Do you know how to love yourself?

I was asked this question, in a different form, last week. The answer I gave proved I didn't. 

The guy who asked me the question defined 'loving myself well' as "taking care of myself in such a way that I am preparing myself for a better future." He said, "The answer I was looking for was, since you're a writer, that you write for at least an hour every day."

When I heard that, I realized I was believing a lie. When I thought of 'loving myself', I thought about the character Hulk Hogan played in that Rocky movie (I don't remember which one) Thunderlips, the Ultimate Male. He kissed his biceps and said "These are the biggest arms in the world!"

As a Christian, something that is always somewhere in my mind is, "Christianity is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less." Thank you, C.S. Lewis, for confusing me.

The reality is, if you are a Christian, that your body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit. It stands to reason that God would expect you to take care of your body to the best of your ability.

I also believe that it is my responsibility as a Christian to steward my soul. Scripture says that he who is faithful in little things will be faithful in much. 

So, how do you steward your soul? You love yourself well. What does that look like?

If you are a Christian, prayer, worship, reading Scripture, and fellowship with like-minded believers are essential.

If you believe that you have a purpose, gift, or vocation, you are responsible to steward, cultivate, and ultimately, share that thing in your life. If you are a writer, you must write. If you love books, you must read. If you love music, you must listen to, and play music. If you are an artist, you must study and create art. 

What you must also do, is organize your life to allow yourself time to devote to that thing that makes you tick. Balancing your checkbook is an act of self-love. Living within a budget, which will allow you to spend money learning about, doing, or sharing, that thing you love, is an act of self-love. Cleaning your room, or your bathroom, on a regular basis is an act of self-love. Enduring a job you hate so you can provide for yourself to do the thing that most makes you who you are is an act of self-love. Making healthy food choices is an act of self-love. If you have one, treating a chronic disease so that you can function to your highest ability is an act of self-love. Doing your laundry, folding it, and putting it away is an act of self-love. Choosing not to drink when you've had a really bad day and it's the best idea ever, is an act of self-love.

Since being asked that question, and being given that definition, every choice I've made has been preceded by the thought, "Is this an act of self-love?"

So, I ask again, do you know how to love yourself?

If not, I hope you've learned something.

If you can teach me something after reading this, feel free to comment.

Write on, my friends. Write on!

Last I was here, I warned you I was about to get prolific. I lied. I've written about 689 words. Far from prolific. 

It's something, though, right? Doesn't that matter? 

No.

Why not?

When I edit, I am a ruthless, heartless, cruel person. My goal is to make the writers I edit better. According to a personality/career aptitude test, I think like a college professor. Which means that I intend to teach people to be better writers. 

Problem?

First, an editor's job is not to teach. Second, some people don't need to be taught. Third, of those that do, not all of them are ready to be taught. Fourth, some of them can't handle being taught. Fifth, some people believe that because they have a degree and I don't, I have nothing to teach them.

It's presumptuous and arrogant of me to believe I can teach anybody anything, since my extant completed lifetime output amounts to about forty-five pages.

Which brings me to my real purpose tonight. I want to talk about discipline. 

Somebody just cringed.

Discipline is not a bad word. It just has a bad reputation. Bad parents, bad spouses, bad significant others and crazy people in positions of authority have abused discipline for to make themselves feel better at somebody else's expense.

To bypass all the baggage, let's consider a piece of discipline not one of us would disagree we need. Potty training. Imagine your life without it. It's difficult to do. Being potty trained is something toddlers hate to learn. It's a behavioral ritual that is imposed upon each of us by someone else. I'd bet that there isn't one person reading this who isn't grateful to have endured that imposition. There are many who have helped pass on this imposition to their own children, siblings, or pets.

Until I heard otherwise, the best definition I could come up with for discipline was "How I choose to spend my time." 

This is why my piddly word count doesn't matter. It took me an hour to produce those words. How many hours have passed since my last blog post to now? Don't know. Don't want to know. The answer would depress and anger me.  I had a multitude of 'unassigned' hours that could have been spent adding to that number, or posting here. But they weren't.

Why? Some reasons are legitimate. Exercise. Doctor's visits. Eating. Sleeping. Socializing (to a point). Some, not so much. Who makes those decisions? Me. I like to pretend they're not, but they are decisions. Were they good or bad? Doesn't matter. If my goal is to be a writer, then I must spend some time writing. Hopefully, the more the better. 

I recently listened to a teaching by a man named Danny Silk, who is a pastor at Bethel Church in Redding, California. It was entitled Becoming a Man. His definition of discipline is this: "Telling yourself what to do, and obeying yourself."

The question is, what are you telling yourself to do?

Since I claim to be a writer, and have done for over thirty years, (I feel way too young to be able to say that) and I recently had the results of a reverse IQ and career aptitude test explained to me, (and the guy said I should be "writing like hell!" his words, not mine) I thought I'd start here. 

I've thought a lot about writer's block for a long time. I think it's an excuse now, but I didn't used to. For me, it was all about fear. I was afraid of failure. I was afraid of success. I was afraid of offending people who love me, and people I love. I used to distract myself with laundry, or dishes, or creating anxiety about how my bedroom makes me feel like I'm a hoarder. I was afraid of how writing made me feel. I felt good while writing, but if I went back and read what I wrote, I usually freaked myself out for one reason or another. 

And then something happened. Believe it or not, I heard about Robin Williams's suicide. I was heartsick. When I heard he battled depression, part of me was amazed. For about a second. It didn't make sense to me that a man that funny, who improvised his part in Aladdin in about four hours, could be that sad. So I thought about it. 

I've been on Prozac for about twenty years now, and was recently declared legally disabled, and depression was one of my diagnoses, so I related to him, in a way. I thought about how, years ago, during a conversation with my pastor's wife, I mentioned struggling with depression. She said, "You're an intercessor. It makes sense that you feel the burdens of others. How else would you know what to pray about?" I've also heard her say that she believes God gets sad, and has had times where he wanted to share that with her. Make of that what you will. 

At the time, her answer dismayed me. I'm sure I thought something along the lines of "What good does that do me?" I get that I'm supposed to 'renew my mind,' but I don't always get how. Suddenly, I understood it. I believe - in part - that Robin Williams was so funny precisely because he was an intercessor too. He felt the sadness of the world, but didn't realize it wasn't all his. His God-given instinct was to find the funny, to dispel the sadness. To ease the burdens he felt. If he'd been able to see that all the sadness he felt wasn't his, suicide might not have been an option. 

 I know what you're thinking. "What does this have to do with writing? Is this guy a jerk?"

I can be. Most of the time, it's unintentional. Give me a minute.

I've been suicidal.

I hated myself for years.

I thought I was unloved and unlovable.

I was convinced nobody would care whether I wrote anything or not, even if it was good. 

I loved Stephen King as a kid. He was my role model.

Imagine my surprise, as my writing matured, even after I wasn't so avid in reading him, that my stuff was, and is, dark. I scared myself. I made myself sad. 

Good story-telling is about conflict. Most conflicts are internal. Conflicts produce pain. People react to pain in different ways. Not all choices they make are best for them. This produces darkness. Overcoming the darkness makes people feel good. Duh, right?

I am a born-again, Spirit-filled Christian, and I now believe that my writing is a form of prayer. Which means I am no longer afraid of it, or how it makes me feel. 

I've made myself laugh. I've made myself cry. I've turned myself on. 

If you've done that, it means you're good. Whatever you feel, the reader will feel. That's the point, right?

Between me and the Devil, I've thought worse things about myself than anybody else could ever think or say to or about me, so I'm not afraid anymore. So, look out, world, I'm about to get prolific.

Speaking of getting prolific, I recently had a writer friend (who is pretty prolific herself) - Deputy Ricos rocks!- ask me why people say "write every day." I've thought about that too. Here goes.

Stephen King is probably the only person who writes almost every day. Some days, it just ain't there. But it is there more often than it isn't, even if you don't want to write (which is okay).  And, if you're like I was, you probably give yourself stuff about not writing enough. If you're a writer, that's probably the only piece of grief I won't tell you to stop giving yourself. If you believe you're a writer, you have to prove it to yourself before you can prove it to anybody else, so get words on the page, on the screen, or wherever you put them. 

If you think it's pretentious for you to think of yourself as a Writer, get over yourself; I'm about to make it worse. God is a writer. Don't freak out, I happen to believe that you were created in His image. If you're a writer, it's a double-dose deal. Go read Hebrews 12:2. And think about this: if you believe "Holy men of God spake as they were moved..." (look it up, King James Version) who do you think dictated what they wrote down?

My point is, "Be not afraid!"

I hear testimonies about ministries a lot. I used to give myself grief because, being disabled, I'm not particularly inclined to get in the van and go a lot of places. One day, wishing I could take part in "street ministry" I decided I wasn't going to compare myself to other people any more. I decided I'm going to dedicate my life to blessing God my Father. So, I asked him, (being a born-again, Spirit-filled Christian, I believe He can and does speak when spoken to) "How can I bless You, Father?"

His response? "Pray more, and write."

I love when life gets simple. Write on, my friends. Write on.