SoCS – Getting away

I logged on to my reader this morning to catch up on some lovely blogs I follow and couldn’t help smiling when I saw the prompt for yesterday’s SoCS was ‘getting away.’ I wasn’t going to participate myself this week as I am actually away for a few days myself but now can’t resist a quick post.

I am staying with relatives in Wales for a much needed break, life has been super hectic lately. This photo is the beautiful view from my bedroom window, it’s a pleasure waking up to the gentle sound of the bleating lambs who live on the lush green rolling hills.

I have been reluctantly living in a town for the past few years but am a country girl at heart. As I drive into the gateway here amongst horses, dogs and cats, my muscles visibly relax.

I guess we all have a place where we can totally unwind and this is mine. Where’s yours?

Written for a Stream of Consciousness Saturday, prompt – Getting away

SoCS – My body is awesome

 

My body is awesome.

I never used to think this way. Ironically it has only been in the last few years since acquiring a disability that I have learnt to love myself.

When I was younger I used to weigh myself every single morning and that figure on the scale would govern my entire day from how I dressed, what I ate and most importantly my mood. I used to believe the way I looked defined who I was. After all our appearance is the first thing we notice about each other and although pretty much everyone is familiar with ‘never judge a book by its cover,’ sadly many automatically do.

After my health circumstances changed so drastically I began to explore mindfulness as a way to cope with both the daily pain and the emotional distress a chronic health condition can bring. I reconnected to my conscious awareness, that inner peace that is present from birth. We commonly lose sight of this as we grow and develop our (often unhealthy) belief systems.  Exploring my consciousness helped me understand I am not my body. It’s just a place I inhabit in this lifetime. and doesn’t define who I am. We can lose pieces of our bodies, limbs, skin, one of our senses and it doesn’t make us any less of a person. I call the body the ‘little me’. Me, the actual ‘big me’, is something beautifully whole, intangible and perfect.

I am grateful for the body I have and I am thankful for all it still can do. I have an extraordinary skeleton which houses all the vital organs I need that function each day for my health and wellbeing.

My body is awesome, but you know what? So is yours.

 

Written for Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Word prompt – ‘Body’.

 

SoCS – Emote

Yesterday I had a really emotional day collecting my new car. Now this should be a cause for celebration and while I do feel very thankful to be mobile, saying goodbye to my trusty old Honda was gut-wrenchingly painful.

I have had the same car for the over 12 years. My children have grown up in it and we have gone from sticky fingerprints and baby seats to trips to view prospective universities and driving lessons. My youngest child made his first trip home from the hospital in it, only hours old, filling the interior with his delicious baby smell.

Collecting our gorgeous boxer puppy was one of the best trips we ever made, and leaving him the vets, years later as he lost his long battle with cancer has to be the saddest. 

The car has accompanied us on sunny summer holidays, helped deliver umpteen christmas presents and generally been an all round constant in our ever changing lives.

I had become so ridiculously attached to this inanimate object I cried handing over my keys and log book at the garage.

The end of an era.

 

 

Written for Stream of Consciousness Saturday, write the first thing that comes into your head following a word prompt. No editing, no overthinking. This weeks prompt is ’emote’.

SoCS – tongue

 

There once was a girl called Louise,

Who wanted to write prose with ease,

But her page remained empty,

The words weren’t aplenty,

‘Inspiration,’ she cried out ‘please.’

 

Written for Stream of Consciousness Saturday, prompt tongue. Got me thinking about childhood tongue twisters and limericks.

SoCS – Objects

 

I was a teensy bit excited during a family day out at a museum yesterday, to discover there was an old toy room.

‘Ha.’ I cunningly thought, ‘I will take my children to see how the kids of yesteryear used to amuse themselves. They will be in awe that such pleasure could be found in a mere stick and ball and will come away grateful for their overflowing toy boxes’.

I envisaged hoops, a rocking horse and possibly a creepy faced china doll (the type my mum keeps in her wardrobe, too scared to look at it and yet reluctant to part with her childhood toy).

Umm no. Upon entering the room and briefly scanning the objects in their cases it became apparent that I was a child of yesteryear.

I had no idea I was old enough to have my childhood encased behind glass display cabinets but seeing these well loved toys instantly transported me back to endless summer days and Quality Street Christmases. A space-hopper, Sooty and Sweep glove puppets – I had Sweep, my sister (forever in charge) had Sooty, and a Girls World doll, were amongst my favourite things growing up.

 

There was, admittedly, a little bit of sniggering and ‘what’s the point of that?’ but the point of old school, non singing, non dancing toys was to encourage imaginative play in a way that all the technology in today’s world can’t. I wonder what impact this may have on the potential writers of tomorrow when fabricating their fiction?

 

 

Written for Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Write the first things that comes into your head following the prompt and post without editing. This weeks prompt was ‘objects’.

SoCS – With or without

 

With you, to you, I am invisible. My identity hidden beneath a cloak of labels. You introduce me, ‘my other half.’ Have I been stripped of my name now, along with my sense of self?

I want to scream, to question ‘do you even see me anymore?’ but my throat restricts around the words, keeping them as secret as my desires. My smile remains fixed in place like the champagne in my hand.

I look around the room of identikit wives. We wear our designer black dresses and diamonds like a uniform, dreary, dull, like the lives we pretend to love.

I could walk away. Be whole again without you.

I could. But I don’t.

 

 

Written for Saturday’s Stream of Consciousness Challenge. Write the first thing that comes into your head with the prompt (this week with/without) and publish without editing.   

 

 

 

 

 

SoCS – Are you eating mindfully?

 

I must confess when I saw this week’s prompt I was tempted to ignore my initial thoughts as I felt like writing a story today, but then figured there was no point taking part if I wasn’t going to do it properly.

The ‘senses’ prompt is quite timely as I have been teaching mindful eating to a group on my current Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy course this week. We carried out an exercise with a piece of food and really engaged all our senses, noticing, as if for the first time, how the food looked, the smell, the texture, the taste, the feel of food in our mouth, how it felt between our teeth, the sound of chewing, swallowing.

A simple exercise but a great demonstration of how intentionally bringing our awareness to something in a different way than usual can transform the nature of the experience.

Mindfulness means paying attention to the present moment. It’s not about sitting in meditation for hours on end, but rather developing a mindful awareness in each moment.

Through carrying out routine tasks such as eating mindfully we can learn to tune back in to the present moment experience. Being present helps to eradicate low mood resulting from thinking about the past too much and anxiety stemming from worrying about the future.

Make a few moments today to totally engage with your senses, you may be surprised.

 

Written for SoCS. Writing the first thing that comes to mind following a prompt (this week the 5 senses).

http://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/05/16/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-1714/ 

 

SoCS – Enter

 

I had been hanging around the periphery of the creative writing world for as long as I could remember. Unwilling to step over the threshold but unable to tear myself away from vicariously living through fictional worlds created by others.

The invisible door constructed entirely through my own imagination kept me out. How could I, the reader, feasibly become the writer? It would be like entering a foreign country to which I had no passport, no visa, no right to be there.

The more I denied the creative part of me, the hungrier it grew, feeding off my fears, consuming my excuses until it grew larger and larger, propelling me forward. I was launched through the entrance to this new world and found myself in the Land of WordPress.

The natives called themselves bloggers and couldn’t have been more welcoming. I am happy to finally be here.

 

Written for Saturday’s Stream of Consciousness writing challenge – Entrance. 

SoCS – Change

 

 

“You’ve changed”, she said sadly.
“I know”, he whispered softly.
“Please don’t leave me”, she implored.
“I have to, I’m sorry, I can’t do this anymore”.

 

Stepping out of the rollercoaster queue with a heavy heart and a churning stomach, he left his girlfriend to take her fifth ride of the day alone.

 

Written for Saturday’s stream of consciousness challenge. The word given was change.

 

 

 

 

 

 

How will I know?

How will I know what I’m capable of if I don’t even try?

 

I have a big personal challenge coming up next week. Something that will push me so far out of my comfort zone I won’t even be able to see it.

 

Although part of me is terrified and wants to run as far as I can in the opposite direction, a small,teeny, so minute you would need a microscope to see it, part of me is looking forward to it.

 

There are people who will be proud of me if I do this but more importantly, I want to be proud of myself. To know that I felt the fear and did it anyway.

 

 

Written for Stream of Consciouness Saturday

http://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/04/25/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-april-2614/