Wandering into better self-expression.

In the past, I have posted blog entries on the power of our words, the meanings and the effects they can have. Last week I sent a You Tube video of myself to my niece and asked her to show it to my mother who does not have a computer. My niece sent me an e-mail the following day, commenting on how much Mom enjoyed that short video clip and she (my niece) also mentioned that I am well-spoken; something I don't readily agree with. I think I write much better than I speak, something Mom also mentioned to my niece.

In writing, I find I can read and re-read my words and change what I think may sound different from what I intend to say; I can remove the "sting" by choosing different ways to phrase my thoughts and I can correct ambiguities before they occur. These are luxuries we don't have when speaking, either into a camcorder, on a telephone, or in person. Once said, our words are out there, and any hurt they cause is also out there, sometimes with devastating, permanent results.

Having said all that, I have noticed a trend since the beginning of 2010 to be somewhat scattered in my thoughts. As I re-read my blog entries a few weeks ago, I felt a definite shift in the tone, from relatively articulate to average, and determined that my scattered thoughts had resulted in an inability to express myself as well as I once did. I vow to change that, and in a sense, have begun to make those changes.

When I returned from New Brunswick after what had become a somewhat less than expected experience, I pretty much literally dropped what I had brought with me and decided to deal with it all later. As it turns out, much of what I dropped and did not deal with were my emotions surrounding the situation. Therein was the cause of my scattered thoughts. In recent days, I have begun to re-arrange the clothes in my closet and the accumulated clutter in the garage and my thoughts and emotions have begun to clear.

In the ancient Chinese practice of Feng Shui, (also known as Hotei in Japan) it is said that a cluttered home leads to a cluttered mind and with that I can certainly agree. As my life gets increasingly more organized and my thoughts follow suit, my words, both written and spoken, are sure to also follow.

KEEPING things neat and organized... Well, that's another matter altogether!

~Still Wandering...