This came from a Nancy Woo writing workshop (still going on! click her name and register for free from her site!) This was a very rewarding activity. I highly recommend you do it as soon as possible. Maybe even make an everyday practice of it. It is certain to open your eyes to the effect you have on the world.

Nancy started by having us make a “Tah-dah! List.” (inspired by Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way). In lieu of a to-do list, this is a list of things you have accomplished within a timeframe you choose, such as this week, this month, this year, etc. Then we did a freewrite.

I’m going to include the freewrite questions here in case you want to do it:

• What do you do that you’re proud of?
• What are normal things you do regularly that are actually pretty fantastic?
• What are some positive results of the things you do? Take stock of your accomplishments.
• How does it feel to give yourself credit?

I hope you’ll do that freewrite. In fact, I hope you’ll make it part of your gratitude journaling practice.

~ Don’t have a gratitude journaling practice? I highly recommend that as well! When you get up feeling like shit and especially when you don’t know why, it’s extremely helpful to list all the blessings and things that are going well in your life, the good people you are privileged to know, the ways you are being taken care of…. It really puts your life back into perspective. I close by thanking God for all those things, and 9 times out of 10, this activity is the perfect antidote to what would almost certainly been a crap day. ~

Here’s my Tah-dah! freewrite:

I am proud of being a writer and teacher.

On the writer front, I am particularly proud of embracing poetry. I was always taught that poetry was a sort of meaningless annoyance, but I’ve come to whole-heartedly realize that the world needs poetry! Poets are prophetic dreamers (Luther Ivory)!

I’m proud that even when things aren’t going particularly well on the large scale, I can look at my individual students lives and see growth and see where I have made a difference – in their attitudes toward themselves, in their outlook on the world around them, in their attitude toward learning, and whether that should stop or continue.

I am proud to have overcome many of the attitudes of fear and, I guess I would say oppression that were spoonfed to me the whole time of growing up, and in particular for having overcome the fear that I can’t trust myself – that the things I want to do may not be valuable and meaningful. That one took a long time to overcome. In fact, I may not be all the way from under its grip. But. Thankfully now there is a growing body of evidence in the work I have tried to do in the world over the past 10-12 years that say to me when I doubt, Hey, look here. Your Self is capable of making some solid and beneficial decisions after all.

~I bet if you look at your own life closely, you’ll find the same truth there. Maybe you’ve just been afraid to recognize it. Well, I’m here to tell you – It’s your time! Invest in your Self. You’ll be amazed what valuable products emerge into the world.~

**All Of This Simply Feels Amazing**

Here is the poem that emerged from this freewrite. Enjoy! Then go live the poetry that is your life and create your own masterpieces!

What I Do

I make young souls glow.

I am the one
who lights the match and goes
throughout the room dropping embers into
tender hearts, starting
lifelong fires, one
after the other,
after the other.

I drop Visions around me like
fairy dust for others
to breathe into themselves.
When they exhale, it is carried
on the breeze to another life,
and another
and another.

I am the one who whispers into
the ears of all passersby:
you matter,
you are valuable.

I am the one who lifts her face
to heaven, takes in the energy of the One
who holds its boundless reserve
so she can repeat this day again,
and again,
and again.