How and Why Poets should love their self

I wrote this article for my blog but I'm posting a copy here for you to read.
Learn why loving yourself is important to being a poet and some ideas on how to do it.

How and Why Poets should love their self

I'm not really sure if this is a spirituality topic but I'm going to post it in this section of the site anyway because its part of the emotional make-up of being a poet. The topic for today is loving yourself. Being a poet it is very hard to persevere and have the courage to write if you don't love yourself. You can not count on anyone else to believe in you and give you the courage to write. You also can't count on anyone else to invest the time and energy to take care of you and supply your other needs. Try as other people might they cant always be there to give you what you need emotionally and otherwise. Another thing is this, your friends and family may be crazy about you and willing to give you the world, but some things only you can't give yourself. They can't exercise and take care of your body ,so that your mind will function well for writing. They can't learn the things you need to know to become a good poet . They can't get enough sleep so that you can stay awake to write. There are several things they can not do for you. It is also unfair and unreasonable to expect other people to fulfill all your needs. It's not that they are being mean, but as I say only you can fill some of your needs.

My advice on how to love yourself would be this. When I get done listing them I will go back and explain how they relate to being a poet

1. When you talk to yourself , talk to yourself like you would someone that you absolutely cherish that means a ton to you. In psycho-speak this is called positive self talk. If you make a mistake don't call yourself names, get over it and move on. Simply try to do better next time. If you mess up again next time around just be nice to yourself and keep trying. You will get it eventually. If you talk crap on yourself when you write a poem you dont like, you will simply be punishing yourself and the misery of the punishment will discourage you from writing. If another person yelled at you for writing a poem they didn't like you probably would want to avoid the possibility of such punishment ,thus you wouldn't want to write. Please don't punish yourself if you mess up, that's punishing yourself for doing something we all do. We all mess up because we're human. Don't punish yourself for being human. But I'm not just talking about talking bad about yourself, I'm also talking about saying anything negative to yourself that could make you feel bad. Here are some examples of negative self talk; destructive self-criticism and other mean things you might say to yourself, telling yourself that things are worse then they are, not seeing the good in situations, and worrying about stuff you can't control. These aren't the only kinds of negative self-talk, they are just examples to illustrate my point. The idea is to talk to yourself in a positive and nurturing manner. Like I said in the beginning , when you talk to yourself , talk to yourself like you would someone that you absolutely cherish that means a ton to you.

2. Reprogram your subconscious mind using affirmations
In this emotionally cold ,high tech world, we can easily be sent negative messages about who we are that simply are not true , or only half true, or possibly true but they could be different if someone believed we could be something different. It is also easy to feel of little value when it seems like no body has the time and attention to give us because they always have stuff to get done. They don't mean to but its like they are telling us, "You don't matter, all that matters is getting stuff done. " Over time as we are repeatedly exposed to negative messages to us and about us from other people, ourself, and the media, we start to believe them and we start having trouble with our identity. When we believe these messages we start to act like what people and ourself and the media tell us that we are. Basically they and we have put us in a box and we are made where we do not believe that we could possibly be more then what's in the box. What's worse we are usually sent the message that what is in the box is some horrible monster of a person that has no value. We are brain washed to think we are nothing and never can be nothing. But like believing negative untruths about ourself can make them so , so can believing positive untruths about ourself. I have had experience with this type of thing from the negative side and some from the positive side as well. Since I Asperger's Syndrome society tends to put labels on me and to some extent I tend to have problems with buying into these labels and also just plain dealing with the loneliness I feel inside. I discovered something called affirmations shortly after I graduated high-school, and have made use of them on and off ever since. Remez Sasson defines affirmations like this,

"Affirmations are positive statements that describe a desired situation,and which are repeated many times, in order to impress the subconscious mind and trigger it into positive action."

These affirmations help to change the programming of our mind so that we can become more then we are. We repeat these words with our conscious mind and they produce images that are related that affect our subconscious mind. First you start repeating the words in your conscious mind but then the subconscious mind takes over. When we use this process systematically, intentionally and faithfully, we can positively change our subconscious mind and this can produce changes in our habits, perception of the world, feelings, thoughts and how we act towards the things, people and situations around us.

When we write an affirmation or say an affirmation to reprogram our mind there are some guidelines. The guidelines are not just something I or someone else just thought up randomly, they are based upon how the human mind works. Here are the guidelines that I talked about.


1. State Your Affirmation in the Positive-

If you want to have more confidence and feel more valuable do not say stuff like "I'm not worthless", or "I no longer feel unconfident". These words conjure up the negative images of what you do not want and it's a pretty well known fact that when we're told not to do or be something that we naturally produce a desire to do or be the very thing that we're told not to do or be. Instead of saying what you don't want , say what you do want. Say something like, "I'm a valuable and worthy person" or "I'm a lovable and worthwhile person" .

2. State Your Affirmation in the Present Tense.

If we use the example we used above, about feeling more confident and valuable we will see that we stated our affirmation in the present tense instead of the future tense. We said "I'm a lovable and worthwhile person" not "I will be a lovable and worthwhile person". If we state our affirmations in the future tense our mind will be confused, because the future isn't definite. Because the future is indefinite our minds don't know when we will be "lovable and worthwhile" ,thus nothing ever gets done. But If we say " I am a lovable and worthwhile person" our minds set about making it so, because it knows what to do and it knows when to start doing it. That is the format what to do and when to start it. Our tomorrows are built on our today's

3. Keep Your Affirmations Short

This is for two reasons. First so that we remember them and second because short affirmations tend to have a more powerful affect on our subconscious mind

4. Make Your Affirmations Specific

It's not very likely that your subconscious mind will do anything for you if you tell it what to do in terms that are all fuzzy and indefinite. In our example we said "I'm a lovable and worthwhile person" not " I'm awesome" If we had said that it wouldn't work because "awesome" isn't very clear because people can be "awesome" in alot of ways.

5. Say Your Affirmations with Feeling and Belief

When we say our affirmations they will be alot more effective if we say them with emotion and conviction. We must feel and believe with every fiber of our being that what we are repeating is already true. Emotion helps to drive them into our subconscious. It is also a good idea to try thinking about what each of the words in our affirmations means as we repeat them, rather then just saying them over and over with no meaning like a broken record.

6. Say Your Affirmations when Your Mind isn't Busy.

We all have times when we are doing nothing in particular and we don't have to pay alot of attention. I mean times like when we're waiting in line, or are on the toilet, or eating dinner, waiting for a webpage to load, or just anytime we aren't doing something where we have to think or pay attention. Remember that repetition is what burns the affirmation into our subconscious so when we have a chance to say it we should.

7.Make a Date with Your Affirmations

Affirmations need be used on a regular basis for them to be effective. It is a good idea to have a certain time that we say our affirmations in special sessions of 5 to 15 minutes. We need to make a date with our affirmations and keep it faithfully. We should still say them during the regular "idle" time that our brains have that I mentioned in #6 but when we make a date with them by making them part of our routine we almost guarantee that we will say them. We will surely see results from them when we make sure that we give them our time rather then going hit and miss. A great time for a date with your affirmations is right after you awake and right before you go to sleep, this is because these are the times of the day that our subconscious mind is most accessible .

8. Personalize Your Affirmations

We should make our affirmations personal , and make sure they feel right to you. The more of a relationship that our affirmations have with who we are the more of an impact they will have on our minds and the sooner they will bare positive fruit.

9. Affirmations and Hugging Yourself

Perhaps you could try combining affirmations and hugging yourself by hugging yourself the whole 5 to 15 minutes of your affirmation session. I think this is a great idea because they both have to do with self-love ,so they reinforce each other beautifully.

Note- In the beginning alot of people have a problem with their mind giving them negative thoughts when they do their affirmations. This is the old negative programming talking back at you , its perfectly normal. As you use affirmations more and write more poems, the old defective programming will go away.

credits

http://affirmations.gems4friends.com/articles/work.html
http://www.successconsciousness.com/affirmations_self_talk.htm
http://www.successconsciousness.com/index_00000a.htm
The book- Writing Poetry from the inside out

3. Hug YourSelf

Sometimes we need a hug and no-one is around, so what should we do? My advice would be to hug one's self. Maybe it sounds weird but we usually hug other people we love. Why shouldn't we hug ourselves? It feels good, its not considered immoral by any religion and I think it is perfectly logical. I'm sorta surprised that other people dont do it more. When hugging yourself here are some tips to keep in mind.

1. If you think people might not understand, hug yourself when your alone. I think almost everyone has times when they are alone. The following are some suggestions about when to hug yourself.

1. When your in the bathroom
2. When no one else is home
3. When other people are out of the room doing something else
4. When no one is paying attention to what your doing- if you're careful you might be able pull off giving yourself a hug when others are around.
5. When other people are around but they don't care if you hug yourself
6. When you don't care what other people think hug yourself any time =)

2. Remember what family therapist Virginia Satir said "We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth"

3. Hugging yourself will feel funny at first but you'll come to like it and think it feels good. If someone catches you hugging yourself , suggest that they try it and find out how good it feels.

4. Experiment with different ways of hugging yourself. There is more then one way to hug yourself and, some will feel better then others. Here is something I got on ehow.com to get you started. I would recommend changing 3 times a day to eight or 12 times a day depending upon how your hug and touch needs vary. But basically just experiment with the type of hug and number of hugs and see what feels good.

5. Try Hugging yourself during the whole 5 to 15 minute affirmation session. Self-hugs and affirmations tend to reinforce each other beautifully.

Instructions and Things You’ll Need:

* Yourself
* A willingness to try something new

* Step 1:Stretch and expand your arms out to either side. Consciously draw pure love, positive energy and life-affirming goodness into your arms.

* Step 2:Inhale and smile.

* Step 3:As you exhale, wrap your arms around your body. Imagine that you are delivering all that goodness, positive energy and love straight to your heart.

* Step 4:Embrace like you mean it. Squeeze yourself the way you would if you were hugging a loved one. Drop your head, rub your shoulders, relax, hold on and breathe.

* Step 5:Sweet talk. Say, "I cherish you self. You are a wonderful, worthy, beautiful self. I am truly grateful for you. All is well. Rest assured and know that you are loved. I love you."

* Step 6:Release your arms. Allow the feeling of being cared for and adored to stay with you throughout the day.

* Step 7:Repeat three times a day, but try not to fall too much in love!



5. Hugs over 20 seconds help to build trust and thus self-hugs help build self-trust aka self confidence

6. Hugs have positive physical effects as well as psychological effects so they are good for your total well being

credits- http://www.ehow.com/how_4615791_hug-yourself.html

4. Keep a Journal

People think alot about nurturing relationships with family and friends, but obviously its also important to nurture the relationship with yourself or I wouldn't be writing this. One way to do this is with a journal. A journal helps you to think and communicate with yourself. It also helps you to get to know yourself better. I would recommend if possible to take time each day to spend by yourself getting to know yourself with your journal. People that love one another take time to hang out and talk , take time to hang-out with yourself. Try grabbing sometime for yourself by shutting off the TV or logging off the net for how ever long you need.

5. Take Care of your Physical Health

I'm not very good at this one because I hate to exercise and I love all kinds of stuff I'm not supposed to eat, so I'm being straight up with you on this and not pretending. I should however take care of my body because its part of loving myself. Most of the time my problem is that there are all kinds of other things that are more fun then exercising and taking care of my body. Physical exercise and good nutrition are very good for us and I miss out on the benefits of exercise. My mom does make sure that I usually get good nutrition and she gives me tons of supplements. I'd try to do some kind of exercise that I like a lot but I haven't found one so far. Hopefully you can look for one and find it.

6. Learn to enjoy being by yourself

As long as we are alive we will be in a relationship with ourselves. We will either have a good relationship with our self or a bad relationship with our self .Our relationship with our self isn't like with a friend or wife/husband . We can break-up with our friends or wife/husband ,but we can't break-up with ourselves. We are stuck with the self we have for our entire life, so we mind as well learn to enjoy being with ourself. Learn to just take pleasure in your own company, you and yourself don't have to be doing anything special together . Try different things when your by yourself and figure out what you enjoy doing when your by yourself. If you would like it is ok to take yourself out on a date if you would like. I mean after all friends and "lovers" take each other on various kinds of dates too. "Date" is not just a term that only applies to "lovers" . The American Heritage Dictionary defines date like this.

An appointment, esp to go out socially

also

A person's companion on such an outing

Don't deny yourself a date with you because other people might not understand. Forget them and give yourself permission to be happy.


What does all this have to do with being a poet and writing poetry?

Well lets start with #1 on the list. We are combating negative self talk with positive self-talk . Here are reasons you should avoid negative self-talk that are related to poetry.

1. Negative self talk- If you talk negatively to yourself all kinds of bad things can happen to you and your writing.

1 You could become discouraged because you think you will never be good at writing.

2 You could also develop writing anxiety which could easily lead to writers block. This could happen because you might tell yourself that your poetry has to be perfect. No poetry is perfect, get over it and move on.

3 You could possibly be overly critical of your poetry , by not seeing the good things in it.

4 Another thing that could happen is that you could become afraid to experiment with new forms , subjects and language patterns. This might happen because you might tell yourself that you might not be able to do it. Sure you might not be able to do it, but then again you just might be able to. Even if you cant do it ,so what, we cant be good at everything.

5. You could fail to see the beauty or eternal in a situation ,which could have become inspiration for a good poem. This might happen when you accept the definition of beauty that other people try to pass off on you. If you tell yourself that this is the only kind of beauty then you fail to see beauty when it is in other forms other then the commonly accepted ones. I would encourage you to think about the concept of beauty and develop your own definition of what it is.

6. You could fail to or have difficulty in writing in the style that is your's and about the subjects that are your's . This is related to number 4, and 5 and it happens when you tell yourself things that inhibit the flow of your feelings from your heart to your writing instrument . People sometimes tell me not to write about gloomy stuff, but sometimes I still do because that is what is in my heart at the time. It is important to be true to your heart .Once you let yourself feel and express those feelings it will be easier to construct the needed images and rhythms to make a good poem.

These probably aren't the only side effects of negative self-talk but they should be enough to encourage you to talk positively to yourself during the day, and get you started thinking about it.

2. Reprogramming Your Mind-

Here are some good reasons why you might want to reprogram your mind with affirmations.They are also things that it might be a good idea to go back and write affirmations for later on.

1. To write poetry , you must be able to see the Beautiful, and Eternal in things, situations, ideas and people. Your idea of Beauty and the Eternal might not be the same as another person's and that is OK. If you can see Beauty in suffering or a garbage dump then I applaud you. Affirmations will be able to help you to reprogram your mind to see Beauty and the Eternal in things, situations, ideas and people. Use the information in the affirmation section to write your own personal affirmation that will allow you to find Beauty and Eternity in the things, situations, ideas and people in existence. I found a good affirmation for this on www.intent.com by Benjamin Nelson, here it is.

"I see beauty all around me."


2. You need to believe that poetry is something that is worthwhile to pursue. Our world generally tends to be pretty materialistic and superficial. Spiritual and creative things like poetry and art don't tend to be encouraged as much as jobs like computer programmers, doctors, and other high paying jobs. Poets usually don't make alot of money. If you don't have some kind of structure or system to encourage you to keep believing in the importance and value of poetry you will buy into the false beliefs that society tends to have about what is important and valuable. Affirmations can help you with this ,by reprogramming your subconscious with statements like,

"I am passionate about poetry", or

"I pursue poetry and understand its value"

3. This is related to number one in this list. When you are a poet it is a good idea to cultivate a sensitivity to the sensory and emotional environment around you. I would recommend this rather one is a poet or not. Also being sensitive to people's emotions allows us to feel what they feel, and thus to identify with them and to experience their suffering and joy and such for ourself. Once we have experienced how these people feel we will be better able to convey it in our poetry. Shirley Vandersteen defines emotional sensitivity like this,

"To be emotionally sensitive is to be aware of your own feelings and the feelings of others. "

If we believe we are highly aware of people's and our own feelings we'll pay more attention to them and do the things that foster awareness of them. There is a "law" related to affirmations that says "When the intention is clear, the methods show up" This is also true with our sensory environment and the more we believe it the more it will come about . We might simply write an affirmation for this that looks like this.


"I am highly aware of my emotional environment and my senses "

4. Something else that affirmations can help you with is being able to write more easily. Sometimes we want to write and we have a topic but we dont know what to say or how to say it. I recommend that we reprogram our minds and tell them that we can write easily. Once we believe that we can write easily then we will relax and the words will start to flow because we aren't so up-tight. Remember "When the intention is clear, the methods show up"

Well these are not the only things that you can use affirmations for concerning your poetry. I would advise you to use your imagination and brainstorm and create your own affirmations to help you with the things you need help with concerning your poetry. Affirmations can also be used in other areas of your life too and they do best when combined with positive self-talk.

3. Hug Yourself

Ok your probably asking what hugging yourself has to do with writing poetry and you might even be thinking that I'm half crazy. Well let me tell you how this hugging business works.

1. Hugs help to fight stress and put you at ease, which helps make writing easier

2. Hugs are good for your brain and central nervous system and so they help promote optimal cognitive processing ,which is important for people who write poetry.

3. Hugs help you to feel happy and loved. When you feel happy and loved then the world stops looking like a horrid temporal garbage dump. It's like when you experience one of the many forms of falling in love. Rather its a friend that you love dearly and you feel almost high when you think of them, or a "significant other" or some other kind of loving relationship, people almost always experience the world as being a beautiful and wonderous place when they feel loved.

4. Hugs help build trust. Research has proven that hugs over 20 seconds long help to build trust between the hugging partners. In this case you would be your own hugging partner and they would build self-trust aka self-confidence. It's kind of hard to settle down and write a poem if your all abuzz over rather you can do it or not.

5. Hugs give you an opportunity to practice sensory awareness. When you give yourself a hug don't just enjoy it superfacially, sink into it and notice all the lovely sensory aspects of it too.

6. Give yourself a hug when you are sad, or feel negatively ,it requires you to monitor your feelings ,so that you know when you feel bad and thus helps to develop emotional sensitivity.

7. Hugging yourself is a good exercise to stretch your arms before, during and after writing.

4. Keep a journal

1. Keeping a journal is a great way to increase introspection and emotional sensitivity. When you understand , are aware of and sensitive to your own feelings, you greatly increase the chances that you will understand and be more aware of other peoples' feelings because they feel all the same kinds of emotions that you feel.

2. Another thing keeping a journal does is to provide a place to store your life experiences. This store-house of experiences gives you a great place to draw ideas from. Even if you can't or dont want to use the same experience ,you can always use that experience as a starting place to construct an imaginary experience based on the feelings that you experienced during the real experience.

3. A journal also gives you a place to write when you have writer's block and can help prevent writer's block. When you write in a journal everyday ,you help to keep your mind in "writing mode" . When you dont know what to write about writing about your thought or your day can help you get unstuck by giving you ideas and helping to get you back into writing "mode"

4. In addition to helping you become emotionally sensitive a journal can help you increase your sensory sensitivity by allowing you a place to do various exercises in sensory awareness. Here are some I have read about.

1. Write a description of something, including as much sensory information as you can

2. Try to write a description of a person, place, or thing from memory ,including as much sensory information as you can recall.

3. If writing a full blown description overwhelms you, just make a list of the sensory details you get from something.

5. Keeping a journal also helps you to think about life and your problems and helps you to solve them and to structure your life ,so that you can work on your poetry without having to worry about all the other details and problems of life. You may write a poem about how you feel about a problem but during that time you'll more likely be concerned with expressing your feelings then solving a problem.

5. Take care of your physical health

1. Taking care of your health helps you to function better emotionally and cognitively , a plus when writing poetry.

2. By living longer you have more time to practice writing poetry and will get better the more practice you have.

3. It's hard have sensory sensitivity when your senses don't work correctly ,like when you cant see or hear very good.

4. Being sick can really cut down on the ability and time you have to be poetically productive while your sick.

5. It keeps your hands and arms and shoulders in shape ,which is important for writers so they can keep writing.

6. Keeping care of your health can keep you from hurting , and pain can be very distracting to your thought process.

7. Taking a break to exercise and help your ideas to "incubate"


6. Learn to Enjoy being by yourself

This is important for poets because writers of all kinds usually spend alot of time by their self thinking ,and writing. I'm not saying you should be a hermit and not take part in the social aspects of the poetry scene and life in general. What I am saying is that being a writer your going to have times alone by yourself and that you should learn to enjoy them. Here are some things that I thought of that I hope will help you to enjoy being by yourself more.

1. Realize that you dont have to write every time that your by yourself. Doing stuff that isn't poetry related in addition to your poetry will make you and thus your poetry more well rounded. It's OK to do other stuff too.

2. When your not writing it can be fun and helpful to read the work of other poets

3. Sometimes its fun just to daydream about what-ever you want to at the current moment.

4. Experiment and try doing different things when your by yourself and see what works and feels good.

5. Go on a date with yourself every so often- like I said earlier , people go on various kinds of dates with their friends ,"significant others" and other people they love so why shouldn't they go on a date with their self.

6. Enjoy the quiet. Quiet can be annoying and uncomfortable at first until you get used to it and after that it can be very refreshing ,especially for people like artists and poets who tend to be overloaded easily by too much sensory information. Being a sensitive person can be a good thing but it also requires you to be able to unplug from all the noise and bright lights and emotional demands that come from life so that you can get back to a reasonable and manageable level of internal stimulation.

7. Try putting a puzzle together, or playing with legos or playing a non-electronic game. Video games can be fun, but they just dont give you the same kind experience that playing in a non-electronic game does. Non-electronic games are a better sensory experience and but are usually not overstimulating like video games can be. Also non-electronic games usually ask you to think more then electronic games do

Conclusion
As you can see, it is important to love yourself when your a poet. Like I've said before the lists in this article were not meant to be exhaustive ,just places to start you thinking from. Try some of the things I've suggested, ditch what doesn't work for you and keep what does. I encourage you to come up with your own ideas , and maybe combine them with mine . I've tried to do a good job writing this article but I'm sure there is some stuff that I missed. If I missed anything or am incorrect on something , I encourage you to comment and put your ideas forward so I and others can profit from them as people and poets.