Today I was feeling down and discouraged. At lunch, I opened my copy of Life Is A Verb by Patti Digh to see if I could find some wisdom. I found the entry “Write Some Blues.”
In it she challenges us to do ‘reverse design.” Instead of trying to create the best, create the worst. Take whatever issue is discouraging you or bothering you and flip it around. Write a treatise on ‘How To Stay Discouraged,” or “How to Stay Fat,” etc.
Patti says that while you’re writing your “how to” you may discover some things that you are doing to sabotage yourself or you may think of some way to change things. So I did it.
Here it is:
• Dwell on the worst, scariest thoughts possible
• Obsess and stay paralyzed with indecision
• Avoid action at all cost
• Keep thinking “It will never get better!”
• Play “Woe is me” over and over
• Stay in your head
• Play helpless
• Demand that reality be different than what it is without doing anything to change it
• Play make believe
• Ignore what is right or good in your life
• Think that you have it worse than anyone else in the world
As I got to the end of the list, I realized that I know how to make myself miserable. I’m an expert! So why not flip it around and stop doing those things?
By the time I got done writing, I felt lighter. I actually felt like smiling. So why not try writing yourself some blues? It works! Thanks, Patti!
2 comments:
what a fabulous way to use "reverse design"! I'm glad it helped! xoxo
Interesting post. It's almost comical when you put it that way, I like this technique! Thanks for visiting my blog.
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