This morning, Mrs. Denmarkguy (aka @cosmictriage) emailed me and invited me to participate in a 52-week writing challenge she had just signed up for.
Yes, we often email each other, even through our home offices are only 40 feet apart!
Big Sur view
Anyway, even though I normally go to considerable lengths to avoid things like "writing prompts" and "structured exercises," I decided to get onboard with this one.
The thing is, whereas I like to call myself "a writer," I tend to be horribly lacking in the area of discipline. My 20-year history of blogging, and my 40-year history of journaling has been defined by the common thread of inconsistency.
Some might look at my blog here on Hive and say "But you write EVERY DAY, don't you?"
No. No, I don't.
In fact, when I checked my Hivebuzz page the truth is that I have completed a "publish every day" challenge precisely twice in 54 months of being part of the Hive community. And I've only succeeded in writing every day in a week 40 of 231 possible weeks.
That's one of the fundamental realities of our lives: What it "feels like" we've done and the cold hard reality are often two quite distinct things.
Mrs. Denmarkguy came upon this particular challenge because she's a subscriber to the Daily OM email updates. I like Daily OM, and I like the fact that this writing challenge will most likely have a considerable spiritual/consciousness slant. Have I already "explored myself" extensively? Certainly, but does the learning ever really stop?
The full name of the challenge/course is actually A Year of Writing to Uncover the Authentic Self; that's the link, if you want to check it out.
Going Solo Vs. Group Participation
Of course, I've been poking around in the exploration of "uncovering the authentic self" for years and years, so what could I possibly hope to get out of this?
It might sound like participating would amount to little more than pandering to my own comfort zone, right?
Well, not exactly.
The thing is, when we "study on our own," we tend to fall into a pattern of only asking — and seeking answers to — the questions we want to explore. Other stuff gets swept under the rug, where it might continue to dwell as one of our pervasive "pet stumbling blocks."
In a structured exercise — meaning, a structured exercise created by someone else — we're invited to consider and examine perspectives — and questions — we might not have thought of otherwise. Or even questions we have avoided, for any number of reasons.
And so, there is definitely value to be found there.
A Schedule, and a Plan!
So, we're going to get our new weekly prompts every Tuesday morning, so I've decided that I'm going to share my weekly post here on Sundays.
My intention — because of the "personal and spiritual growth" angle — is to share each weekly "episode" to the Natural Medicine and LifeStyle Lounge communities.
Mrs. Denmarkguy says she'll do the same, so hopefully we can be each other's "support system" in that!
Regardless, it'll certainly be interesting to see what happens... let's consider this post "episode 0," in which I make the commitment public.
Thanks for reading, and have a great remainder of your week!
How about YOU? Have you ever completed a long-term "structured" writing and self-exploration challenge? How did that go for you? Did you do it "on your own" or "as part of a group?" Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
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Created at 20210706 12:09 PDT
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STOPCheck out the last post from @hivebuzz:
I haven't really done any long-term structured writing program since my Technical Writing course several years back. I, too, do not post every day, and only have 52 weekly and 3 monthly badges after coughmanycough years here. I don't know whetehr I want to make writing such a significant part of my life or not, although a guided writing program might be interesting.
A large part of the attraction of doing this is that when I do engage in exploratory writing or journaling, I tend to answer the questions I want to explore, more than the ones I need to explore. Having the questions (or "writing prompts") come from an external source (that doesn't care about my foibles and avoidances) might provide some much-needed inspiration to look at some of my "sacred cows" I perhaps overlook.
Hi @cuddlekitten, cute as always!