Today I wrote a poem.

A poem about how great I really am, but I never seem to see it. Until I choose to.

And what a difference that makes to my wellbeing!

I don’t write often. But I like to. Because it is freeing; the sense of relief I feel when my writing gives me clarity on my thoughts, feelings and the world around me. It’s helpful to send it to a friend, but sometimes I just write for myself, either in a journal or on my phone.

As well as clarity and improved production, writing also helps to eliminate my stresses of the day too. And best of all, I find that writing helps me learn more – especially about myself.

Specifically the poem was about trying to remind myself of what I had learned from the courses and how far I had come, but with the aim of also sharing with others about how much changing the way I thought about myself truly helped me to thrive.

When I attended the course, I realised I wasn’t the only one struggling with the notion of perfection. For me, though, the more I thought about the things I couldn’t do, the worse I felt. And eventually I became depressed and saw very little positivity in my life at all. I obsessed about all the things that were “wrong with me”, but as soon as I started to see what was good about me, the more I realised just how much time I had wasted being absent minded, negative and uncompassionate.

I also realised I was obsessed about things being perfect all the time. Because no matter what I did, I never felt good enough. One time, my friend said to me “your room is so clean” – and my reply was “that’s because I’m so unhappy”. I get a lot of complements for being good at things, but I refused to show them anything I wasn’t good at. And games that I thought would make me look imperfect – forget it, I would refuse to go to games night all together.

But now, I will join in, and if something is out of place I don’t obsess over it. I try first and foremost to enjoy my life. And I wanted others to see just how different your life can change by simply changing your outlook. And all those worrying about perfection on the same courses as me, I wanted to share this with them.

After I changed my outlook, I realised after all this time, I was the only one with the key to unlocking my happiness – and that’s the message I wanted to get across. My situation hasn’t changed, but knowing that I had the control to change it if I wanted to (and realising I had that all along) shocked me into understanding just how amazing the power of positive thought really was.

As soon as I started showing myself some compassion, and reminding myself that I was good at certain things, I started to feel much better. From there, I restarted to do things I enjoyed. A year on, I’m now also starting new hobbies and have a completely new career!

So, as a way to remind me, and share with others, just how much a person can flourish, I wrote this poem.

And hope that perhaps one day it will inspire someone to either write for their own wellbeing and/or think more compassionately in the future.