Do you ever feel guilty about taking time for yourself?
These days, what is a need anyway?
Maybe pausing and turning inward seems like the last thing on your list of priorities...alongside with making a trip to the spa...or taking a bubble bath. If you’re like me, in these past few months, the phrase self-care has started to sound like something for the privileged. The pampered.
But promise me, you’ll never forget one thing:
When you find yourself and your words on the page, you are not practicing self-indulgence…
You are building resilience, one word, one phrase, one flight of fancy at a time.
So...
Write for Yourself…About What Matters
Write to find your true north.
Write to know your most monumental fears...and wear them away with perspective.
Write because when you find your way out of the woods, you can help others too.
Write to find love when all you see is hate.
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Whatever it is...Write it.
If poetry soothes you, write it.
If weaving experience into fiction heals you, write it.
If you are so angry or upset that what you have to say only makes sense to you (or maybe not even). Scribble into the pages of your favorite (just for you) notebook.
If you find solace in blackout and collage, grab your glue and scissors.
If you are tired and you can ‘only’ write for 10 minutes...or so many words. Even if it seems ‘less than before.’ Write it.
If you find yourself really ‘in it’ and you just can’t write, bathe yourself in words. Find wisdom in the spoken word, laughter with your favorite comedian, respite in your favorite book.
First, Let Writing Bring You Strength.
Let writing be a place you go for refuge and to replenish.
The foundation of your day...the link between you and the world. Or ‘just’ you and yourself.
Then, when you go to write your next blog post, your next chapter, your story…
Your words will not fail you.
You Will Be Different--Beyond Words.
You will find the resilience you need to keep going, writing, creating, caring.
You will be full of the passion, the vulnerability, the empathy you need to relate to others--and share the comfort of your words--together.
Because we read and write alone, but we do it to connect with others.
You’re not alone.
This is the first part of a small email series I’ve created for subscribers to the Vagabond English newsletter. If you’d like to catch all my printables, creative manifestos…and the writing prompts that are part of this newsletter in the future, just subscribe and start where you are.
And I love hearing from you.
Tell me how you’re staying strong these days in the comments.