How to start writing

When someone asked me how to start writing, I said : “Just write what you see, what you hear and what you feel.” You don’t need to be very creative to start writing. And you don’t need to have a talent to do it either. You only need an intention. Because writing is a skill, so everyone can develop this skill through practice. Just like speaking. Each one of us learned to speak when we were very small and we can speak now, we can express our thought and feeling through speaking. In the same way, writing is also a skill, it is also expressing thoughts and feelings. Everybody can express one’s thought and one’s feeling through writing.

You do not need to worry when you express your thought and feeling. Remember that you are writing for yourself. You are not writing for someone else to read. Liberate yourself from any worry or fear of being commented by anyone, being judged by anyone. In fact no one can criticize what you express, because your thoughts and feelings are always personal and nothing is wrong. To write them down is to be honest to the self. When you are honest to yourself, you will feel very comfortable with yourself. Start writing and start expressing what is inside you.

The mind keeps thinking all the time. It never stops. When you express it in writing, the mind slows down its speed. It becomes much lighter, not heavy.

A heart-to-heart sharing

Someone asked me to moderate a panel discussion last year. I don’t remember the topic of the discussion specifically anymore. I think it was about having self respect and maintaining humility at the same time. There would be two speakers. I prepared a list of questions the night before for the discussion.

In the next morning I thought I would like to talk to each speaker and share the list of the questions. The first speaker said : ”You can ask me anything.” She didn’t want to see the list. I thought it was good for me, so I could ask any question. Then I talked to the second speaker. He wanted to read the list. He went through the questions one by one and he asked me to take out one question from the list. It was a very personal question. I asked them to share their personal stories on maintaining their humility while dealing with difficult people. Whether they succeeded or not, it wouldn’t matter. I realized that not everyone found it easy and comfortable to share an honest story about themselves.

We always could learn from other’s story. I believe that we can learn more from someone’s experience than just from information. Infomation is a theory and experience is a practice. Because experience is coming from the heart so it will inspire people more. Sharing an experience is always much better than sharing an information. It is a heart-to-heart sharing.

Do you drink coffee?

I know many people are really coffee lovers. I should say some of them are experts at coffee. I also remember one of my colleague is really addicted to coffee so he always has a cup of coffee to start the day. It becomes his moodbooster for the day. I don’t drink coffee much, only occasionally and it would be a decaf one.

Very recently I met someone who never drinks coffee nor tea in her life. Not even once! She said that when she was small, her parents used to say that coffee and tea were not for children and when she grew up she chose not even to have a try. She gave me a very interesting reason and I really like it. She said that she decided not to have a try because she didn’t want to develop it as a habit. She doesn’t want to create a mental attachment to a particular drink or food. For this, I would agree. When something has become a habit, it is not easy to break it. The mind is craving.

If you have the habit of having a particular drink, definitely you put your heart into it because you enjoy it. You invest your heart in it. And what happens if for some reasons you don’t have one or you can’t have one? My colleague once said to me that he would get a headache without having a cup of coffee in the morning. When we were on a trip together, I saw him restless. He couldn’t concentrate.

Frank and the squirrel

One morning I had a conversation with a friend. I happenedly met him on my way to the dining hall for my breakfast and he just finished his breakfast. I realized that I was so late.

Frank : Tini, what are you doing?
Me : Do you really want to know (the answer)?
Frank : Well, I am asking you for the sake of politeness
Me : I am making friend with squirrels
Frank : What? (He might not hear my answer quite clearly)
Me : I am making friend with squirrels and birds. (I tried to make it more clearly for him) Do you make friend with them too?
Frank : No! I don’t make friend with animals. (He showed disagreement on his face)

It was very clear that we were challenging to each other. Being unfriendly to each other. I thought we did it on purpose just to create an argument to challenge each other. When I shared to someone who was a real dog lover that Frank didn’t like animals, she immediately showed disagreement on her face. Very quickly I clarified “Well, we know Frank. In fact he has a very kind and gentle heart.”

When I met Frank the next morning he asked me if I saw David or not for the squirells. I showed him the video and I could see a very big smile on his face.

Sorry for not being able to upload the video here, but trust me it was really cute to capture the squirrel very closely.

Desire vs. Aim

We had a little discussion on desire. Desire is always the cause of problem in human life. It seems desire is endless. One desire is fulfilled will be followed by another desire, then another desire. It is never ending. The heart will never experience contentment when it has any desire unfulfilled.

Supposed you just bought the latest model of gadget or camera that you really wanted to have. You were very excited. But how long does the excitement last? This feeling of being fulfilled won’t last very long, because soon after that you might already have another desire to be fulfilled. The heart won’t really become full by having this temporary fulfillment. The heart is not contented. A discontented heart won’t experience fullness (peace and happiness).

It says “conquer your desire if you want to have a peaceful and contented life”. Then someone asked ‘what does life look like by not having any desire?’ Someone might say that life without having any desire would be plain and not exciting. It is not called a life.

Not having desire is not similar to not having aim. An aim of life is usually much bigger than a desire. It is more a long term goal. Having aim in life makes you enthusiastic, it makes you feel excited, it makes your life even more alive. You have something to pursue. To have aim in life is to have a goal to achieve. You need to work on it. When you can achieve it it is called an achievement not a fulfillment. The feeling is different. The energy is different.

My holiday project

I remember when I was on a holiday, I was staying in a Greek-style hostel. It was small but very cozy. The living room was just great, It was an open space and very clean…… and the most important thing was it had no television. I really liked it. The staff was very nice and super friendly.

I found myself sitting on a cushion outdoor, enjoying the blue sky, the air and nature, relaxing and enjoying myself. Well, what is in your mind when you hear the word of holiday? no work, relaxed and having a happy time. Suddenly I realised that I had been doing nothing there except relaxing. I asked myself “Would I spend the whole holiday doing nothing and just relaxing?” I said no. I had to do something. I had to create something, not just passing the time.

I then got an idea to write journals during the rest of my holiday instead of just having a relaxing time. I thought writing journal is entertaining the mind, and also the heart. So it is a way of an internal relaxation as well. Probably we need internal relaxation more than just a relaxation for the body. I would call it as my holiday project. To give me a sense of a project, I put a number, 50 journals!

The next morning I woke up at 3 am and got shower then started writing. Morning time is the best time for writing for me. I switched off my mobile phone and kept the door and the window closed until about 9 am. I heard from my room other guests were talking out there, they might be having their breakfast. When I just switched on my mobile phone, I got a message from the reception. He wondered how I was. He reminded me to have my breakfast. I smiled. He might be thinking of me being unconscious in the room. He is really a kind-hearted person.

In the evening I was sitting on a cushion in front of my room, writing journals. Antonia from Germany who stayed next to my room came from rafting asked me “What are you doing?” then I shared to her how I had the project. She smiled and said “Good luck!”

Knowledge is power

It is said that knowledge is power. You might have heard this many times. But how do you experience this practically in your life? You might have read so many books with great advice to become a better person. You might have attended seminars, trainings and workshops and that you felt so inspired. You were inspired to make a change. You really wanted to make a change in you. But, do you experience that a change is easy? Is it to change yourself easy? I think a change is difficult. You might reflect on yourself after sometimes and ask yourself “have I changed? how much have I changed?” You might not see so much change in you. You wished to become a much better you, but it didn’t happen the way you wished to happen. Then, knowledge is not power yet. It doesn’t have power to change you.

Knowledge will become power when you use it to really make a change in you. To change means to change the mindset. To know is the first step and to change the mindset is the next step. Only when your mindset is changed by your new understanding, then you can say knowledge is power.

The biggest lesson from journaling

If I asked myself what lesson I have learned from journaling? Surely I got some benefits from doing this for almost 4 years consistently. It has healed my heart. It makes my mind very light, as it finishes the burden on my head. It frees me from stress. It brings clarity in my intellect. But one biggest lesson is that it teaches me how to be honest with myself. An honest journaling of my feelings and thoughts have become the biggest gift that I can give to myself.

Do you think you need to learn to be honest to yourself? We have learned to please others so much. We might seek approvals from others for what we are doing, what we are wearing,what we are eating, where we are going. We might also seek approval from other people to feel happy. Probably we have done it since childhood. We didn’t know how to create happiness in ourselves without others’ approval.

We might only realise that when we start journaling, we find it is hard to be honest. It is hard to just write your feeling and thoughts honestly. There is still fear of what others going to think about me if they read my journal or they know what was in my mind. Then we do filtering while writing about our feelings because of this fear. i remember when I was in a workshop on journalling, someone shared her experience in this, that she was afraid that her husband might read what she wrote in her journal book.

Dealing with guilt

Everyone must have made a mistake in her life. Big or small. To other people or to the self. The feeling left after realizing the mistake is a guilty feeling. From the back of you head you might hear “I shouldn’t have done this. I shouldn’t have said this. I shouldn’t have sent the email……” but it is all done. It is like the milk has been spilt on the floor.

What can we do? Don’t waste your time having the thoughts of “I shouldn’t be careless, I should have been mindful”. It is like you are hammering yourself with this negative thoughts. If you nurture yourself with this thoughts, you will become weak. Get up and clean the floor. Focus on what you can do next to improve the situation, not focus on what has happened. To get up and clean th floor is to forgive yourself and move on.

A clutter-free mind

Very recently I got my tiny house renovated. It took about a few weeks to finish. Before the renovation started, I had to empty the house. In that point I realised after about 15 years I had accumulated stuff so much in the house. To empty the house was a big and hard job especially because I have to let go most of my stuff – including furnitures, books, clothes and many other stuff. To be honest I didn’t do it myself. I got a family member to do it. I trusted her on this. You might know the reason. If I did it myself, I would have to deal with my emotional attachment to those stuff and it would not be easy and also time consuming.

When I entered the house after the renovation, there was a feeling of a huge relief in me. There were only 3 furniture left, a medium size wooden bed, a shelf for storage and a hanging kitchen set. That’s it! It is so funny that I have lost so much but the feeling of relief is so obvious. It was like I was about to start a new life.

You create burden by owning a lot of stuff. What clutters your home, clutters your mind. If you want to have clutter-free mind, start owning less stuff. When I shared this to a friend, she quickly agreed with me.