Image: Yuin Country
It's December 28th, one of the strange days between Christmas and New Years where you're meant to (as that quote going around says), 'transform into a couch'. Taking a holiday from your holiday. It's a beautiful sunny day here on the coast and I'm wearing my hair in space buns which I have to say is the ultimate sign for me that I'm trying to connect with a more youthful side of myself. Most likely because this last week has been hectic, with less of a focus on unwinding and more of a focus on winding up like a coil to the point of needing to nap in the middle of the day. I did that yesterday, glorious.
Today I wanted to write about reflection and how we're processing our personal and collective experiences this past two years. I'm doing so while eating peanut butter off a spoon directly from the jar, and listening to Lianne La Havas cover a Lauryn Hill song- just to paint you a picture.
I'm sure many of us were gifted journals for Christmas, or bought them for ourselves with a promise to try to understand the shit storm that was (and still is). My boyfriend bought me one, hardbound from a tannery in Turkey with hand-stitched edges and paper so fine you wouldn't believe it can hold ink. Basically, I better use it or I'll be out on the street haha.
But thou hath not published a blog for a month to the day, so need less to say, I haven't been processing anything very well lately. For me, there is something so essential about the publishing process that this blog allows. It basically forces me to construct something out of my thoughts, not just leave them swimming in my brain. Reviewing, editing, changing my mind, changing it back, sleeping on it and then putting it out to the world as a formed idea is pretty much my therapy. Perhaps the only thing that keeps me in touch with reality is writing the feels down and crafting the words until I believe them. Or read them to be the truthiest truth. As E.M Forster says, 'How do I know what I think until I see what I say?'
How do I know what I think until I see what I say
Let's speak to what the process of writing means to a persons reflective practice. Which I would say is less of a 'practice' in a monk like dedication, and more just an essential part of being alive and having information thrown at you every waking moment. (I also have information thrown at me every sleeping moment because I apparently need someone talking to me while I'm resting, with noises of an aquarium in the background. Psychoanalyse that as you will.) Sometimes, taking the mess in my head and putting it outside of my body, is a list of groceries. Sometimes, it's a story that someone told me at a dinner party that I want to remember. And sometimes it's something I didn't know I was thinking, almost like my subconscious has been busy story telling, just for me. I think the process of note taking, journaling, jotting down a train of thought- whatever you'd like to call it, is a part of the human experience that forms our idea of 'self'. From my short 29 years on earth, it has become clearer every day that the stories we tell ourselves and repeat to others, are what shape our view of reality.
For example, everyone who knows me has heard the line 'I don't exercise' adnauseam from my mouth. I have told myself and everyone in my circle that I don't exercise out loud, so many times I have lost count and it has kind of become a reality that didn't exist before I said it. Before, I walked most days, went to yoga on occasion. Sometimes I'd meet my friend and do the Merry Creek trail on a Saturday. You'd find me and my housemate doing a few squats in the kitchen whilst waiting for our pancakes to cook or I'd throw down 5 or 10 lunges whilst on a particularly tedious work call once a week. I didn't exercise, I just moved around in my daily life. Now, I've said this un-true line so casually and so often that I wholeheartedly believe it and the thought of putting on my tights and a shirt to simply walk on the beach fills me with anxiety. I spoke something into existence and now, I'm going to have to speak myself out of it. I can do it, but it's annoying that I created that myth for myself!
So, today I wrote it down.
'I am a person who moves their body regularly'.
Your turn reader. What do you need to speak into existence today?
Grab an envelope you ripped a Christmas card out of that's sitting on your kitchen table and write a new truth on the back, then put it on the fridge or on your bedroom mirror.
If you're someone who doesn't have a blog where you spill your guts and share it with strangers, this is your form of publishing. You might at first write 'I am a person who cares about others'. Then you might practice the 5 why's. You write your truth down, then you ask the statement 'why' five times, until you get to the purest core of the thought.
Or, you might know your 'thing' already, a story you have told yourself so many times that you believe it, despite it growing from a seed fed to you when you were too young to turn it away.
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So, here we are at the precipice of a new year. With our pens in our hands ready to write down new versions of our personal and collective stories.
It's funny, this is what I wrote on December 30th last year.
''So whatever your situation is, single, partnered and everything in between you're the one who has to live your life, no body else. You're the one who has to wake up in your body and mind, with your experiences, memories and knowledge. You're the only one who can truly make choices for yourself and you're the only one who feels the full consequences of those choices (from Christmas Lunch food coma to move over the other side of the world situations). So make choices for you, by you. And if your tarot reader tells you there isn't a relationship on the horizon, tell them to f*ck off because you're already in one- with yourself. ''
Whole piece here: https://www.dailyceremony.com/post/unattached
Now it's almost the same day in 2021, and I'm still in a relationship with myself, but also with someone else. I have wanted to write so many times about the relationship I'm in. The challenges and breakthroughs that have happened in such a short amount of time together. But this isn't the place for that just yet. However I will say, that being with someone can at times put a sparkly rose coloured veil over your eyes. Showing you a reality where the other person is your priority and bringing them coffee as they wake up or doing their dishes after a long day is all you need for both of you to be happy. The rosy veil can make you forget that the best thing you can contribute to your partnership is an unwavering dedication to your personal happiness. Tell yourself the story that by being available to fill your own cup when it's dwindling, setting boundaries and choosing what you want to choose, is the only thing that is going to provide you with a sense of autonomy and success at the end of your time here on earth.
So, apparently nothing has changed from last year to this year. Except everything has.
We are undone, and we are becoming.
I hope that you do write down your new truth after reading this, because it's our collective dedication to telling stories of truth not fabrication that will bring us closer in 2022, not further apart.
With Love, M.
Daily Ceremony acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the traditional custodians of the land we work on, and we pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging.
Ceremony [ ser-uh-moh-nee ] A unified ritualistic event with a purpose, usually consisting of a number of artistic components, performed on a special occasion. Aka, life.
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