The A-Z blogging challenge is coming!

The A-Z Blogging Challenge: is a fun month of blogging and blog hopping and comes with a huge amount of camaraderie and lashings of support from the amazing organisers.

The idea is that during April, you link up with a thousand or more other bloggers to post each day of the month (except Sundays) starting with A on the 1st and working through the alphabet to Z on the 30th.

It was so good that I'm diving in again in 2012 even though I was blogged out by the time I got to Z in 2011!

You can see some of the things people blogged about this year towards the end of this post, and whilst you don't need a theme, it works for me and provides a good structure. Last time,  I really wanted to blog about climate change. But it was too hard, too complex, and to be honest, too darn depressing. But the idea has been playing on my mind all year, niggling and asking for my attention.

Even though I don't want to spend months researching climate related issues and immersing myself in the facts and figures, if I'm going to live according to my core values it's something I'll choose do.

Core Values:

• one of my vital core values is to connect with and spend time in the natural environment. I'd like future generations to have the opportunity to enjoy it as I do. 
• another is to be part of a community, to connect with, and be part of something bigger than my own little space in the world. It'd be great to connect with others doing their bit to make a difference. 
• a third core value is to do with education and personal development. I like to extend myself. I enjoy being educated, informing, sharing and trying to explain concepts clearly

To live comfortably with myself, I'll embrace my values and move in a direction where I act on them, even though it may be difficult. I'll try to ignore my inner demons of "Nothing's going to change", "I'm setting myself up for disappointment because no-one's interested anyway" and "Who do you think you are? You're getting too big for your boots if you think you can make a difference".

ACT: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
To help me through, I'll apply the principles of ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) and mindfulness meditation and make space for the feelings of anxiety and self-doubt, find room for my demons and breathe deeply into any discomfort. (Information on ACT here.)

Preparation is the key!
Rather than leaving the preparation to the last minute (silly me) like last year, when I blogged about Workplace Bullying (list of areas I covered here ), I've been thinking ahead, mulling over how to present the whole depressing schemozzle so it’s not a major turn off.

Pilfered from Burrowers, Books and Balderdash here.

But, first, I needed to drag myself out of the chasm of despair and fear that envelops me when I think about climate change and the destruction of our eco-systems. So I took some time off to relax, be inspired, blow away the cobwebs and re-energise. And it was fun!

Once upon a time, this was the seabed.
The track is at the top of a range of hills in Mutawintji National Park NSW

 After rain, the dry river bed becomes part of a river system
extending for many kilometres
Mutawintji National Park NSW.

North west NSW. 

Menindie Lakes

Click here to join the A-Z blogging challenge in 2012 with Arlee Bird and his great band of helpers.

Themes
It'd be great if you join me and the other participants who'll be blogging from A-Z in April. Not all the topics are heavy! Participants cover everything from gaming, film, books, writing, photography, painting, gardening, birds, grammar, haiku, travel, art, artists, anime, stamps, science, the solar system, old postcards, craft and everything in between. You'll meet witty, wise, poetic experienced bloggers as well as people who started blogging purely to join the fun of the challenge. It's simply amazing!

I'd like some encouraging company! I'd been feeling insignificant and scared when I allowed myself to think about climate change and environmental damage in the privacy of my head. It was only when I made veiled comments to others, including my doctor, that conversations opened up and I realised I'm not alone in with the continual sense of fear and doom. My doctor commented that he is treating more people for depression than ever before, and suspected that isolation and fear about the future may be part of the cause.

Click on the ENGAHC button at the top for more information about my theme. Please 'follow' if the topic is something you're interested in, or can contribute to. I'd like you to share your insights, stories and comments.

Do you have something you'd like to blog about?
.