In today’s lesson in A Year of Living Consciously, Gay Hendricks acknowledges that Conscious Living might sound like a drag. This approach requires you to examine negative emotions and unearth experiences and memories that give rise to those emotions and our bad habits.

Fortunately, the work is also liberating. Even better, it can bring up joyous experiences and help you create wonderful memories. Freed from old thinking and able to express your true self, you’ll feel lighter, unbound from the weight of shame and withheld truths.

I don’t have a pithy connection between this lesson and writing, but I do have something to say about the practice itself.

In this lesson, Hendricks acknowledges that many people believe relationships are supposed to be difficult – hard work, hard communication, hard thoughts and feelings. Instead, he wants us to believe that relationships – despite the need for effort – are joyous, fulfilling, and fun.

Are you a writer who believes writing is a grind? Do you often paraphrase Hemingway’s quote about opening a vein and bleeding onto the paper? Do you relate to Dorothy Parker’s lament that she hated writing, but loved having written?

For today, take the opposite view. Let yourself feel that writing is fun. Remind yourself that you don’t have to write today; you get to write today.

Don’t pour out blood onto the paper, pour out love.

Have fun. Be happy.