So... I've Been Avoiding My Own Blog

Writer thinking


Well, this is awkward. I've been avoiding my own blog. Not deliberately, exactly. Life has just been doing what life does, and somewhere along the way I stopped writing. Then the longer I didn't write, the harder it became to start again. I've opened the blog more than once, stared at the screen and thought, What the hell am I going to write about? And then I've closed it again. Very mindful of me. 😂

And it's not just the blog. My book has been sitting there too. A friend keeps asking me how the writing is going and my answer is usually, "It's not." Then I'll add, "Maybe I'll get to it in December." Which sounds perfectly reasonable when I say it out loud. December is ages away, right? Future Ash can deal with it. Poor future Ash. She has been given a ridiculous amount of responsibility.

I think the truth is that I've been feeling a bit like an imposter. Who am I to be writing about mindfulness when I'm still trying to get my own head sorted out? Some days I feel relatively calm and centred and like I've got this whole being-a-human thing reasonably under control. Other days my thoughts are running around like drunk toddlers and I overthink absolutely everything. I worry, I get irritated, I procrastinate, I get emotional, I avoid things I know I need to deal with, and I have days where I know exactly what I should be doing and still don't do it.

And then there's that little voice that says, You can't write about mindfulness when you're still figuring your own shit out. Maybe that's why I've struggled to come back here. Somewhere along the way I started believing that if I was going to write about mindfulness, I needed to have something profound to say. Something useful. Something that would make someone read it and think, Wow, I really needed that today.

But what happens when you've got nothing profound to say? What happens when you're just having a shit day? What happens when you're the person who knows all the things you're supposed to be doing, but you're still sitting there avoiding them?

I don't think mindfulness is supposed to mean that we suddenly become these perfectly calm, peaceful people who float through life unaffected by anything. If that's the standard, I'm definitely failing. For me, mindfulness has become much more ordinary than that. It's noticing when I'm getting caught up in my own head, realising when I'm reacting instead of responding, and catching myself being ridiculously hard on myself. It's taking a breath before I answer. It's sitting with an uncomfortable feeling instead of immediately trying to distract myself from it. And sometimes it's realising that I've spent 45 minutes scrolling when I was supposed to be doing something else.

That's life, isn't it? We're human. We know better and still get it wrong. We make good choices and bad choices. We have days when we're on top of things and days when we're absolutely not. I think I've been looking at this blog, and my book, from the wrong angle because I've been waiting to feel like I have something important enough to say.

I don't have to be an expert. I'm certainly not claiming to have life figured out. I'm just a woman who's interested in mindfulness, psychology, healing and why the hell our brains do some of the things they do. I've learned a lot, I've experienced a lot, and I'm still learning. I also get things wrong. Quite often. And maybe that's actually more honest than pretending I've somehow reached the other side and now have all the answers.

So I'm going to stop waiting until I have something impressive to say. I'm going to write about what I'm thinking about, what I'm learning, what I'm getting wrong and the things that make me stop and think. Some of it might be useful. Some of it might just be me working something out as I go. I'm okay with that.

As for the book, I really do need to stop telling everyone I'll get to it in December. I've been postponing it for long enough, and I'm beginning to suspect that December Ash is just going to come up with another excuse for January Ash. Maybe I don't need to sit down and write the whole bloody book. Maybe I just need to open the document and write the next paragraph.

And perhaps that's where I'm going to start. Not with some grand plan, not with a promise that I'm suddenly going to become incredibly disciplined and produce three brilliant blog posts a week, and definitely not with the expectation that everything I write has to be profound.

Just writing.

Because I've missed it.

And maybe that's reason enough to come back.

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