Rubbed Raw - and plans for Happiness is a Journey

There is a little bump inside my lower lip - it wont heal. Every time I forget about it, I eat something and bite the ever living shit out of it over and over again.

It reminds me of my emotional state. Most of the time I am such a cheerful and delighted person. Every once in a while, when I don't see it coming, this dark feeling jumps out from a hidden place and the wind is knocked out of me when I hit the ground beneath its weight.

I am gearing up to start my blog project. Happiness is a Journey is a writing project to continue my self discovery and growth. I want to learn what I can from the experts about the topics that impact my self-esteem. There are several goals that come along with it, but my intentions are to reach a better understanding of who I am, and to reach other women who feel similarly - I want them to know we arent' alone.

My goals are:

1. Establish a daily writing practice. Take Sallie's advice and instead of self-handicapping, start with goals that aren't going to stress me out. - I want to write for no less than half an hour every day (anything more is a bonus). I will start on Sunday May 3.
2. I want to really learn what I read and apply it to my life. This goal is why I want to read a small pile of books to supplement my blog project. There are several of them so I am recognizing the need to give myself a schedule, but also some flexibility. (books to start with: When Women Stop Hating Their Bodies by Jane R. Hirschmann, When Food is Love by Geneen Roth, and Mindfull Eating: Jan Chozen Bays)

The part that is still in its conceptual stages is how big I want this project to be and how exactly I want to put it into the blog. I want a disciplined writing practice and I have an idea of what my best processes are:

Free associate to get notes about my thoughts and feelings, use
them to narrow it down, create a draft, edit twice or three times and
publish.

I want this project to be beautifully written. I want to cite my research materials, any images I use, etc. I don't want it to be academic style essays or research papers because of the very, very personal subject matter - I want to focus on my feelings, remembered events, the research I've done, and my thoughts on the research. There are still a lot of things to decide on.

I want to be done before Burning Man (the first week of September), but I wont know until I have made a few more decisions if that's something I can really do. My summer will be busy and fun and a great deal of the motivation behind this project is to relieve myself of academic pressure. I think it will be more realistic to give myself until January.