I have been a professional writer for 30 years now. There have been periods during that time when I have churned out the words; at others I have been too busy editing other people’s words to write my own; and on bad days I would wake up and realise I was a writer who wasn’t writing. Writer’s block. We’ve all suffered from it at some point in our lives, whether or not we’re wordsmiths. I … [Read more...] about What to do on blank page days…
Pearl Within blog archive
Who’s in control? It’s not you…
Anyone who has studied human behaviour, Freud, Jung, psychology or NLP would probably accept that the unconscious mind is many times more powerful than the conscious mind. In fact, the idea that our conscious mind is in control is an illusion. The “me” that you perceive yourself to be is capable of paying attention to only two or three pieces of information at a time in a world that throws … [Read more...] about Who’s in control? It’s not you…
Do you take care of the needs of your soul?
Do you believe you have a soul? Or is the idea of “the soul” too religious for you? Then you might be attracted to the work of philosopher Alain de Botton, founder of the School of Life, who wrote in his blog yesterday about how we fill the gap left by the demise of the priesthood. For centuries, he says, priests took care of your soul from birth until death, attempting to make sure it was in … [Read more...] about Do you take care of the needs of your soul?
When is it time to rewrite the script?
Our brains are hardwired to tell stories. We make sense of our inner and outer worlds by coming up with a narrative. I’ve written here before about our storytelling brains, and how the bulk of our memories are fiction. We all have our stories - from the gossipy small stories to the big, narrative arc of our life story. There’s nothing wrong with telling tales, as long as we remain aware that … [Read more...] about When is it time to rewrite the script?
The healing power of the heart
There is no such being as a human who has never had a problem processing their emotions. We all learned coping strategies early in life and these represented our best effort at trying to minimise our experience of “difficult” feelings. But we wouldn’t think it was an effective strategy to suck a dummy now, would we? So what would happen if you replaced those immature strategies with new, mature … [Read more...] about The healing power of the heart
Battling creativity’s evil twin
I’ve been putting off writing this post today. Mostly because I’m on the road, but also because I can be a brilliant procrastinator. However, I have fought my urge to defer it until tomorrow or occupy myself with other tasks. So why do we procrastinate? It’s not always down to laziness or distraction, as quite often we put off the very tasks or projects that are most meaningful to … [Read more...] about Battling creativity’s evil twin