Some Apologies Necessary
Grow with Mother Crow: February 2023
Happy March, Mother Crow Subscribers!
Here are your Grow with Mother Crow Creative Writing and Expression Exercises from February 2023.
I will be adding new exercises each week to mothercrowpoetry.com where you can access the entire archive here or submit your own work to Mother Crow here.
Jump straight to the writing prompts! Scroll down and look for the words:
“Try it out: Write about…”
Whether you follow these prompts note-for-note, utilize them merely as creative inspiration, or only consider your responses to them inside your own head, I hope expressing yourself encourages a better understanding of yourself.
I cannot guarantee therapeutic results- nor a cure for grief and anxiety- but I can promise introspection and self-discovery, and that’s the closest thing I’ve found to mental health.
Let’s Crow!
~Sophia Elizabeth
“Little Red Writing Roots”- February 6, 2023:
Do you consider PLAY to be a basic necessity?
The root chakra (also known as Muladhara in Sanskrit) is located at our seated foundations in the perineum. It serves our most basic needs for survival, security, and safety with its red energy flowing like magma heating the earth's core.
When I close my eyes and imagine that redness moving through me, I feel child-like and fearless, and like I am safe to roam free and curious. I remember running outside barefoot with sun-chapped lips and knees burnt from falling and climbing and surviving the day with play. Pushing the limits with play! Questioning everything with play! Nurturing my soul with play...
Try it out: Write about your root chakra and what it means for you to be grounded.
Imagine sitting atop a fire, unscathed by its flames, feeling warm and safe as red colors flow freely throughout your body, pumping in and out of your heart and lungs, wrapping their red hues around each cell, and weighing every morsel of your anatomy down to the ground with a heated foundation.
Write about what you envisioned.
What fuels your most curious and wild self?
What does getting grounded mean to you?
What ignites your inner fire?
Write a poem about your inner child. What makes your inner child feel safe and secure? What makes your inner child feel playful?
“___________________, in waiting…”- February 12, 2023:
I often stare at a blank canvas or empty page for months on end feeling intimidated by the potential of something yet to be created, while at the same time, craving the reimagination of my experiences and the world around me through the abstract shades of paint and poetry.
Like procrastination, Canvas, in waiting is a poem stuck in the indecisive loop of an artist's anxious, chaotic, or bewildered internal narrative. The canvas is personified to be feminine, moody, and coated in the desire to be saturated in new perspective and textured with emotional substance... because that's what the artist is.
The canvas waits eagerly on the precipice of creation while the artist daydreams in her ambivalence, feeling both hopeful and hesitant, proactive yet repetitive, in the face of something new.
It's a poem that posits, "How do we break the cycle of waiting and actualize the visions we have of ourselves tomorrow, today?"
Try it out: Write about what's waiting for you on the other side of trepidation. procrastination, self-doubt, or overthinking?
Write a poem about an item or project or task that you hope to one day complete.
You can begin with: "____________, in waiting"
Personify that thing or project.
Write from its point of view.
Give it pronouns and use language associated with people's actions and interactions (i.e., hope, believe, worry, shake hands, eat lunch)
Write about what completion would feel like after weeks, months, years, decades of waiting.
Is the tone of your writing patient or impatient? Write another poem or journal entry in the opposite tone.
“Some Apologies Necessary”- February 28, 2023:
I woke up on Valentine's Day distracted by routine and a long to-do list. After a busy morning of breakfast and chores, I put the baby down for a nap and the T.V. on for my toddler so I could work for a couple of hours.
But then I yelled at my toddler for whining once I turned it off, and then I lost my patience with him at the lunch table and again after that, and then again a little later... for acting like a toddler!
So he and I took a time-out together to talk about screen-time etiquette, me working too much, both of us needing to take a breath when we get angry, and how we are both trying our best to do better. It all felt somewhat sorted out, so we hugged and moved on as though it were any other Tuesday...
Until a realization knocked the wind out of me: It was 2pm on Valentine's Day, and I hadn't even mentioned the holiday once to my 3 year old! I was devastated and mortified and utterly guilt-ridden. I fell to my knees, and I asked my son to accept my formal apology.
I told him that I was sorry for yelling at him, for losing my patience, for preaching deep breaths while failing to take one myself, for getting mad at him for whining about the T.V. when I was the one working on my computer for hours, and for forgetting to tell him that it was Heart Day and that he was my Valentine! I told him that I loved him and his brother more than anyone in the world, and that it was time to celebrate our family's love.
Then something phenomenal happened.
My son's body inflated like a balloon filled with joy as he looked at me and said, "It's ok, Mommy," and threw his arms around me in a humongous, Heart Day hug.
He pulled away to announce through his smile, "I can hear my heart go boom!"
The world slowed down around us at that moment, and I asked him if I could listen too, expecting him to put my ear against his chest, but instead he put his ear against mine and whispered, "Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom."
We stayed this way (frozen in Valen-time) for about fourteen seconds before he let go of me and said, "Do you know why my heart goes boom?"
"Why?"
He beamed like the sun, "Because I love you!"
We cheered and embraced and made plans to bake pink cupcakes for his dad's arrival from work as we gathered materials to craft paper hearts.
~
I will forever cherish the memory of my son and me listening to his heart go BOOM together. His heart raced because my apology mattered to him, indicating just how integrated a child's developing nervous system is to their primary caretaker's actions... and inactions. My apology helped him feel safe again. It repaired whatever bonds had been broken between us after I failed to juggle my responsibilities and properly regulate my mood earlier that day.
Because "Once in a Blue Moon, Insommy Mommy Breaks Down," but acknowledging it can make all the difference.
This poem is simple in style and was written several months ago after another incidence of lost patience. I come back to it as a reminder of what my values are and what I strive to be as a mother for my children: patient, caring, strong, kind, understanding, and safe- while also reminding myself that some guilt can actually be quite productive. Despite my imperfections, I will always have opportunities to grow because of them, just like everyone else does.
That's why some apologies are necessary for repairing and maintaining our connections to others. While I wholeheartedly believe it is best to pursue life unapologetically as ourselves, I also believe an apology means more than I'm sorry.
An apology can also mean, I understand you and I see you too.
Try it out: Write about something you regret doing or saying to someone else and apologize for it.
Which emotions are triggered for you as you write your apology and in which parts of your body do you feel it?
Reverse the approach and write an apology that you desire from someone else, one that you may never receive.
Ask yourself, what power does an apology hold and in whose hands does that power lie?
Write a poem apologizing to yourself. What for?
Write your way to inner peace and poetry, and Grow with Mother Crow!
Whether you follow these prompts note-for-note, utilize them merely as creative inspiration, or only consider your responses to them inside your own head, I hope expressing yourself encourages a better understanding of yourself. I cannot guarantee therapeutic results- nor a cure for grief and anxiety- but I can promise introspection and self-discovery, and that’s the closest thing I’ve found to mental health.
For more creative writing prompts and expression exercises:
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