Why Do I Blog?

Blogging is probably the single most positive tool that I have at my disposal.  It doesn't matter what injuries I'm dealing with...how old I get...what my cue belt level is.  It helps motivate me.  It helps me track my progress, keep me organized and develop strategies and plans.  It helps me reflect, on both the good and the bad.  It helps me vent frustrations.  It helps me reach out when I didn't even realize I needed to reach out.  It helps me quash any negativity before it festers into something more.  It serves as a reminder of what worked and what didn't.  It helps me both establish and maintain connections with my teammates and my instructors.  It helps me relate with those that have experienced the same struggles…and the same success.  It helps me correct my perspective when needed…even if it’s the people reading that are doing the correcting.  I could go on.  There are too many benefits to count.

Having said that, it's not always easy.  There are times that I feel embarrassed about the challenges I'm facing or the things that I'm struggling with.  There are times I struggle with how to put things in words or that I'm exposing too much of myself and opening myself up to judgement.  Sometimes what I'm trying to say comes across how I intended, and sometimes it doesn't.  Sometimes what I write seems irrelevant or just plain dumb.  But once I get past worrying about how it will look to others, that's when the words start to flow.  My blog is for me.  The most important thing is that I understand it, that it's relevant to me and that I am getting something out of it.  If others can take something from my blogs, that is just an awesome bonus.

There was a time that I held back.  I feared that others would start to feel overburdened or even annoyed with reading them.  Or that they would become a source of contention for anyone that struggled with blogging.  I wanted the things I shared to be helpful, not overbearing.  I had several un-published blogs that sat hidden away.  But I was quickly reminded that I should be publishing everything, all the time.  That this is my journey and I should embrace that this particular tool has been so advantageous to me.  And so I’ve continued in that manner.

The more I blog, the more I seem to be able to maintain a steady flow of progression.  I am able to express my thoughts, evaluate them, release them and then move forward.  Often, a blog that starts out as something negative, will change as I write it and become something positive.  As I write the words down, I tend to see things differently and can even come full circle from a place of confusion or frustration, to one of understanding.  And so I find blogging to be therapeutic in a way.  I feel like if I were to keep everything in, especially the struggles, then I would never be able to sort them out into something manageable and would never be able to move on.  As though, at some point, my mind would become so full that there would be no room for anything else.  My internal, mental and emotional self would be so bogged down it would just stall out, and then my physical self would eventually do the same.

Blogging, for me, is like taking a big butterfly breath.  Breathing in, I record and share my journey.  Breathing out, I reflect, learn and move forward.