Un-stick Yourself!

This challenge was given to me recently: write a 100 word poem (excluding title). My challenge to you is write either a poem (if you’re so inclined) or a prose piece. If you go over the word count—no stresses, no worries. PLAY- write4health! It’s in our best interest!

I used the above image to propel me—I muscle tested for it rather than because I liked or disliked it. To muscle test, I picked a number between 1-20; muscle tested top or bottom (of the stack); then went to the stack of photographs I use with clients, counted up to the number and the above photograph arrived.

Some readers may call it random, I call it magic! It is not an image I would have necessarily picked however, because it checked I felt committed to the process of what would be revealed in the poetry practice process. I enjoy this process simply because it takes my mind out of the process. This often will mean I have to dig a little deeper than perhaps my mind would like!

Also recently I read in Henry Grayson, PhD book “Your Power to Heal” an excellent chapter/ explanation on how to muscle test in the event you are unfamiliar with the technique [Chapter 4, pages 72-79]. Even though my technique is a variation on his suggestions you are likely familiar with some of his techniques. I have also found Your Body Doesn’t Lie by Dr. John Diamond another great source of information on how and why a muscle test works. It is a technique I have used certainly in the past ten years since the accident although I have used the technique since 1998.

For the purpose of this poetry/prose practice use an image that moves, inspires or makes you laugh—have a go—Feel free to add your creation in comments below, share with a friend, a family member. If you go over the word count, no matter—simply put the pen on the paper and PLAY! Unravel, untangle and un-stick yourself!

The Memorial Bench caught my attention. The young man was merely 30 years old. He, as the bench were resting in a small church yard on the edge of ranch land. 

Whip a shitty…

Recently, I heard this great phrase—to whip a shitty (re-articulated by TAD Hargraves from Marketing for Hippies.com ). In his take he voiced that when we get stuck simply start, begin. The word commit means exactly that—start, begin, and whipping a shitty is simply getting something down on paper— then from there re-write, recraft. This could be a sales letter, a life letter, a personal letter. Bottom line- get unstuck by beginning one letter at a time, one act at a time. The overall arc of anything can bog us ALL down and the only real way to move that stickiness is one action at a time.

When we “think” perfection first time around, drop it- whip a shitty—get “it” down and let go of anything resembling perfection. I often think of Brene Brown’s book—The Gift of Imperfection— and remind myself of the gifts of imperfection constantly as I stumble and pick myself up with so much of my life. When it arrives on my doorstep in lets say a blog, my website (write4health.ca) and I’m tweaking here and there looking for that perfection (which largely lies in my head), I am going to embrace the shitty, get unstuck, and remind myself that perfection is an illusion- because truth be observed- one persons perfection is another persons imperfection—so let it go and do your best.

That reminds me of a funny story I read once—tell me, what person woke up one morning and said today, I am going to do my worst. All the best or worst amounts to, is polarity. As human be-ings we all live somewhere within the split and it varies from day to day. My sense is that we, certainly I do, need to whip a shitty more often and release perfection into the outer realms of imperfection and embrace it.

A while ago my granddaughters (8 & 6) were waiting at the airport in the car for their mother to emerge from customs after a week away at a conference; they shot a lip synced video to the radio. They didn’t get stuck, they played. They didn’t care about perfection, they had fun. They didn’t over think it;  they whipped a shitty and I laughed at it on replay. It was great, imperfect and glorious.

This year-whip a shitty- I plan to!

 

 

full of jam…

 

 

Thank-you to the anonymous photographer who captured this moment.

 

 

 

full of jam..   by Angela Simons

these women laugh, their music cacophonous in the woods, just like the cackle of jackdaws in the morning glow, their strings on fiddle, guitars and banjo strum, thrum, bleat to the sheep hidden behind hawthorn, rich with berries, ready to prickle, the dance buds of sweet wine as it sidles down throats rich in song- oh merry widows eager for the day, blossom sweet , your pluck full of jam strings into the light, coy with your joy in the dawn.