BHB retreat: day 2

Today was all about courage and songs.

Yoga this morning was a surprise. The last three songs on Jessie's playlist I don't think she'd been expecting, but she went "oh Paul Simon! Do people like Paul Simon?" Then the last two songs were Jeff Buckley's "everybody here wants you" and "hallelujah", two gorgeous songs that transported me straight back to my Uni days. And also made me think about the person that I was then. Tears came, unbidden, but it was actually really nice just to let them fall and let the emotions wash over me and not grab onto any of them.

I spent some time praying, looking out at the beautiful landscape, and praising God for all that he has made and all that he's given me.

The morning session with Clare was about songwriting. I was delighted that she used Taylor Swift's 'shake it off' as an example of really simple yet really effective songwriting; we sang it as a big group with acoustic guitar and it sounded fantastic. We did writing exercises, we walked around singing to ourselves and making rhythms, and we wrote songs.

Even though I'm a very musical person, I've only ever written a couple of songs, and only ever let a couple of people hear them. I love seeing other people songs, but songwriting is something that I've always been a bit afraid of, while really wanting to do. It's that imposter syndrome thing, and also recognizing that it is so easy to criticize people and so easy to criticize music, that I harbor this feeling that my stuff will be terrible and easily criticized.

Well, after a couple of hours, I had written a song, collaborated on it with three other people, and performed it in front of everybody. It was a wonderful experience. We named our band the Painted Mermaids in homage to the amazing mermaid tattoo one of the women has on her arm. We've been encouraged to work on our songs 10 minutes a day while we're here if we can, because as Clare says, "we're all songwriters now!"

Everyone is so encouraging and supportive. We all feel like we could try anything. And I guess that's why we're here!

Here's today's drawnaling (our drawing journaling):

And now movie night: Finding Joe. And kit kats.