If you’re not changing it, you’re choosing it

What will you decide?

Have you ever felt affirmed on every possible level? Like you’re not only on the right path, but that path was built for you, brick by brick? A life designed with you in mind?

Writing is the key that unlocked this life for me.

What is your ideal day?

This afternoon, I led a Word of the Year workshop at a local yoga studio where we practiced yin yoga postures while journaling to discover a word that will guide us throughout the next year.

---

Read more about this practice, including journal prompts, in last week’s newsletter:

---

The first portion of the workshop was spent reflecting on 2024, recalling the highs and lows, the challenges, and the lessons learned. After we wrote about what we wanted to let go and leave in 2024, I invited everyone to lie down and relax so I could lead the group through a visualization meditation.

Ideal Life Visualization Mediation

After a few deep breaths, I invited everyone to imagine they were sleeping in their bed and headed off to dreamland. When they awoke, they would arise in their ideal life. This isn’t their magical different life where they wake up rich and married to a movie star. This is their actual life - just the ideal version of it.

I invited everyone to imagine waking up in this ideal life and asked them to visualize what they would do first thing in the morning with their time. I invited the group to imagine how they would spend their morning, then their afternoon, then their evening, and envision how they would feel throughout that ideal day. I asked them to imagine when they were heading back to bed, they felt at peace with the day they lived ~ the people they spent time with, the activities they participated in, and the choices they made.

I encouraged the group to savor that feeling of being at peace and enjoying that ideal day as they imagine going back to bed at home once again. After a few deep breaths, I invited everyone to open their eyes to the ideal life they imagined.

Everyone was prompted to write whatever they saw in their meditation as quickly as possible - a bulleted list detailing as much as they could recall - so we could use that as inspiration moving forward in our Word of the Year practice.

What are you choosing?

When I journaled with this prompt recently in my Word of the Year practice, I had the most beautiful realization - I am living my ideal life! This is the life I wished for when I was younger. Sure, some tweaks could be cool, but overall I wake up and go to bed every day with gratitude. I have a handsome and funny husband who is my best friend and a generous and caring partner. I have great friends, I’m financially stable with a cozy home, and a dog who could be a fur model. I have found peace in my work - both the job that pays me and the work I do as my life’s mission.

I’m not trying to brag but the truth is, I am blown away by this fact myself! This was not my mindset just a few years ago, even when I had all the same things I just described. My mental health was not as stable, my physical health was not as strong, and my spiritual health was not as prioritized as it is now.

So, what changed?

Writing. I started writing for self-discovery and found healing beyond my wildest dreams. It seems simple but it’s true. Writing allows me to tap into parts of my soul I didn’t know existed and each week, when writing this Substack, that sense of ease expands. I feel I am being called to keep writing and that calling gets stronger each time I write.

The circumstances haven’t changed much and some could even say certain parts of my life have gotten more challenging - but my mindset has been one of peace and gratitude.

---

Some of my journey is outlined in my introductory blog posted almost one year ago:

Other posts share examples and details of how I’ve found peace through writing:

---

Today, I attended a yoga class with my favorite teacher, Kate Goodyear, where she shared this quote she attributed to her friend online:

“If you’re not changing it, you’re choosing it.”

And that sums it up. We must take accountability for our actions or inactions - and that includes our mindset.

Choosing to be present, mindful, and grateful are options and they don’t depend on our circumstances. You can decide. It’s up to you. What will you choose? Will you wake up tomorrow and live your ideal life? You can start right now, today.

Journal Prompts:

1. Do the visualization exercise above and imagine all the details of your ideal day then write about what that ideal day entails. Be sure to include how you feel throughout the day.

2. Considering your above response, get strategic. What barriers are in the way of you feeling the way you felt in your ideal day meditation? How can you remove or move around those barriers? What resources, tools, people/places/things, might help you move closer to living that ideal life every day?

3. “If you’re not changing it, you’re choosing it.” What are the things you are choosing in your life?

Join me for my next FREE Workshop - Write to Heal Community Circle - on Tuesday, January 28 from 745pm-830pm EST. We'll begin with some deep breaths and body awareness, then spend 5 minutes each on 5 prompts all focused on self-discovery. We’ll end with a community share circle. No writing experience is necessary!

These circles will be offered on the last Tuesday of the month through 2025.

---

Fragile Thoughts: A Healing Memoir is available anywhere books are sold. My book was published in 2023 by New Degree Press and now the audiobook is live!

Thank you for reading Write to Heal. Please hit that heart button❤️if you made it this far. Please join me in the comments or chat to share your thoughts ~