Author: latahrecoverycenter

by Nancy Casey
We hear a lot about saying, “I’m sorry.” How hard it can be. How healing it can be. The word itself is connected to ideas of sorrow and difficulty.
Have you ever been pressured to say that you are sorry when really you weren’t? Some people in that situation will just say the words to make the conversation end. Others avoid eye contact, keep silent and endure the discomfort. It’s not often that someone clearly states, “I’m not sorry.” That sentence isn’t part of many recipes for resolving conflicts. Even when it’s true.
So today you are going to write about not being sorry. You will do it using what’s called a “repetitive writing prompt.” The repetitive part is the phrase “I’m not sorry” which you will end up writing over and over again.
Begin by writing “I’m not sorry” without any particular thing in mind. As you write the words, open the imaginary trap door in the back of your brain and see what falls in. Whatever lands there, write it down. Don’t make a big deal of it.
Then begin again. “I’m not sorry…” and finish with the idea that forms in your mind as your write the words. Write the I’m-not-sorry phrase every time. Don’t skip it. Relax into it. With each repetition, your hand works a little bit more automatically, leaving more room in your mind for an idea to spring up.
Let yourself write what you write, however it comes out. Perhaps a couple of words or a sentence. Perhaps a whole big story.
Don’t limit yourself to things that you are not sorry about that other people wish you were sorry about. If “sorry” has to do with sorrow and difficulty, you can find many things to be not-sorry about if you look at the parts of your life that aren’t sad or difficult.
Don’t limit yourself to things that make perfect sense, either. That’s a lot to ask if you are going to write down the first thing that plops into your mind. If you start making demands like “making sense” or “being good” all the ideas will scurry away and the space they could fall into will shrink up. So just take whatever comes. You can decide what you think about it later.
So you might write that you are not-sorry that elephants don’t fly. You might say you are not-sorry it rained yesterday. You can say why, or you can keep that to yourself. When you have written enough about an idea, begin again.
As you write the words “I’m not sorry…” you might recall an important lesson you learned after a mistake that you made. A friendship you value might pop into your head. Angry thoughts could land there, or joyous ones. Write them down and go on to the next one. If you are going to strive at all, strive to be relaxed.
Be sure to give your work a title and write the date on it when you are finished. Here is an example of what you might write.
If you are feeling particularly stuck, you can begin by writing, “I’m not sorry that I woke up alive today.” If you can’t write that, call this number: 1-800-273-8255. Or stop by the Recovery Center, 531 S. Main in Moscow. Lots of people have that thought. It’s worse when you have it alone.

Nancy Casey teaches writing classes at the Recovery Center on Thursdays. Check the calendar for classes and times, or just drop in. All are welcome. She coordinates Recovery Radio, which airs on KRFP 90.3 FM in Moscow, Thursdays at 1:05 PM. Recovery Radio needs on-air and off-air volunteers. Call the Recovery Center 208-883-1045 or email latahrecoverycenter@gmail.com for more information.

by Nancy Casey

Today’s writing will be preceded by a little bit of drawing, so as you gather your materials and settle in to write, make sure that you have a clean sheet of unlined paper with you, in addition to the paper you use for your writing.  You might also want to have colored markers, crayons or colored pencils handy.

On the clean sheet of paper, draw the outline of a body.  Your body.  The likeness doesn’t have to be perfect, of course.  Draw it so it takes up as much of the page as possible.

It’s easy to imagine ourselves in terms of the visible parts of our bodies. All the parts the general public sees, as well as the parts we don’t show the world.  And there’s a host of inner workings that medical imaging machines and surgeons can view.  But your body has parts that are completely invisible, too.

Instead of adding the typical, visible parts of yourself to the drawing, your challenge today is to come up with ways to draw in some of the invisible parts of you.  Such as…

Your ideas, for instance.  You can’t see them. Where do they reside in you?  Do they come in different colors?  What about memories and dreams?  Where in your body do you keep your plans for the future?

Do you ever get gut feelings?  Do they happen in the gut?  There are a whole host of feelings that many people find uncomfortable, such as fear, anger, or despair.  Do you feel physical discomfort  in the presence of certain feelings?   Where do you sense it?  What parts of your body are affected when you have feelings that are generally pleasant to feel, such as affection, joy, and comfort?

What else can you think of that is a part of you, and yet invisible?)  Where is your attitude located? Can you point to your ability to button a shirt?  What part of you holds your sense of “me?”  Where do you keep your talent?

You can add your invisible aspects to the drawing of your body in any way that makes sense to you.  Use blobs of color, circles and boxes, dotted lines, words, or any other marks that seem like a good idea.  Use the drawing and coloring as an opportunity to allow your mind to wander and perhaps stumble upon ingenious ways of presenting the invisible parts of yourself.

When you have finished the drawing, write a page or so about the thoughts that came to mind as you worked on it.  Maybe you discovered something about yourself, or thought about yourself in a different way.  Maybe you found this frustrating and hard to do.  Whatever your experience was, write a little bit about it. 

Writing might give you new ideas for things to add to the drawing, which in turn could give you new ideas to write about.  Go back and forth between the drawing and the writing until you are satisfied with them both.  Be sure to put the date and a title on both pages.  Here is an example of what a person could do.

Nancy Casey teaches writing classes at the Recovery Center on Thursdays.  Check the calendar for classes and times, or just drop in.  All are welcome.  She coordinates Recovery Radio, which airs on KRFP 90.3 FM in Moscow, Thursdays at 1:05 PM. Recovery Radio needs on-air and off-air volunteers.  Call the Recovery Center  208-883-1045 or email latahrecoverycenter@gmail.com for more information.

by Nancy Casey

For today’s writing you will need a couple of sheets of paper, so be sure to have them handy.

On one of the sheets, write the letters of the alphabet, A to Z, down the left-hand side of the page.  If they don’t all quite fit, start a second column on that same page.

Next to each letter, write down the names of things and people that you admire which also begin with that letter.  If you think up more than one thing for a letter, include them all. Try to get at least one thing for every letter, even if you have to stretch spelling rules a little bit.  You can even make up words, as long as you know what they mean.

The word ad-mire is made up of two parts.  The “ad-“ part shows up in a lot of  English words that have something to do with bringing two things together, such as admit, advance, and adhere.  The “-mire” part comes from an ancient word that means “smile.”  Therefore, something that you admire is something that brings you a smile.  The feeling you get as that smile comes to you is called “admiration.”

Asking yourself what you admire is much the same as asking, “What makes me smile?”

Are there things or people that always make you smile?  What have you smiled at so far today? When has a smile struck you by surprise? Are some smiles more inward than outward?  Does every smile involve admiration? Let these questions run around in your mind as you keep adding things to your alphabetical list of what you admire.

After you have collected yourself a nice list of words, stop and admire it!  Then give some thought to the kinds of things or people you admire and why that is so.  Write a few paragraphs about that on a second sheet of paper.

Is admiring things the same as admiring people?  What did you write down that you admire about yourself?  Has what you admire changed over time?

Here is something else you can think about.  Not only is the word admire connected to the word smile, it is also related to the word mirror.  That means that when you smile at someone or something that you admire, there is some reflecting going on.  What you admire out in the world also exists inside yourself.  How is this true for the things on your list?

After you have had a chance to think about all these things and write down your thoughts, be sure to write the date on both pages and give each one a title.  Here is an example of what a person could write.

Throughout the week, continue to observe yourself smiling and admiring.  Notice when others smile at you.  They are admiring something, too.

Nancy Casey teaches writing classes at the Recovery Center on Thursdays.  Check the calendar for classes and times, or just drop in.  All are welcome.  She coordinates Recovery Radio, which airs on KRFP 90.3 FM in Moscow, Thursdays at 1:05 PM. Recovery Radio needs on-air and off-air volunteers.  Call the Recovery Center  208-883-1045 or email latahrecoverycenter@gmail.com for more information.

by Nancy Casey

Today’s writing will be done in two parts, so as you limber up your writing fingers and organize your writing materials, be sure you have at least two sheets of paper handy.

The first part is a list.  Turn your attention to your surroundings.  Look around, listen, sniff. Make a list of 10 or more things that are in your surroundings.

While you are doing that, let that back of your mind meditate on what it means to do something right.

First off, you are the only one who truly knows why you do what you do, so you are the only qualified judge of how well you do them.

Sometimes, the very fact that you did something at all is evidence that you have done something right.  You made an effort.  You had a certain intention.  You did what you did.

When we “do something right,” our life gets a little easier, a little smoother, a little better.  Often that means we don’t even notice what we did and why it was a good thing for us.  We do things like that all the time.

There are a zillion things we do right every day out of habit.  We do them automatically, without thinking and without giving ourselves credit.  Every time you go out the door with matching shoes on, you make your day easier than it would have been otherwise!  What habits do you have that keep your day running smooth?

In areas where we wish our lives were different, we often mistakenly judge ourselves as doing things “wrong.”  But that overlooks our understanding of the changes we’d like to see and the efforts we have made so far to bring them about. 

As you record your list of 10 or more objects, play around in your recent memories and recall some of the things that you’ve done recently that are just right for you.

To fill the second page, choose one of the objects that you have listed.  Describe it a little bit and then explain how it represents something that you are doing right.

Remember that there is a world of difference between “doing something right” and “being perfect,” especially if your idea of “perfect” is coming from somebody else’s standards.  Imagine, for instance that over there on the table is a bowl with a spoon and the dried remnants of yesterday’s breakfast in it.  That could be proof of your efforts to have good nutrition every day.  Or evidence of your delight in having found your favorite spoon last week when you cleaned out everything under the couch.

In other words, every object in your surroundings is proof that you have done something right. 

After you have written about one object, choose another, and keep going.  You will run out of paper or you will run out of time, but you will never run out of memories of things that you have done right.

When you have finished, put the date and title on both of your pages.  Here is an example of what your writing could look like.

Nancy Casey teaches writing classes at the Recovery Center on Thursdays.  Check the calendar for classes and times, or just drop in.  All are welcome.  She coordinates Recovery Radio, which airs on KRFP 90.3 FM in Moscow, Thursdays at 1:05 PM. Recovery Radio needs on-air and off-air volunteers.  Call the Recovery Center  208-883-1045 or email latahrecoverycenter@gmail.com for more information.