Image: Ksenia Makagonova
Welcome to A Writer's Journey, a continuation of 60 days of journal entries leading up to the publication of my book,The Path: A Journey Into The Light: The Journey From Fear To Love. (The first five posts can be found here.)
I felt the need to create a writing category on The Path blog because aside from being a spiritual teacher, I am also a writer and a newly published author.
Although my book is about my spiritual practice as a channel and guide for The Path: A Journey Into The Light, the process I underwent from conception to completion was that of a writer. One whose life was sometimes consumed with uncertainty and struggles, from finding and composing the right words to honing my craft and believing in myself and my dream that finishing my first book and becoming a published author, was real, doable, and within reach.
I'm excited to share my experience walking the path of growth and self-discovery as a writer and human being.
Another Typical Day In A Writer's Life
Yesterday, I slipped into an ancient place while attempting to resume writing on The Path Book. Of course, my intentions were the best: I just wanted to finish writing my book. However, the reason for the hurry to complete it was where the problem began.
I revisited an old and injured desire to fulfill other people's expectations and perceived judgments about me and why it's taken me so long to write this book. Finishing it felt like the key to ending this inner conflict––if only in my head. Also, it would give my life a new status of published author and perhaps allow me to reach more people with the message of healing with Love.
Renewing my work on the book, I was encouraged and felt hopeful after reading the last few chapters I had written. It appeared that, despite my doubts, I had made real progress. However, after going back and re-reading the earlier ones, I immediately started seeing what I wrote no longer represented my updated perception of what I intended to say. The old writing in the beginning chapters felt stilted, amateurish, and wrong.
I panicked when I realized there was a good possibility I faced rewriting almost the entire first half of the book. My heart started beating fast and loud, and I felt like a ten-ton weight of all my fears had just descended and landed squarely on my chest. It was a definite fight-or-flight moment. I was completely thrown off my center and filled with despair and dread.
Face to face, once again, fearing that I could not write, was devastating. I barely scraped and eked those first chapters out of me, and to have to turn around and do it all over again was too overwhelming even to consider. And, when I did think about it, I felt like passing out. The reaction itself alone was upsetting enough. My disappointment and self-judgment followed, which added insult to injury, as they say.
Just floored, I became mired and wired up in my injury. I felt so defeated and incapable of achieving the goals that I had set for myself as a writer and a supporter of people needing to learn how to love themselves. Yes, as a spiritual teacher and guide, as well, who had the answers but was failing at expressing them,
Everything was falling apart, and I felt adrift at sea. So much emotional debris was floating around my heart and mind, and I could do nothing more for the day except allow myself to drift and hope that I would reach the shore at some point soon.
I realized from this that I could not, under any circumstances, leave my current writing process and attempt to go back and pick up the threads of who I was and what I was doing in the recent/distant past. That life was over, and whatever didn't get done to represent it would never get done. Also, it would have happened if I was capable of getting it done in that incarnation. There is no failure; there's just timing. If I can believe that, I can also think that the things I still need to accomplish will happen at a more suitable time for them.
Wow! I may have just stumbled on something here. I don't believe I've ever looked at my writing process this way—factoring in the whole timing thing. Failure is just a perspective that says I didn't do what I was supposed to. But what if the timing is a big part of when and why things occur in the bigger scheme of things, especially when dealing with Love?
One would trust that everything happens as it should and that you can't be late for the events of your life. You could reason that if you haven't done something yet, but your intention to do it is still evident, and in place, then there are more pieces to the puzzle and more things to uncover that must occur before the right time to do it is at hand.
That is such an enlightened way to look at this, and, of course, it takes so much unnecessary stress and pressure off, which are the very things that make it so challenging to move through the growth and insights you need to achieve what you set out to do.
I am heartened by this new perspective and an 'aha' moment I had this morning. I must never forget that my Path Process is the centerpiece of my self-healing reality. While I am always able to and am open to using other tools to enhance my inner growth, The Path Process steers me on my healing course and provides me with the internal structure, guidelines, and teachings to navigate my journey in Love.
M ~