Does Negative Chatter Split your Sunshine?

I charged out the door tonight with my iPhone. Just down from my house I scoped out the best place to sit along side the river to wait for the perfect sunset moment. I thought as I waited, one of these days I’m going to get ahead of the posting My Thoughts curve and START writing a lot earlier! Yeesh. I had an epiphany of what I wanted to write about and a picture I needed to take to go with it. Since I wrote last month about they-sayers (I am a dork of a wordsmith), it’s been on a spin cycle in my head.

Earlier this month, I had a friend stay with me. One night we vented about the opinions people had been throwing at us about our lives and how we'd let it get to us. Both of us are poetry writers, so we started tossing around words to get that nasty feeling energy to move...then we started reading poetry we had written about heartaches, angst, and loss. While going through my poetry pieces, I found and read this one. I wrote it a year ago. Voices outside of myself are something I struggle with knowing how to turn that noise down. I have problems with them negatively affecting how I am feeling. Most importantly, I keep trying to find imaginative ways to turn it into art, a cake, or maybe into electric power that I can run my house on.

I shared this piece of poetry because… it’s part of my bare soul struggle -what other people say about me and to whom they repeat that gross sh*t to turns me inside out sometimes. Also, I do actually listen to my own preaching and one way I move energy around that puzzles me is by writing poetry. When people crap on my creative endeavors, I can feel the split inside me listening to voice of they-sayers and listening to the voice of my soul.

In reflecting since my last blog, I thought if I could just get my own internal stream of conversation flowing better and include more positive comments, it would support my acting, art, life, and my growth into a better human...that would be great! I have been trying to convince myself every which way to change channels. Then, eureka! I got the idea for this picture.

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I know I need to put this subject down. I’ve carried it too long in my brain. As you probably know, thoughts can get deeply grooved and then it can be real tough to get rid of them. My effort in letting this go is to better understand what that unhelpful chatter does to my creative energy: It splits the beautiful sunshine coming out of my soul.

Sometimes when I understand better, I do better. They-sayers (see previous blog for definition) will come flocking in with, “You’re too old." "You’re not in the right town." "You’re not talented enough…” and a bunch of other things that diminish my worth as a human being as I continue to put myself out there artistically. I am learning to see their comments as a reflection of where they are in themselves and that's been making it easier to keep my sunshine intact.

People have said, “Oh just don’t listen to ‘em.” Easier said than done! When I know how something works or how something affects me, I can chose to be powered from the inside better so I can make a different choice. This is my reason for writing and sharing this month: to make a different and a better choice consistently. With courage in your mind and heart, stop for a moment when they-sayers are verbally puking fear and you are not good enough statements all over you. Think about YOU and what keeps your beautiful sunshine from splitting and let what they say go right on by. Second, divert yourself to an activity to bring your spirit up, biking, cooking, cleaning the garage, chatting with a friend, fishing! Third, come back to your creative endeavor, goal, or pursuit with a better focus and discernment about what kind of people, information helps you and what sinks you.
 
My faith in sharing my processes, stories, views, and poetry is that you’ll find a positive takeaway. Like I have written before, my inner champion (that part of me that pushes me toward love, forgiveness, celebration of life, and growth) wants the best for me and she doesn’t rest until I figure out and can sustain the practice of those processes that get me there!

Stay after your dreams and being the blessing only you can be in the world, we need your sunshine intact!

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