Tag: author

Why did I stop writing?

Posted on by philipdodson

I used to blog every single day for literally 6 years or more. Then in March this year, after a few months of struggling to write every day, I stopped completely. It’s been a long time now since I have blogged, the longest break in all my years of writing.

Why did I stop writing?

I told myself nonsense. I listened to the mind and all its sabotage. I choose to allow myself to believe the stories that I have been making up all my life. I said ‘What’s the point?’ and stuff like ‘it’s rubbish’ and ‘no one cares’.

To be honest, it doesn’t matter if nobody cares or it’s ‘rubbish’ as I realised a long time ago, I am actually writing for myself and if someone else benefits too, then great, but if not it really does not matter. I lost sight of that and my ego and mind became active again.

I started to listen and analyse everything which was present not just in my writing but also in my life. I had slipped heavily back into my unconscious mind and all its repeating mind streams.

I had slipped back to moaning, judging, complaining, and the stories of ‘poor little me’. All of this only leads to suffering and we seem to be completely OK with inflicting this upon ourselves on a daily basis.

Have I gone back to just being and floating on my cloud like Buddha? No…I was not there before. What’s different now is I am not kidding myself that I am there. When we create this persona that we are ‘spiritual’ or ‘enlightened’ or ‘transformed’ we are exactly not that and we have just replaced one self-image with another in our unconsciousness.

What I am now is free of the burden of pretending to be something I am not and that feels great and that’s why I am writing again.

Back with an old friend

Posted on by philipdodson

After 6 1/2 years of continuous daily blogging, that’s over 2,400 blogs without missing a day, I decided to take a break in April. I’ve been back a few times, but I’ve certainly dropped or lost the daily habit. It has been good having a break and I was getting a little stale, just bashing out the posts to keep the streak going. I was doing it for the ego and not the love.

I have been reading a few of my old posts and that has sparked the bug again, it’s like being back with an old friend that you haven’t seen in years but the love is still there no matter what.

I have missed my blog and that is a good thing, I think before I had taken it for granted just how much joy this daily exercise in writing gave to me. It is a period of time where I am in the moment, I am sharing my thoughts, my wisdom, my experience, and most often, I am talking to myself, giving myself advice. It is the joy of doing and not the outcome. If you take regular daily steps then you get to the outcome anyway and you avoid the suffering of thinking about the big picture which is too daunting.

Of course, like most of us, we are good at giving advice and poor at taking it or acting on it, especially our own. We are not good at eating our own dog food.

I actually do this blog for the joy of it and I genuinely do not mind if no one else reads it, that is the best way to be, I write for my own pleasure and you could say ‘well, just write in a paper journal or an online journal and don’t bother publishing it’ and, to be honest, there is something in that. I did do 6 plus years of daily journaling, which was never published.

However, I do know that many people over the years have also enjoyed reading my blog, so if you have something to say, and we all do, then it is definitely worth sharing it.

Until we share our work, it is not created, it is not born, by hitting that ‘publish’ button we are actually stepping over the divide from thought and fear to creating, and that is a step not to be underestimated, in terms of how it builds our confidence and habit of showing up and being brave enough to ‘step into the ring and dare to be great’ (Brene Brown).

It could ramble on some more, but that is it for today…it’s great to be back with an old friend.