Try thinking on your feet

I expressed some frustration to a friend over how often when I sit down to update my blog, I suddenly find my mind an absolute blank.  Her response?  "Then stand up and type."  She was joking (I think), but that might have been the best advice she could have given me.  Even at thirty-something I'm still learning how my brain processes things, but the "discoveries" I've made in the past year or so have been tremendously helpful.

"What?  You mean I'm not stupid?"  Happy thought indeed!

One thing I've learned is that my brain usually works best when I'm in motion.  When I'm walking, doing dishes, taking a shower, doing something crafty with my hands...  (And by "brain works best" I mean if I'm attempting to produce something - an essay, letter, Awana lesson - or problem solve.  Anything that requires output.)  Now that I think about it, I can remember times at work when I would pace up and down the office trying to figure out how to fix the bookkeeping mess a client brought in.

Or there was the time at the missionary training center...

The setting was our wee little apartment.  My roommate and I were individually doing a write up on the data we had obtained from our culture and language acquisition practicum.  For weeks we had been investigating a particular culture event with our language helper, and the data collected was, up to that point, in scribbly notebook form.  (Or at least mine was.)  Now came the task of doing a write up.  Lindsey sat at her desk and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote.  I hardly remember her coming out of her room once.  (Well, maybe once.)  I, on the other hand, looked like a jack-in-the-box.  Thankfully by this time I had made the glorious brain-processing discovery about myself, otherwise the write up could have been frustrating to the extreme.  I would write, write, write.....and then find my brain locking up.  No big deal.  Don't fight it.  I would walk away from my desk and do something crafty with my hands or walk down to the end of the sidewalk in front of the apartment, all the while half thinking about how best to put into words what I needed/wanted to convey.  Often it would only take a few minutes or so for - Ah-ha!  Inspiration!  And back I would go to my computer.  Sometimes I was only able to write for twenty minutes before I had to take a break from it, but that's just the way it goes.  For me.  :)

I'm still trying to figure out how best to use this reality in how God has wired my brain, but at least I'm not getting frustrated with myself as much as I used to.  Perhaps my next desk should be a tall one so I can stand up while I work...  Not a bad idea, really.

Oh, look!  A new post.  :)

This picture really has nothing to do with the post.
They're just my happy little plants.