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Acknowledging Your Mean Ways
A non-fiction response to a writing prompt.
This story was inspired by a writing prompt published under Chelsea Marie’s The Storyteller’s Vault Poetry Writing Prompts Challenge.
Is it possible for a person to be mean to him- or herself?
That was the question I recently answered last week during a creative exercise found in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. The task asked the writer to list ten ways is engaging in this behavior. My list consisted of the following items:
1. I allow painful childhood memories from attending elementary school to haunt me in my adulthood.
2. I sometimes stand in my own way because I don’t feel I’m worthy of achieving success and prosperity in my life.
3. I procrastinate doing tasks I know should be completed but I lack the desire to undertake.
4. I emotionally and mentally punish myself for allowing depression and/or anxiety to rob me of having happiness from my late 30s to my early 40s.
5. I engage in negative thoughts like imaging worst-case scenarios that impact my self-esteem.
6. I don’t allow my body to get its necessary rest of seven to nine hours of sleep.