Self-Compassion, Self-Care Archives - Melissa Dinwiddie | Create the Impossible™

January 17, 2019

This Mantra May Sound Depressing, But It Really Helps

I woke up on Tuesday last week, got undressed to take a shower, and was horrified to see huge, red, raised welts all over my thighs, the size of miniature roadkill hamsters.

Seriously, my legs looked like topographical maps of Middle Earth.

If I had not been recently diagnosed with eczema, I probably would have had a cardiac arrest.

As it was, I had a mild panic attack, because my eczema up until that point had been limited to my face and neck, so to have it spontaneously — BAM! — erupt ALL OVER my thighs was shocking, to say the least.

“Will I be miniature-roadkill-hamster-leg-woman forever?” wondered my brain. [Read more…]

December 21, 2018

Choosing Where to Focus

Winter Solstice is here! The longest night of the year.

I’ve become quite the morning person, much to my surprise, given that not so long ago my regular bedtime was 2am!

Aiaiai!

That’s hard for me to imagine now, as I typically wake up in the velvety depths of 6:30am — or even 5:30am, as I did this morning — and do my shoulder rehab exercises while it’s still dark outside.

I actually love getting up early. It affords me time to do my full morning ritual:

Stretching in bed
Strength training (the aforementioned shoulder rehab)
Meditation (usually 10 minutes)
Hip flexor stretch
Writing in my journal
Doodling! (That’s my creative sandbox playtime 🙂 )

Then lately I’ve been doing vocal exercises while I [Read more…]

January 24, 2018

My Lost Week

Doodlebot says, "It's always darkest before the dawn!" — *Doodlebot says, “It’s always darkest before the dawn!”*

I was supposed to be running my very first gig for my new consultancy today — a pro bono LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® team building staff retreat for a non-profit.

Instead, I’ve been home in bed, on Day 10 of The Flu.

Despite spending the entire week 100% focused on Getting Well, the Universe conspired against me, and I had to cancel.

That’s the bad news.

I’d been looking forward to [Read more…]

September 1, 2017

Jackson Pollack Dog Poop and Right-Now Reality

We’re dog sitting.

We do that a lot, because although we don’t have a dog ourselves, my parents do — a German Shepherd named Chloe — and that’s the arrangement we have with them: anytime they travel (which they do a lot, especially to visit their grandson, who lives on the other coast), Chloe comes to live with us.

And this time, Chloe got sick.

Really, really sick.

As in digestive tract sick. Both ends.

And one thing about Chloe, is that she has this habit of walking while she poops. I have no idea why.

She’s perfectly still when she pees, but when she poops, she takes a hike.

It makes our back yard into a bit of a land mind situation.

And yesterday, well, you know the artist Jackson Pollack?

That was pretty much our living room. Except with dog poop.

On white Berber carpet.

Though to be fair, it hasn’t [Read more…]

July 15, 2017

Why I Turned Down a Paid Music Gig

Photo by Christina Wesley - https://www.facebook.com/tinawesl — *Me, delivering a speech (with uke!) at the Connecticut Professional Photographers Association annual convention last March. Photo by Christina Wesley – https://www.facebook.com/tinawesl*

I just turned down a paying music gig.

After writing in my journal this morning that one of the things I’d like to get back to is performing my music.

Why in the world would I do such a thing?

Well, rarely in life are things black and white, it turns out. Most of the time they are shades of grey.

And although the music gig is paid, it would, in fact, end up being at least 4 hours of [Read more…]