Writing

Emotional Affair

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I do have an emotional affair with my inner self. I really do. I hadn’t fully thought about that until recently. I love experiencing my own emotions, my own feelings, and I particularly like when I get to do that on my own terms, in my own way, and alone. I don’t like to go through some emotional upheaval in the presence of others. I don’t feel like I can totally let loose and fully be in my emotions that way.

Perhaps this is why I have been journaling and blogging since I was 18, it’s been a way for me to talk to myself, privately, and intimately. As most long term love affairs go, it has only gotten better with time. I have become more honest with myself. I have exposed my whole soul to myself. I love that I have been brave enough to do this, because it does take bravery to be this way. To allow space for my own emotional vulnerability is brave, it does take intention, and I am almost proud of myself for starting this habit so many years ago. That means, that for half of my life I have been writing in some form. That’s beautiful. I love this emotional long term love affair, and it will only continue to grow stronger, deeper, more transparent, and expansive.

I Enjoy My Creativity

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I do thoroughly enjoy my creativity. It is something that makes me happy. Creating, in all ways, whether it is painting, writing, dancing, cooking, putting something together, I do take a lot of joy in it. In Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert says that by truly enjoying your own creativity, you entice the muse, the inspiration to return again and again. I agree with this thought. It creates a space, a habit, a sankara, whereby every time I then go to create again, it happens in a joyous fashion. I did think for a quite some time that you needed to be a tortured artists in order to really dive in and feel the emotions to share them, but I don’t think that any more, and I am so freaking glad. I am so over the torment and tribulations that I have gone through which have created a depth of emotion, but really, I’m so over that.

Now, taking joy in whatever I am doing makes more sense, and feels better. This goes for everything! Everything I do with Joy and Ease and Grace. Yes, thank you, more please.

Writing as a Sexy Mistress

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“Treat your writing, your craft as a sexy mistress” Elizabeth Gilbert suggests in her book Big Magic. I love this idea. Get dressed up so that inspiration will come knocking on my door. Steal away moments with my sexy mistress late at night or for 15 minutes in the middle of the day because the opportunity has arisen.

Take to writing or painting or anything else that requires inspiration, to come forth with passion and vigour. Think about it like a passionate love affair, about being totally in love with it that you HAVE to do it, to be with it. What a romantic notion. I’ll take that, thank you.

Writing as Therapy

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Writing as a discovery process of myself naturally means that it is therapeutic to me. I am not certain how to discover more about myself and not see it that way. As I dive in deeper, as I explore who I am and naturally I become easier with myself.

When I am setting out to write, even these little thoughts bursts in the form of a blog post, it is for me. It has always been for me. I almost haven’t wanted anyone else to see it or read it, unless I share it, because I treat HonestThoughts.com as my online journal of sorts. It truly is a storage place of my thoughts, ideas, expressions, and personal explorations.

Now translating this process into writing something larger will be great therapy for me in many ways. When I go into detail about my NICU experience it will first and foremost really be for me. It will really be about me processing the whole ordeal so that I can gain some insight, distill it into myself, and then move on. I am certain that someone will get benefit out of it, and some won’t, and I’m not that concerned about the reception. Overall, it really is my own personal journey sharing what I’ve gone through in black and white so that it is done and out of my head and heart.

How wonderful is the process of going through ideas and experiences this way. I remember when I had returned from Brazil, I couldn’t not write, as in I HAD to write. I HAD to process my emotions and my experiences in some way and it had to be writing for me. I also did a lot of painting at that time which was nice, but the writing felt compulsory, and highly therapeutic for me. The difference is when i was writing about Brazil, I wasn’t thinking that it was just for me… I thought about it for others as well. Now that I’ve gained a bigger view, I see that it really is all about me helping myself via writing. If that isn’t as self-help as it gets I’m not sure what is.

Adding Humour to Trauma

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Writing a survival guide to the NICU has been on my mind for over a year now. I accept that I haven’t done it yet. I do think that it will help other women going through a similar experience if I can shed some light, and specifically some humour to the situation.

There in lies the challenge, how to add humour to what is normally quite a traumatic event? Not just an event, but a full experience that usually lasts weeks to months in duration.

I have read a few books from very funny women including Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and one currently from Ann Handley and I appreciate when a little chuckle is thrown in. It allows the topic to be discussed that needs to be, without all the heaviness that can usually accompany it. I know I can write with compassion, and now I want to add humour to that mix.

How to do it… how to add humour to a traumatic experience when writing about it. Is it something that happens in the editing process? That would great. I just let whatever needs to come up, come up and out, and then in the editing process, then go back over it and add some humour, some more wit, and spruce it up.

That will be my plan of attack. Ready, set, go!

Muse

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The idea that I am a channel for a muse is exciting. I know I have served as a muse for numerous people and I am curious if that also exists in that way. That whenever you are ready, the muse will arrive in whatever form, in the form of inspiration, or some supernatural kind of thought or vision, or literally in physical form in front of you.

In Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic she talks about how the genius is the person who works beside you, it isn’t you. This isn’t a new idea, but it’s the most recent reference I have on hand. Further both her and Steven Pressfield talk about how the muse will visit many people before they find the one that is ready to take on the project.

I then wonder if that has any influence on the fact that in different areas of the world, without modern communication tools, ancient civilisations were progressing with similar hand made tools, and languages. It could be that they were open to it, and they received the inspiration to start making hieroglyphs, or to start tracking the seasons using tombs and rocks.

So how to be open to the the muse? My first thought is the equation Preparation + Opportunity = Success. Perhaps adding in to that a holding of the space in which to create that success is necessary, hence the idea of sitting down to write every single day like it’s a job so that the muse knows you are serious, knows you are there waiting, holding the space, ready to do the work.

 

Resistance and Steven Pressfield

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In “The War of Art” Steven Pressfield discusses Resistance with a capital R as the nemesis to actually doing and creating the work you are meant to create. I’m about half way through the book, which I mostly read after bub has gone to bed at night, or in the precious private moments I have in the bathroom. Funny that I would take a book that will obviously have a profound impact about how I create, into the loo. I have to laugh about this.

If I look at the bathroom as a metaphor, it is the place of letting go of what is no longer needed. How amazingly appropriate is it that I would be reading a book about overcoming, moving past, letting go of the resistance, the constipation, the delay of the next stage, in the bathroom, specifically on the toilet. This is incredibly amusing to me. It fits my life so well too.

He talks about how we will enlist people in our lives who are living out our unfulfilled lives as a way to not do the work ourselves. As I spoke to a dear friend of mine last night, she was telling me about a book she is writing along with the short stories she has submitted for recognition and money. She is taking a self publishing course, and has a writing coach. I could hear her enthusiasm and I felt happy that she was doing this, and I have full faith that he will do well with this. She is dedicated to the cause, she gets in there, and is a highly ambitious person. Her partner is also a creative guy and both hold regular hours in jobs that are meaningful for them.

As I was taking in what she was telling me, I immediately realised that she was living out an unlived life of mine. One that I have kept secret more or less, in the way that I don’t go about saying “I’m a writer” and “I’m writing a book”. Although when I returned from living in Brazil, I did say just that, but partly because my ego was so hurt and I felt like I needed to have something to say that I did. Honestly I was writing a lot in the form of journal entries or blog posts, but it never fully eventuated. Oh boy that feeling sucks. When you’ve then told people you are doing something and then it doesn’t happen for whatever reason, or doesn’t happen as fast as anyone thinks it will. I would like to avoid that feeling as much as possible, so I don’t say things like that now. Instead I quietly keep it to myself.

So I didn’t mention to my friend that I have been regularly posting on my blog again. I didn’t mention again that it’s a goal of mine to publish work that matters to me and I hope that will positively influence people in the world. I didn’t mention any of this. I did have fear arise. I thought what if she writes about my own personal life, she knows so much and my life is so rich.

This makes me baulk at the idea now, its’ still could happen, but I don’t think she would jeopardise our friendship like that by telling my story from her lens, or at least I hope she wouldn’t’. It did however, spur fear into me. Fear is another form of Resistance. Fear stops us from succeeding even before beginning. Fear is the bedfellow of failure and I recognised it straight away. So what am I to do?

The natural competitiveness in me started to rise, I could feel it. I then thought what if I also start writing short stories and submitting them for recognition and money. Then I felt bad, because I only know of the idea because of her. That is also fear, that is fear of success before it even happens. I must move past this and recognise that it is again Resistance in the form of Fear.

Next the fire inside of me started to burn and said, WRITE MORE! Get your story out. Keep writing, continue to make this a habit just as I have my meditation practice, just as I have made it a habit to have a pot of tea with my husband in the morning. Create the habit.

The point of all this is that I can see Resistance in so many areas of my life, and now that I can identify it, I can and will do something about it. Steven Pressfield then goes on to say that if you hold your regular hours of writing, and your muse will show up there. I have found that if I wait until late at night, I am too tired, so I need to make it in the morning while my husband looks after bub. The thing is if I commit to saying I will do this every single day no matter what and something arises, then I will have more Resistance. So for now, I will just continue to commit to writing as of I have lately and let Resistance lose its’ power.

What? How? Why?

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When I was at Uni in my very last semester, my professor offhandedly said that she appreciated having more mature students because they didn’t just explain what, what, what, what. She then went on to say that they already understood that they had to add in the Why and How. This moment was a stunner for me. Almost like someone had just given me the key to creating the best research papers that the university had ever seen! Why was this not on the school jackets and on the flag! It should have been! What a brilliant formula for writing!

I have thought about this again and again, and how essential it is to explain what, as clue the reader in on what you are writing about, then moving into How which shows that you understand what you are talking about, preferably with relevant references, and then into Why which is where you analyze and interpret it all.

What? How? and Why? is so brilliant because it’s a formula for success and allows others to understand what you are talking about in such a clear way! What a great way to build a solid argument or point of view, or even for clearly describing a situation. I could have done even better at Uni had I known this key to success! Obviously this has come in handy and will continue to as I think and write and share!

Yes, and Then…

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I’ve been listening to Tina Fey’s book Bossypants and it’s great. I also read Amy Poehler’s Yes, Please! and enjoyed that immensely. It’s so refreshing to read comedy and not self-help which has been my genre of choice for over a decade now. I love that these two women are so generous with their stories and sharing how they went from point A to point Z. I love that they also both talk about the nuts and bolts of improv comedy and how they boil it down to:

Yes, and then…

I love this for many reasons. One reason is that I like to have a formula for everything. If I can make sense of it in my head, I can play with it in so many different ways and come up with new ways of working the same idea. I have found this to be the same way with grammar, math, cooking, sewing, makeup, self grooming… there’s a process. As long as you know what that is, then you can fly like the wind with it!

Yes and then is all about accepting what the situation that you and the other person(s) have come up and then adding additional information to keep the story and momentum moving forward. This is so great, and it works! I feel like it’s a habit to get into, rather than just commenting, commenting in a way that moves things forward allows for flow! Flow feels great for everyone involved!

It’s awesome to hear that in action as I listen to Tiny Fey. I love that she has a way of using that system and weaving in serious topics and then lightening it up and throwing a joke in, all the while, planting a seed of thought and possibly change. It’s brilliant. It doesn’t feel preachy, it feels like flow, it feels easy, it feels accessible. I feel like this book is a MUST read for me, and I am glad I am doing just that! I have a feeling this is going to really help me in the long run with my own story telling. Also, I feel like it’s almost a way of living life that I already am aligned with, it feels very helpful, and in some improv scenes it can be radically inclusive!

Creative Fodder

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I recently heard something along the lines that a person has enough creative fodder accumulated by the time they reach 20 years old to last a lifetime. If this is true, then I have enough for multiple lifetimes.

If writing is all about sharing what you feel and how you are experiencing life and being human, how could it possibly stop at age 20? By the age of 20 I feel like I had already had at least four distinctly different lives. By now at age 34, countless more “lives” I have lived.

This makes me feel compelled to continue to put things on paper, and share what I think and what happens in my life. Maybe sharing more of the what actually happens, rather than my emotional interpretation of it could be helpful. Who knows. Sometimes, I read back on my poetry and am honestly not sure who the other person really was. Sometimes I wonder if that really matters in the grand scheme of things.