What will I create in 2008?

Change. Not the rip roaring kind that sets the world on fire but the kind that sets “my” belly on fire because it’s what I’ve always wanted to do. The kind that makes me feel like a first grader about to step out onto the stage for her first Christmas concert. The kind that wraps itself around my heart follows me to bed at night and expresses itself in a great big sigh of satisfaction.

And what better place to start then right here, right now by creating a new image for my blog. So, no, you haven’t come to the wrong place. You’ve come to the right place. Or should I say, the “write” place. The place where for me “change” begins. With my words. I guess that’s why I’m such an advocate for the written word. Because I know what it can do. I’ve seen it over and over again and not just in my journey but in other people’s journey too.

Someone told me the other day. “I’m sacred to write things down because then that makes everything so real and then I actually have to feel it when maybe I’d just rather not go there, I’d rather not feel it at all.” And I thought how sad. How bloody sad.

Yet that’s what we do all the time. We push things away, ignore them, busy ourselves, plug ourselves in to some kind of noise or run in the opposite direction until our bodies and are senses are so numb that we are functioning and operating in robot mode. Ten or twenty years later we’re still running and we’ve missed all the stuff that we could have seen, experienced and enjoyed had we been walking instead of running.

Yes of course writing something down makes you own it and feel it more. Yes of course writing something down makes it more real. And here’s what else it does. Writing allows you to quit running and to walk through time. It allows you to smell what kind of wood is burning in the fireplace, it allows you to feel the breeze brushing against your skin. It allows you to experience the dryness in the back of your throat that makes it hard for you to swallow and the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach that tells you something is wrong. It allows you to jump for joy and maybe even to cry when there’s a fire in your belly or your heart is bursting with pride.

I love writing and one of my biggest passions in life is teaching others the value of writing whether it happens through therapeutic writing, journaling or creative writing. I believe in the power of the written word because I see it as the practice of trusting my own true nature. It allows me to become quiet and to zone in on my own experience - to become aware and connect with what is true for me independent of outside forces or the opinion and influence of others. Writing brings me back to me, to how I want to conduct my life and how that fits in with my own true nature.

You bet writing things down make them more real. And sometimes it’s scary but what I’ve discovered over time is that often what we fear the most is what we want the most. So the first step in getting it might just be to write it down and to make it real. That’s what I’m doing here. I’m making it real.

I want to empower people to recognize their own uniqueness and my main focus to do that is through the power of the written word. Call it empowerment of the individual, call it transformation of consciousness, call it therapeutic writing, call it whatever you want to call it but for me it’s called “fire in my belly”. And that’s what I want to create in 2008. That’s the change I want to bring into being. I want to find ways of spreading the power of the written word.