have to slow down to be able to really find that – whether that be through poetry, free writing which is my go-to, prayer, long walks, or whatever – find that thing that helps us explore deeper what we are really feeling and what will make us feel restored.

Categories
Prompts writing

Everyday Words – prompts for 3rd and 4th April

“Best laid plans of mice and men” or “make a plan so God can have a laugh” are very much what life feels like at the moment. So I made this plan and didn’t just ask Sarah of Everyday Words permission to post from her prompts daily but also blogged that I would. But I had also put those feelers out to get some part time work that was not writing.

Well firstly I did not realise that Sarah’s prompts would be so rich and so full of meat that I needed to spend time digesting them before I wrote anything, and then had to ponder what I wrote afterwards before sharing it. But also work has got in the way.

So this week I’ve run a writing group on Tuesday afternoon and then worked 6 hours Wednesday afternoon and am working 6 hours this afternoon. But also I have been pushing for creative practitioner freelancing work and had a meeting with the local mayor on Tuesday – in the pub which was a lovely way to have a meeting. The excuse was “supporting local businesses” which is the best excuse ever. Anyway from that there is something coming. Then a couple of other feelers I sent out are proving maybe not fruitful but possible. And I’d also done a great course with Writers&Artists and one of the follow ups was to have the novel idea we’d started on looked out. Well Natalie Young was so supportive of the idea that I want to run with it. She also said to commit to writing 1000 words per day.

So the plan of posting an Everyday Words prompt each day has had to go by the by for now. But today, even though it is the 7th April, I do have prompts from 3rd and 4th ready to share.

The prompt from the 3rd came from a recipe by Olia Hercules, a Ukranian cook and writer, using foraged food. One of the prompts was to think of a time when you went foraging but instead it reminded me of a home school trip with my kids in a field of wild garlic. Here is it – Foraging

Then the one for the 4th April I wrote yesterday whilst I was working. I had an hour where I was totally alone in the pub and because it was my first full shift I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. So I clicked up the link, which I had been pondering for a while. The prompt was to look at one of the last phrases which was “stupid with smiles” and to write from there. Well this is what I got. It is a bit raw and rough but I like it – Stupid With Smiles.

When will the next get posted? Well I’m hoping over the weekend but … tomorrow I’m catching up with a friend and have to catch up with housework, Saturday I’m attending a workshop and always come back with loads of poem ideas, and also I have a blog buzzing in my head around a Godspace post from earlier in the week so …. Now I know to hold my plans lightly I am saying that hopefully soon but you could be reading April prompts well into June the way this is going.