Here’s a writing exercise that calls for deep honesty and lots of guts. Write about your fears – those real, down dark fears that you don’t like to admit to yourself. What are you really afraid of?  Connecting with your fears is a great way to access your authentic self, to give voice to the real you who lives at the bottom of who you are. The last time I did this exercise this is what I wrote:

 I want to write about being afraid of death and sickness and incapacity. I want to write how I never want to be helped to the bathroom by my children and how I don’t want to see pity in their smiles as I stumble for a word. I want to write how scared I am of having to give up driving and how I don’t want to be an old lady confessing all the trivialities of my life to a doctor who only pretends to care. I want to write about fearing that everyone will eventually forget me and no one will feel the warmth of my smile and won’t miss it either. I want to write about how much I’d like to see 2025 but I’m so afraid I won’t. I want to write about the fears so that afterwards they will be drained dry of their power and lie, inert and ineffectual, like dryer lint caught in a lint trap, no more scary than that.