Jan Fishler

Author and Happiness Coach

Celebrating Winter Solstice: Inviting Change

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In my community several end of world and Winter Solstice celebrations are planned. While the physical world is still here, many people believe that December 21, 2012 is a time to put an end to things that no longer serve us. At the top of my list are people who drain my energy, unhealthy foods and the drinks that go along with them, and worrying about things I can’t change. Winter Solstice — the darkest day of the year — is a good time to meditate on small changes you can make to improve the quality of your life. Just yesterday my daughter suggested we rethink various holiday celebrations and celebrate the seasons instead. I think she’s on to something. Instead of focusing on consumer spending, what Christmas has become for most of us, let’s give ourselves the gift of becoming better people and sharing that gift with others. Imagine how the next year would be if you stopped one destructive habit or eliminated one negative or limiting belief. What if the New Year’s resolutions you never keep, actually stuck? What if you took the time to really contemplate the change and visualize in bold detail how life would be for yourself and those around you if you succeeded. The reason most of us can’t keep our New Year’s resolutions is that we just give them lip service and don’t spend time imagining, feeling, experiencing the benefits we will ultimately receive — before they occur. It’s so easy to want to lose 10 pounds, make more money, vow to improve our relationships, be happier, but actual change requires planning and follow through. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a holiday that supports self growth and the god-like qualities within us? Imagine what the world would be like if we all worked toward Mahatma Gandi’s suggestion to:

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”

Writing to Heal

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When events like those in Connecticut occur, writing to heal may be a way to overcome trauma. The tragic events at Sandy Hook Elementary School has been sobering and very sad. I can’t imagine how parents of the fallen children will ever make sense of the devastation. It’s one thing to be at war and suffer loss and quite another to have violence come knocking at your front door. For the past several years, I’ve written articles about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for VietNow National Magazine. I know how difficult it is for combat veterans to overcome the trauma brought about by war. In spite of receiving therapy and taking medication, many vets still have recurring nightmares, sleepless nights, anger issues, and other PTSD symptoms. Healing from trauma, while possible, can be difficult.

In preparation for an upcoming article, I did some research about writing to heal. I knew healing occurred when I wrote my adoption memoir, Searching for Jane, Finding Myself, but I wanted to understand more about how this actually worked. Did the mere act of writing my story help put my abandonment issues to rest or was it something else? Could writing help veterans cope with and eventually recover from PTSD? Can writing help heal diseases like AIDS and Cancer?  Eventually, can writing help the parents, siblings, and friends of the  Sandy Hook Elementary School victims make sense of and recover from the senseless and tragic event that took the lives of the 26 victims?

As a result of my research, I believe there is hope. Here are some interesting facts about writing to heal:

  •  Excessive holding back of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, can place people at risk for both major and minor diseases.
  • The more people described positive emotions in their writing, the more likely they were to be healthier afterward.
  • Writing appears to benefit the immune system.
  • Writing helps patients get better, and also keeps them from getting worse.
  • Just telling a story over and over in the same way won’t make people better. There has to be growth or change in the way they view their experiences.
  • The greatest health benefits of writing occur when we write a story with structure, causal explanation, repetition of themes, a balanced narrative, and awareness of a listener’s perspective.
  • Writing gives you the chance to take a memory that might be stuck in the back of the mind, make it physical and shape it so that eventually you understand that it’s a memory and it can’t hurt you anymore.
  • Authentic writing and self-discovery is a form of prayer.

If the topic of writing to heal is of interest, you might want to read some books on the subject. Here are a few to get you started:

Opening Up: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotions by James W. Pennebaker PhD
Writing to Heal: A Guided Journal for Recovering from Trauma & Emotional Upheaval by James W. Pennebaker
Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives by Louise A. DeSalvoWriting to Heal. Change your life through stories (The Pathway to Self) by Jacqui Malpass.

 

 

My To Do List

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My To Do List

I’m a list maker. That doesn’t mean I actually refer to them or can find them when I need them, but simply making the to do list is what’s important to me. It gets the thought out of my head and lets me move on to something else. For example, yesterday I made a to do list of what still needs to be completed to get my website where I want it to be. This list includes writers I want to interview about the craft and interviews I want to conduct with experts in the field of relaxation and right-brain thinking. Before I can start the interviews, I need to make sure I have the right software for the job. My primary lists often contain sub-lists, and for very complicated items, there are tasks under that! The lists I constructed yesterday will easily take me through the first quarter of 2013 and beyond. Yesterday’s list-making also included a list of topics I want to blog about, things I’ll post on my Write Your Story Facebook page, the projects I need to complete, and the sub-list associated with each of these. Finally, there’s the grocery list, which is the one I never can seem to find when I’m at the store. Keeping track of my to do lists can be a problem. In the past I’ve written the lists on paper sticky notes which I then posted on the frame of my computer monitor. It was a good idea until I ran out of room. Currently, I have my lists in one spiral notebook. My son suggested I just type my to do lists into my smart phone, so I added “try using smart phone for list-making” to the bottom of my to do list.

Anyone else addicted to making lists? What system do you use?

Do You Have A Writing Ritual

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Do You Have a Writing Ritual?

As defined by dictionary.com, ritual is “an established or prescribed procedure for a religious or other rite.” It’s no wonder that many writers create and follow a writing ritual, a prescribed procedure for jump starting their daily process. Daily that is unless it’s interrupted by vacations, a holiday season, sick parents or kids, or a lost dog—just to name a few reasons some of us veer off the path now and then.

My writing ritual varies depending on the seasons. This post is about my Winter Writing Ritual. Generally, I wake up around 6:00 a.m. It’s still dark and the house is cold. The cat is hungry. The dog needs to go out. I need a cup of coffee. My winter ritual involves letting the dog out while I get some wood to throw into the fireplace, picking up the cat’s bowl from the bathroom, (Why the bathroom?  That will be the topic of another post) trotting into the kitchen to fill and return it then heading to the kitchen to grind the beans and start the coffee.

While the coffee is brewing, I check the fireplace to be sure the new logs have caught. I then grab a jacket and go outside to get the paper. The Union is a small paper and before I drink my coffee I read the obituaries and the police blotter. Because I live in an area where people come to retire, most of the obits are elderly folks who have lived long, robust lives. Occasionally, there is someone younger who went to school with one of my kids, or someone I know. While I wait for the smell of coffee to waft through the kitchen, I read my favorite section of the paper, the “police blotter,” because it’s generally ridiculous and subsequently hilarious. One day, when I have nothing to say, I’ll transcribe and post the must-read column.

By now the cat is meowing to come in, the dog, done with her business, is waiting at the door, and the coffeemaker is hiss, the signal my brain needs to shift into writing mode. I get my cup from the cupboard, pour too much real, organic cream into the bottom of the cup, give it a quick stir, and head to my office.

As I enjoy the aroma and my first sip, I wait for the topic of that day’s five minute writing post to come to me. A few sips later I have it. If you have a writing ritual, I invite you to share it. If you don’t, you might want to create one.

Social Media Planning

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In shifting my focus from promoting my adoption memoir to marketing my Write YOUR Story workshops, I’ve realized that I need to pay more attention to social media and social media planning. Last night I did a little reading on the subject and this morning I began updating some of my profiles. It’s one thing to post messages and photos to family and friends on my personal Facebook page and quite another to use it for business. Unfortunately, the more I read about social media planning, the more confused I become. My goal this weekend is to obtain answers to many of my social media questions:

  • Which social media should I use to reach my target audience?
  • How exactly am I going to use Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Linkedin, and various other social media sites?
  • How much time should I spend on social media each day, week, or month?
  • What else should I be doing to let people know about the services I offer?
  • What other questions should I be asking?
  • Who are the social media experts I should be following?

If I’m not careful, questions like these can easily lead me to a state of overwhelm. When it comes to social media and social media planning, it seems like there is always more to learn and always more to do, which makes me wonder if it’s even possible to stay ahead of the Social Media curve. Perhaps a more realistic goal is to do what I can.

Now that my website is up and running, it is definitely time to let people know about my services. There is no doubt about it, social media marketing is a proven and effective strategy for directing website traffic. My mission is to embrace this reality and figure out a way to make it work.

 

New Words for Writers: Expanding Your Vocabulary

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New Words for Writers: Expanding Your Vocabulary

If you don’t know about it, be sure to check out wordsmith.org. If you subscribe, you can receive a word a day in your mailbox. This is a great way for writers to learn new words. Each week the words are organized around a theme.  This week’s theme, for example, is eponyms, a word I had to look up.  In case you too are wondering, an eponym is “a person or thing, whether real or fictional, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named.”  For a list of eponyms, go to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponyms_%28A-K%29

Today’s eponym is mithridatism, another word I didn’t know, but I love the definition: “noun: The developing of immunity to a poison by taking gradually increasing doses of it.”

What poison have you developed an immunity to?  What price did you pay in the process?

These questions take us to feelings of shame, something we don’t generally like to talk about, but feelings—especially those on the darker end of the spectrum, are where we writers need to go if we want to develop stories that have substance and deep meaning. Sometimes, if we have the courage, we share these stories, and in the process heal ourselves and others. Sometimes, it’s best to simply write them and leave them be.

However you look at it, writers need new words, and ideas and wordsmith.org has them.

How to Get Organized: a System for Computer Files

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How to Get Organized: A System for Computer Files

People who know me would say I’m a very organized person.  For example, I can find a receipt from six years ago in less than five minutes and the same goes for books, clothes, cooking utensils, and just about everything that exists in the real world.  Cyber space is another issue. How to get organized has been a problem for me since I got my first computer in 1984–until a week ago.  That’s when my son, Nick, explained his system to me, and it’s changed my world. The irony of this is that while Nick’s real world organization skills appear to be lacking, his attention to detail, and his systematic approach for organizing computer files, is nothing short of miraculous. In preparation for backing up my computer so that I could download a new operating system (I’m still using Vista), Nick drew an organizational chart.

At the top, he wrote the word EVERYTHING.  “Forget about Documents,” he said.  Underneath that were folders that made sense in my world: Business, Family, Media, Personal Projects, Planning, and Archives.  Business, my most visited folder, is subdivided into: Workshops, Client Projects, Continuing Education, Books (I’ve written), eBooks (I’m writing), Website, Fiction (I want to write), and Interviews (I will be conducting to gather data).  The Archives folder contains everything from 2000-2011 that I’m no longer working on, filed by title and date, according to my old system. To find anything, I always had to conduct a “search” with varying degrees of success.

Of course, if you were to adopt this system, your folders and sub-folders would be different.  Nick, for example, has a very structured hierarchy of folders and sub-folders for classifying his movies, music, and videos. My media folder only contains seven sub-folders: Apps, Audio, Books, Collections, Kindle, Photos, and Video.

I’ve been using this system for a week, and it has made my life so much easier.  I can actually find the files I want to work with in record time. And, my desktop is about as uncluttered as its ever been. An option I haven’t implemented is keeping all of my active  files on my desktop. My fear is that they’ll never get back into the right folder when I’m done with them, but this system works for Nick so I’m going to give it a try.

Whenever I find something that works for me, I like to share it.  If this system helps you get organized, let me know.

 

Writing Prompt: Write From the Heart

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A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

The sense of wishing to be known only for what one really is is like putting on an old, easy, comfortable garment. You are no longer afraid of anybody or anything. You say to yourself, ‘Here I am — just so ugly, dull, poor, beautiful, rich, interesting, amusing, ridiculous — take me or leave me.’ And how absolutely beautiful it is to be doing only what lies within your own capabilities and is part of your own nature. It is like a great burden rolled off a man’s back when he comes to want to appear nothing that he is not, to take out of life only what is truly his own. -David Grayson, journalist and author (1870-1946)

I was wondering what to write about this morning and I saw this quote, which made me realize how important it is to write from the heart. I spent much of my writing career doing exactly the opposite. I wrote technical and training manuals, white papers, and scripts for corporate videos. It’s not as if this was a bad thing. It paid the bills and served me and my family for a significant period of time.  It was safe in the way writing about things rather than feelings can be.

To write about feelings or to write  from the heart, takes courage. It means not  being afraid of anybody or anything, and in many cases, telling your inner critic to pay attention to something else. Some of us are able to do this right out of the gate.  Anne Lamott, for example, did this in Operating Instructions, published in the late 80’s.  I remember reading about her experience of being a new parent and the loss of her best friend, and wishing I could put myself out there like that, something that took me another two decades to accomplish.

When some people read my memoir, they are astonished at how much I reveal about myself. I understand that this is something many people are unable to do. They are afraid to speak their truth, and I understand how that happens.  Years of conditioning by parents and peers about how we should or shouldn’t behave, stop us from speaking out or writing it down.

Often our truth is tied to our shadow side, and we are afraid that if people knew who we really were in all of our raw vulnerability, they wouldn’t love us anymore. In my experience, the opposite is true. The more you write from the heart, the more you speak and live your truth, the more love you receive.

Just for today, you might want to give it a try:  Write something from the heart.  See how it feels.

Anyone Can Write – Just Tell Judgement to Take a Hike

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Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to spend time with a few very interesting women–three of them prolific local artists. These were women I didn’t know well, but they felt very familiar. We were all about the same age, and the energy in the room was lively and fun. The conversation meandered to  several topics of interest — from home decorating, painting, and drawing, to managing clients–eventually,  landing on a women who said she didn’t paint because a teacher in high school told her she didn’t have talent. This launched a discussion about how harmful and long-lasting judgements can be.

Judgement is a topic that I discuss in my Write YOUR Story workshop. Before we can free the artist or writer within, we have to address, forgive, and banish the judge.  As one of the artists said, “Anyone can paint. They just need to do it.”

I feel the same about writing. Anyone can write, they just need to tell judgement to take a hike. So often we forget that we have a choice about how we live our lives. We fall victim to circumstances and believe we are stuck in patterns that no longer serve us, or worse, never served us! We may have had dreams and aspirations that came from our authentic selves, but external and internal judgements about our abilities and capabilities dashed our dreams or made us feel we don’t deserve to live them.

How many of us have the courage to follow our hearts and take a leap of faith into the void, to push judgement  aside? Can you imagine how your life would be if you chose to live this way? As Robert Schuller, pastor, motivational speaker and author, asked, “What would you attempt to do if you knew you would not fail?

Take a moment and picture yourself doing that very thing. Would you write a novel? Hike Mount Everest? Get in touch with an old friend? Leave your marriage? Write about it as if it actually happened.  How does it make you feel?  Remember: anyone can write — even YOU.

Write Every Day: Here’s A Trick

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Write every day means create a writing habit. Face it, sometimes it’s just not possible.  Case in point. Last Friday I woke up with a scratchy throat.  I didn’t feel great, and because I hadn’t had a cold or anything for longer than I could remember, I took a few Wellness Formula herbs and ignored my symptoms.  Saturday morning, I knew I was coming down with something so I went to Hallo, the local herb shop, bought another concoction, and went about my business.  By Sunday my joints ached and my chest felt heavy.  Monday morning, I was an untouchable with a full-blown cold, and a cough that scared the dog.  I could barely think let alone write, so, I succumbed, and took the rest of the week off.  I’m still not 100%, but I’m coming around.

If I didn’t already have a well-established morning writing habit, taking time off could have sabotaged my efforts, but instead I’m back on the horse. It’s a lot like getting back on track when you break your diet.  One piece of chocolate cake leads to another and before you know it, you feel like you’ve failed, that you’ll never lose the last 10, 20, 50 pounds. Your inner saboteur says, “What’s the use?”, and you believe him.  We’ve all been there.

For some of us, getting back into the write-every-day habit is easier than for others. If you’ve fallen off the writing path, here’s a trick to help you get back on track.

  1. Grab the kitchen timer. If you don’t have one, find one online like http://www.online-stopwatch.com/large-stopwatch/
  2. Sit down at your computer or at your desk with pen and paper close by.
  3. Close your eyes and take five slow deep breaths in and exhale slowly.
  4. Imagine the words flowing like water from your hands onto the screen or onto the paper.
  5. Picture your screen or the paper filled with good ideas and well-crafted content.
  6. Set the timer for five minutes.
  7. Let the words flow, non-stop.
  8. Repeat daily.  You’ll be surprised at how much you can write in just five minutes.