Self-doubt

“When I dare to be powerful—to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” --Audre Lorde
Aster
Isn’t that a wonderful description of power—the strength to serve your own vision? It’s not about being powerful in relation to the world, it’s being powerful in relation to yourself--the courage to be who you are, to live your own dreams and follow your own heart. And yes, to write that novel, to paint that image, to dance that dance or walk that trail, to put your heart out there.

Self-doubt is one of the most powerful fears we face. In fact it is fast becoming one of my favorite emotions. It tells me that I’m on the edge of what I know. I’m on the edge of my comfort. That if I go any further, I might be on shaky ground. And that may be exactly the ground I need to be on to get closer to my truth. Self-doubt brings us to a decision point and no matter what we chose next, we will be gaining ground.

Healing Stories

"I am writing this story and it kicks me in the gut, it brings me to my knees and swells my eyes with tears. This is not an easy story to write. It is about who I was and who I am. It’s about trying to figure out what makes a good person good, trying to figure out how to fit in, how to give myself permission to be who I am--to let myself become without society or church or my neighbor or a husband, telling me who I am, what I should think, how I should act or where I should go.” Morning pages, May 12, 2008Columbine

Isn’t that what we're all trying to do--become our truth? We tell our stories a snippet at a time, at lunch, in emails, in letters, in conversations. We tell the funny ones mostly. And then there are the deep ones, the painful ones that we save for precious moments and precious people. Telling our stories connects us to all of human kind and stories heal. They are an act of love.

I am close--less than ten pages from finishing my novel. It is a work of fiction but no matter how much fiction one creates, truths flow out. The unconscious is an amazing part of the mind and body. It is ever busy, ever working to help and to heal.

And so soon, maybe tomorrow, you may hear me singing from the tree tops and the words to the song go something like this: “it is finished, it is finished--all of it is truly finished!”

Out Loud

“If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.”--Emile ZolaAzalea

We are all artists. We come into this world to create. To create our lives, to crack our doubts wide open, to live our stories. There are no mistakes. There is no time wasted. There are no failures. There is only our becoming and our dreams and our stories. So take a deep breath. Lift your voice high and live out loud.

Self-image

“Being preoccupied with our self-image is like being deaf and blind. It’s like standing in the middle of a vast field of wildflowers with a black hood over our heads. It’s like coming upon a tree of singing birds while wearing earplugs.” –Pema Chodron Trillium

We spend a lot of time concerning ourselves with how others see us, concerned about whether we measure up or fall short in the world around us. The more we do this, the less we truly know who we are. So come out into this world and live your life. Move through each day with your senses alert, your observing eyes and ears open. Interact with all of your being. And above all, feel. Your feelings are your guidance from within--your feelings are the only measure you will ever need.

Forget-me-nots

Silently one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,
Blossom the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.--Henry Wadsworth LongfellowA woman said to me, “I need to get away, go somewhere and figure out who I am.” And I thought, that could be a nice break, but what I hear in those words is ‘more of the same’. We do not discover who we are by thinking or even going someplace new to think. We take whoever we are with us and repeat what we know in our minds.

If you want your life to change, if you want to experience something different, you must do something different. Action invites discovery. It is in doing a new thing, in trying a different way that we discover who we are, where we are stuck, our attitudes, our true values--and only then, if we act with awareness. Everyday is full of new discoveries--we only need to pay attention.

Kindness

“The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves. Yet it’s never too late or too early to practice loving-kindness.”—Pema ChodronAmazingly, this is one of the hardest things to teach and to learn—kindness to ourselves. Kindness is not the same as self-indulgence or determination. It is the act of treating ourselves in kind ways, with kind thoughts and kind words no matter what mistakes we make or what fears we face. It is not self-improvement or self-image. It is relationship. It is the ability to value intent and to regard with understanding. And it’s the ability to try again when something is important and approach it with encouragement.

Harshness cultivates harshness. Kindness cultivates kindness. Be kind in all your relationships. Be kind to the chair, to the car, to the lamp, to the door knob. Be kind to the earth, the wind, the butterfly, the sky. Cultivate kindness in all that you do—and kindness will become you.

Tiger Swallowtail--I loved the way she dove into that blossom.

Fear--the Great Teacher

“Fear is a universal experience. Even the smallest insect feels it. We wade in the tidal pools and put our finger near the soft, open bodies of sea anemones and they close up. Everything spontaneously does that. It’s not a terrible thing that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is part of being alive, something we all share....

So the next time you encounter fear, consider yourself lucky. This is where the courage comes in. Usually we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with fear.”
--Pema Chodron

Lean In

Dogwood blossoms “Generally speaking, we regard discomfort in any form as bad news. But for practitioners or spiritual warriors—people who have a certain hunger to know what is true—feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel we’d rather collapse and back away. They’re like messengers that show us with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and, lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we are.”

--Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart

Become Your Best Friend

Laughing Gulls

So how do best friends treat each other? With value and respect. By honoring the person who is their friend-- their talents, their triumphs. By standing by through the faltering, the disappointments and the pain. Best friends can be counted on to be kind with their truths, to be genuine and patient. Friendships evolve and change. Only one person will be there for your lifetime--

Morning Pages

“Morning pages are non-negotiable. Never skip or skimp…. Morning pages will teach you your mood doesn’t really matter….[they] will teach you to stop judging and just let yourself write. So what if you’re tired, crabby, distracted, stressed?” --Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way.

I’ve been writing morning pages for ten years. You don’t have to be a writer. It’s a tool for everyone.

“Three pages of whatever crosses your mind—that’s all there is to it. If you can’t think of anything to write, then write, “I can’t think of anything to write….”

Your morning pages will stand by you through thick and thin, through joy and sorrow. They will clean out the clutter and stop the foolishness. They center your integrity and solidify what’s important. They become your best friend. And then you become your best friend.

The Moment

Stay present with the moment. Feel it, sense it, become it. Embrace it fully aware. In joy and in pain, this aliveness will never fail you. It will strengthen and heal.

Life's Journey

“Many of us venture out into nature looking for signs of life with our cameras. We’re moved by something and we shoot, unaware that there’s more to the image than meets the eye, that it contains, perhaps, an answer to a question, a clue for our life’s journey.” --Jan Phillips, God is at Eye LevelI think about this intimate look at a crabapple blossom, how exquisitely delicate it is and, yet, how very, very tough; how brief its small life, yet, how everlasting its influence on the tree and other life forms that visit the tree. Is this not the same for all of life?

We sometimes make art, write, photograph, in order to hold time still, to capture a single moment of what we feel in our hearts so that we can revisit it over and over again, so that we can always remember.
These images were taken on day 6, following an entire day of fierce winds, a tornado watch and pelting rain. And still the blossom is beautiful.

Your Best Friend

Of writing, Natalie Goldberg says, “…it is your friend. It will never desert you, though you may desert it many times. The writing process is a constant source of life and vitality…. it offers me a chance to touch my life which always softens me and allows me to feel connected with myself again.”

I sometimes suggest writing as a way of sorting things out, gaining insights and restoring calm. Recently, a young woman brought me a page she had written. She had written it in a moment of feeling overwhelmed. She handed the page to me with embarrassment, saying, “this isn’t my best work,” and yet, I think it may have been just that, her best work. It was spontaneous, pure, open. In less than a page of words, she had expressed her fears, corrected the false assumptions that fueled them and restored calm. And that is beautiful. That is your best friend speaking to you from within.

Practice Finding Your Voice

Natalie Goldberg’s, Writing Down the Bones, is one of my favorite books. I keep it on my bedside table so I can open it whenever I want and read a few pages. Not only is it full of two-page gems about writing practice, each lesson also speaks volumes about living life.

Last night I opened the book to the section entitled, “Make statements and Answer Questions.” In this section she brings to light a study that shows that women and minorities often use qualifiers in their statements, words that ask for reinforcement and encouragement, rather than using a clear and affirming voice. She writes: “After I read the article, I went home and looked at a poem I had just written. I made myself take out all vague, indefinite words and phrases. It felt as though I were pulling towels off my body, and I was left standing naked after a shower, exposing who I really was and how I felt. It was scary the first time, but it felt good. It made the poem much better.”

We all know what this nakedness feels like. We know it best in the form of early encounters that caused fear or humiliation and these experiences often shut down our voice at an early age. But truth is, there are no constants and opinions are as varied as the autumn leaves. We each have our own unique way of seeing the world and of creating and expressing ourselves. No one expression is any more valid or valuable than another.

Drawing and writing practice can help overcome the fear of exposure. To expose your thoughts and feelings on paper can be unnerving at first. To present them to others, even more so. But with practice, you will find your voice. You can’t help it.