Below is Kay Butzin's review of how Mari L. McCarthy's Mindset Medicine helped encourage her and renewed her can-do spirit
December 13, 2021
Just in time to assist with my resolution-setting, Mari McCarthy has published a new book which promises to (1) help me figure out what I want to accomplish, and (2) identify behaviors which limit their achievement.
A retiree, I’ve been blessed with the resources and time to write for pleasure and not for income. As a result I tend to avoid goal-setting.
But I will relent and set a couple of goals for the next month:
- work on my Covid-19 chapbook
- choose and polish one of my many first drafts for the January critique group meeting
December 17
Why I don’t make plans:
Tuesday morning when I went to take a shower, there was no hot water. The water heater not repaired till late afternoon, we had to reschedule the dinner party we’d planned.
Then yesterday, Thursday, a windstorm blew in, knocking out our power and internet. The noisy generator has been running since seven o’clock yesterday morning. But I can’t complain. It’s kept the furnace running.
Now 11:00 a.m. on Friday, we still have no computers or television. I’m reading a physical book because I don’t have access to my Kindle.
December 18
Notes from a ten-year-old morning pages notebook:
Gail Godwin, Father Melancholy’s Daughter
Focus on those places where intensity blazes up, and let God do the rest.
Jacob Liberman, Wisdom from an Empty Mind
Life requires no rehearsal. Let it be your guide, and you will know everything by heart.
December 20
Holiday travel plans canceled—one of the grandkids has Covid.
December 26
Mari’s Chapter 7 prompt suggests I explore the effect of stress on my productivity.
I have no kids and no job. I don’t own a house and enjoy lots of time to devote to what I like and want to do. Still—an old habit—I catch myself with hunched shoulders, my mind running the gerbil wheel, concerned with “what I need to get done today.”
That’s when I need to journal. The act of placing word after word along the notebook lines helps me unwind the circular thoughts and tackle life one step at a time.
December 31
Chinese Proverb
Don’t push the river; it flows by itself.
I need to focus more on the process and not so much on the outcome. Because each goal attained only satisfies temporarily, unrealistic is the claim that if I meet a particular one, I will live happily ever after. I must revel in each experience, and not merely as something to cross off a list.
January 28, 2022
The positive self-talk Mari encourages has succeeded in fostering a renewed can-do spirit. Although I didn’t work on the chapbook goal I set at the beginning of this trip, my story for critique group turned into a submission to a flash fiction contest. I also entered a revised essay to another contest and wrote an article on punctuation for our next writers group newsletter.
So, not to lose the momentum I’ve gained from working with the prompts in Mindset Miracles, I look forward to my next adventure, writing and posting a story a day during the Writer’s Digest February Flash Fiction Challenge.
Author bio: Kay Butzin enters flash essay and flash fiction contests to motivate her to write something more than morning pages. She is retired at Houghton Lake with her life partner Ron and is a member of Mid Michigan Writers, Inc.
Kay answers email at kaybutzin@gmail.com
Leave Comment