every other day November 1, 2009

Yesterday was a good writing day. It was good because I worked on Self Help Addicts for the first time since the beginning of August. It’s been sitting here on this computer, the books and unedited pages on this table waiting for me to get back to it. Packing, moving, looking for a house, doing everything in record time, packing again and now waiting to close have all been really good excuses for not working on it. When I have written it’s usually been here, an observation or realization about whatever’s going on.

So it was great yesterday when I sat down with a couple of pages and started to edit them. It came easily, the changes and additions seemed obvious.  This morning is different. I’ve been dreading working on it since I first opened my eyes. I’ve been up an hour now and I still haven’t read a sentence.  There’s this tiny — no, wait who am I kidding — there’s this huge, booming voice that always shouts at me saying “Why bother? Nothing will ever come of it. It’s never going to be good enough. Sleep in. Watch TV. Do anything other than write.” Or meditate, or apply for a job, or submit my work.

I’ve read a dozen self help books that talk about this voice. I’m sure you have too.  Most of the SHBs say half the battle is noticing when it speaks up, and the other half is knowing that you don’t have to believe it.  So since I can’t get rid of it, I have to engage it, face it head on, say “hello old friend” then sit down and write.

the old place September 2, 2009

I’m in a new place now, a new house, duplex, apartment whatever you want to call it.  It’s been two weeks of limbo, settled no where, when the new place still feels foreign and unknown, but the old place is missing every major element except the feeling that it’s home.

I loved my old place. It was a perfect apartment. Bright, shiny, new. Every convenience. Fireplace, balcony with a view of sky, ridiculous bathroom and closets. When I moved there I was coming off some of the best years of my life, the most fun years maybe I should say, finally in my late 30s having fun, and I thought that apartment would be the icing on the cake. But almost as soon as I moved in all the fun ended. I was sick while I lived there. Symptoms and surgeries and procedures and worrying. Allergies causing true illness instead of just annoyance or discomfort. How many times did my mother come from Florida to take care of me? But I was never sick in a way that truly threatened my life. I was sick in a way that woke me up.

I could never hate the old place, that onetime home of mine, because that’s where I lived when I found yoga. After all those self help books, all those years of reading one after another, feeling the fear and still not doing it anyway, focusing on the second chakra when it was the third all along, not loving anything that is and taking everything personally, becoming aware of some things but not others, and doing mostly nothing about either, yoga brought it all together.

In the bright, shiny, new, old place I listened to my own voice more than at any other time in my life. Listened to the truth of it no matter what it said, no matter the consequences. That doesn’t always mean I always did the right thing or the best thing or the brave thing, but at least I could listen even though I was afraid, terrified.  I heard what I am, not what I’m becoming or what I want to be, but what I am. Now I just have to admit it, say it, be honest about it.  Maybe I can do that in the new place.

Morning Person August 14, 2009

Why am I not writing? Well obviously I’m writing; I’m writing this. But why am I not writing the self help addicts book? I haven’t been working on it lately; the work i’s sporadic and I can’t for the life of me seem to post the reviews of the three books I’ve chosen for the sample chapter. I don’t know why. Well… maybe I do. Fear is probably in the mix. Writing then taking it apart and re-writing. Again and again. The idea of it is daunting, but I don’t want to get this far and then put it down again, and wait another two years to work on it, again.

About six months ago I started to get up at 5:30 to write a novel because I read Walter Mosley’s book, This Year You Write Your Novel. Have you ever read a book that made something seem imminently doable? This is the book. I’ve read writing books before, most of them self help books, but this one was so slim, so direct, that each sentence seemed undeniable. Write every day. Every Day. At least an hour and a half.

When I read that I knew that the only way I could do it was to get up at 5:30am, get some coffee and set a timer for 90 minutes. And that’s what I did. At first it seemed incredibly early, I had to drag myself out of bed. But then the coffee would taste good, and I would write something, the shitty first draft stuff, just basically venting about whatever, but giving people different names and changing their hair color.  I got up every morning without fail and wrote.

A couple of months ago the writing changed so I could finish up the self help addicts book that I had abandoned for two years, but I figured the same rules applied: get up every morning and write.  Now, I’ve let the writing go.

But I still get up early, my eyes still open at about 5:20 in anticipation of starting a new day, even when my mind just wants to hunker down and stay in bed for whatever reason it can think of. Then I make promises to myself. Well I’ll get up now, but I have to meditate and practice yoga or I have to write a post for the blog. This morning I stayed in bed but I clearly wanted to write because I grabbed my journal, leaning on my left, using my arm as a pillow and writing parts of what you just read, writing like I did for years without editing, just the shitty first drafts.

SHA Review: The Passion Test December 14, 2008

The Passion Test: the Effortless Path to Discovering Your Life Purpose by Janet and Chris Attwood is self help nirvana. Passion has always been the missing ingredient in my life. I haven’t done many things with passion, not jobs, not hobbies. This book gave me a framework and process for figuring out my true passions and understanding that they are real and want to manifest themselves in my life. As long as I suppress them, they’ll weigh down other parts of my life. Passion wants to live.

Like many of the self help books I’ve read, I first checked this one out of the library. (If I’d bought all the SHBs I’ve read, I’d never have any money. That said, I still own a lot of SHBs.)  I knew after the first few chapters I needed to buy it, so I could underline key statements, write in the margins, keep it as a reminder of my true passions.

The authors Janet and Chris Attwood (formerly married couple. Now that’s interesting) do a couple of things that I hadn’t seen before, especially in terms of determining what your real passions are. One, the authors define “passion” and make a distinction between passions and goals:

Remember, passions are how you live your life. Goals are things that you achieve. Living a life of peace could be a passion. Creating peace in the world is a goal. Living life in abundance could be a passion. Eliminating poverty on earth is a goal… Do you get the difference? Passions are about process. Goals are about outcomes. (page 26)

I had never understood this distinction before. I don’t think I realized there was a distinction to understand. Once I read this, I understood on a deeper level what living with passion really is. I don’t (necessarily) have to have goals, I can just be on my path. What’s the saying? “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.” A saying I really hadn’t applied to my own life until now. I always assumed I needed a strong, defined, worthy destination to even begin the “real” journey. Not so. How you live your life, day to day, is more than the goals that you may (or may not) reach. Or at least that’s now my interpretation of it.

The second thing the authors do, unlike other SHBs I’ve read (see: the best year of your life by Debbie Ford or honestly, anyone’s therapist), they really stress that you put down your ideal life, even if it’s being a rock star:

When most people take The Passion Test, they start to write down a passion, but if they can’t immediately see how they can practically manifest it, they erase it (especially the really big ones! ) and put something down that they can easily put their arms around. In other words, the play it “safe.” (page 18)

Their theory is that if you don’t put down your ideals you’re not really putting down your passions. I can’t agree with this idea.

The way I really really really want to live is the very life I avoid because I think I’m not good enough, not thin enough, not experienced enough, not young enough to live that way. So when someone asks me about my job and my life and I say “I’m not happy”, and they say “Well what do you want to do?”, I always end up saying “I don’t know”. That’s just a flat out lie. I know exactly how I want to live, I just don’t have the courage to give voice to it. And of course if I don’t have the courage to say it, I don’t have the courage to even try to pursue it, let alone go all out after it.

The authors ask you to list 10-15 passions (not goals) with active verbs, (I am living, thriving, teaching), then prioritze them into your top 5. Those are your passions. This was incredibly revealing for me. Most of these things have been in the back of my head as “one day, some day, if only” ideals for my life, but when I put them on paper I realized I really really wanted to live my life that way.

While I fantasized about them, I avoided actually believing I could live that way, without some deus ex machina like winning the lottery, because it was too painful to think about and not pursue. Honestly it’s still painful to think of my ideal life, because there’s still a little – o.k. a big part of me that believes I can’t really live that way. The authors suggest that you write your passions down, carry them with you, tape them on the bathroom mirror, in the kitchen. I’ve only written them down on a little piece of paper and put it in my purse, my huge purse that I can practically lose my wallet in.  So I’m going to write them here. Publish them to announce that this is the life I want, to manifest them.

My Passions

1. Being in love and married in my ideal relationship

2. Living in a beautiful home on the beach

3. Teaching and learning yoga nationally and internationally

4. Thriving as a professional writer

5. Traveling the world First Class

This or something better!

“This or something better!” is a little ending they put on to let the universe know that you are open to passion and happiness. The authors were a part of The Secret so there’s a lot of intention/attention/letting the universe do it’s work stuff. Actually the authors seem to know and be a part of lots of fields of self help, especially the business end. They know everybody!  So some of the writing comes off as marketing for some of these organizations. Some of what the authors do and believe in is out there, and this is coming from a chant-loving yogini.

The Passion Test is like other SHBs in that it’s overly long because they mostly have one basic (although in this case really good) idea and the rest is filler, oh sorry, examples from people, famous people in this case. I still haven’t actually finished it as truth be told, I don’t finish most SHBs.

All in all The Passion Test is a great SHB for anyone who’s ever said “I don’t know” when they were asked what they really wanted to do with their lives. It’s the essence of self help books in that it goes right to the heart of why people read these things: to become the person of their (often secret) passions, to actually go after what it is in life they truly want, without explanation, without apology, without asking permission. This is what we’re seeking, all of us, no matter what we call it: Passion.

trust January 27, 2008

My throat has been bothering me for almost a week. I hate having a sore throat. I used to lose my voice all the time years ago before I realized I had allergies and started taking the appropriate medications. Still my allergies can go too far even with drugs, and I get post-nasal drip irritating my throat, and occasionally, still I lose my voice.

I started thinking in terms of SHBs and what they would say. Authors like Caroline Myss and Louise Hay come to mind immediately, any book on chakras, and really any mind-body-spirit SHB that links sickness to something specific, something you need to let go of, or a wound you need to stop scratching.  What does it mean when I lose my voice? How does the literal loss highlight the figurative loss? What is it I’m not saying?  What do I want to say but feel unable to speak?

When I think about this I keep coming back to trust. Trusting myself. On some fundamental level I do not trust myself. I don’t trust my instincts, my opinions, my abilities, my work, my very own voice.

At work I’ve been doing these online seminars; I facilitate discussions between presenters and participants and I control the whole thing. I’ve done most of these alone, but I’ve had someone sitting in with me for the last few and I’ve noticed that I ask her opinion about what I should say or ask all the time. I also realized that when other people have sat in with me I do the same thing, constantly asking for feedback. It must seem that I can barely manage alone. But it’s just the opposite: I manage brilliantly alone. When I’m all alone I have little doubt what to say, what questions to ask. I just do it, follow my instincts. It works.

My distrust in myself, in my own voice, seems to be present when someone else is around. When someone else is present, I trust, value, his or her opinion before my own. Why do I do that? Well… low self-esteem, the mighty catch-all? Trust issues? Clearly. Honestly, I don’t know what’s at the root of it, but now I know it’s there, now I’m aware of it. In her book Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can, Caroline Myss says “The greatest illusion of the New Age is that awareness alone heals… Relying on intellectual awareness alone to heal your body is wishful thinking.”  Will I speak and heal my voice? Or will I continue to act the same way, with my voice stuck in my throat clawing at me to get out.

Work November 14, 2007

I can’t write at work. Employers are happy to hear this I’m sure. But for me this causes a problem. Work is where I have the most free-time. Honestly. I spend whole days at work doing, for the most part, nothing.  That’s 8 hours of time, doing – nothing.  I visit friends, I make coffee, I make tea, I make my lunch even when I’m going out for ‘lunch’, I randomly walk through the halls, and chat with co-workers. I pace the office like a caged animal waiting for the slightest relief from the boredom.

What would self help books say about this? A SHB could

1) tell me to be thankful for what I have and be content;

2) tell me to ask for my boss for more challenging work (and more money);

3) tell me to get a new job.

I’m going with a combo of 1 & 3. I’m trying (most of the time) to be grateful for my job and the money that allows me to have an apartment AND look for another way to make a living/earn money. Notice I didn’t say ‘get a new job’.  I don’t want a new job. I want something else, something more. I want a life of adventure I want a life I can be proud of on my deathbed (deathhammock?)

Beach reading October 21, 2007

I just got back from the beach. I took a couple of days off to re-coup and read and write. I went to the beach with a friend where I did very little reading and even less writing. I did spend lots of time by the pool and jumping waves in the ocean (including hand stand attempts which resulted in a little microdermabrasion on one side of my face).

One of the things I realized while there is: Women hate themselves. The little reading I did included He’s Just Not That Into You, a modern classic, which my friend had borrowed and given back. I hadn’t read it in years and was stunned, again, by what women will accept.  Where’s the self love? Where’s the confidence so a woman doesn’t have to just grasp to a faint scent of commitment wafting near a man, not even on him.

It made me so sad. But what have I learned since I first read it? Probably nothing really new. It’s not about learning I don’t think. It’s about feeling. How you feel about yourself and the life you live. If I have a life I really love, then I won’t be trying to catch some man who makes me doubt myself by not getting caught.

Loneliness is the alternative though until Mr. Right comes along. Is loneliness such a bad thing? If a woman really loves her life, is she lonely just because she doesn’t have a man?  Is the the fear of being alone really as scary as some of the relationships you’ve had?

Can an issue of “O” be considered a SHB? September 4, 2007

O.k. after blasting O magazine for their 6 figure income ‘risk takers’ (wow! I’m bitter!), I’m clearly still reading it.

My friends if the answer to the question “Can an issue of ‘O’ be considered a SHB?” is ‘yes’, my tally of SHBs just went up exponentially.

And I think it can be answered yes. Each issue has a theme, this month “Do What You Love”. The whole magazine has a theme of “Live Your Best Life”, which sounds like a SHB if I’ve ever heard one.