Resistance Fighters

Building a business will yank up everyone of your demons and wave them, skeletons rattling, in front of your nose.

I’ve spent the last five plus years looking inward. Clearing out the gunk, connecting with my soul, going into the shadows so that I can trust the light.  

But in order to build my work - both my writing and my work with writers - in the way I want and need to, I don't have the luxury of dancing with my demons any more. 

Oh, they’ll show up, and stronger than ever. But I can’t give them as much of my time. In order to help people transform in the way I know is possible, in order to write the words I know will help, I have to ground myself in simple forward steps. I have to take care of myself. I have to pay rigorous attention to my thoughts and where my focus lands.

Last week was intense. I got sucked into all the swirling negativity of my head. You aren’t making enough money, you’ll never make enough money, too many things have to happen before you can make the money you need, you have to increase your audience by a zillion before you can do the work you want to do. Et cetera to infinity.

It happens. Especially when you’re pushing so far out of your comfort zone that you can't even remember the zip code where your comfort once resided. But I just don’t have time to let the brain gremlins brought forth by the demons get the better of me.

So they won’t. Resistance will be weeded out and the demon skeletons will be sent to rattle elsewhere. Because I have work to do. 

For Writers

IF YOU'RE READING THIS, YOU ARE A GENIUS.

Deeply gifted and full of bright potential. If you aren't feeling your genius at this particular moment, let me give you a spark:

Your writing is needed  -  now more than ever. Your words matter. It may feel like you’re just sitting in a chair, clacking away at a laptop, but you’re changing lives. You’re offering hope where there was none. Your stories offer relief and your ideas offer wisdom and your willingness to shine a flashlight on the murkiest edges of your own humanity help us see that we are all murky  - and we all have light.

We all have the key that unlocks our genius. Maybe it was buried years ago and now you need to dig for it. Maybe you tossed it into a hydrangea bush and walked away. Maybe you just need to try your key in a new door.

Spoiler alert: the key to our art is the key to ourselves, and the key to ourselves is the key to our art. 

If you’re willing to pull out the demons hiding behind your rib cage and the gremlins creeping about your skull, you will find your key. It’s not always easy, it’s certainly not always fun, but I promise you  -  if you keep moving, keep taking care of yourself, keep creating, and keep digging into the messy bits of your life and soul  -  it will get fun.

 

Rooting in Words

One of my favorite ways of grounding myself when I’m flailing or disconnected from my body is to look at what’s in front of me.

Pumpkin, left over from the season of squash. Paper crane, folded out of a brightly colored napkin by my aunt and placed on my plate at Thanksgiving. Wooden box filled with essential oils. Crystals in a blue bowl. Candles in seasonally-appropriate scents. Tiny pinecones, given to me by a six-year-old who assured me they were magic. Giraffe in full lotus hanging from a silver tree. Framed print of the last Calvin & Hobbes cartoon ever drawn, the one I read to my Dad when he was dying, given to me by my boyfriend last Christmas.

Deep breath in, oxygen out. My face, pale in the light of the glowing screen, reflected in the window before me. Flame flickering, warm and golden, in a room at dusk.

Today has been rough. A lot of emotion - sadness, grief - has been appearing out of seemingly nowhere. That happens sometimes. Stuff collects without release, or something old decides to have one last hurrah before exploding in a shower of sparks. I don’t know and I don’t need to know.

But I do need to write, because I haven’t written regularly in a long time and it’s time to jump back in. It’s been a year of transition and transformation, one of grief and of joy. I don’t have many of my stories written, because I was busy with other things. But, as a writer, I can’t let myself be busy with other things for too long or the overflow begins to rise to dangerously tsunami-like levels.

Writers need to write.

We write to clear, connect, create, share. We write to put words to what’s swirling around inside us, even when the words don’t come or sound disconnected and discombobulated, as I suspect these do.

What is in me that still needs to come out? I don’t know. But I’m hoping that if I sit down to the writing every day in December, I’ll find out. 

Welcome to the Yule (B)log! I’ll be posting every (week) day in December because daily blogging is one of my favorite ways to jump back into writing after a hiatus - it slices through perfectionism and allows me to capture moments I wouldn’t otherwise.