Musing #20: Self Doubt
First, Gratitude…then cringing.
🙏 Special thanks and a warm welcome to Eve Shapiro who is a wonderful writer and source of wisdom and inspiration for me. Glad to have you here and so wonderful to see your conversation with Paul in the comments. I am so glad that I now know who Lenny Bruce is.
🙏 Major gratitude and salutes to Naveen Rao and Melvin Hall who have both been such sources of strength and hope for me and my writing. So glad that this blog brought us together and can't wait to meet both of you in person.
🙏 Eternal gratefulness to Sherin Wafaai for seeing my gifts and gifting me this book that is urging me to use them. Follow her here for more joy and wisdom in your instagram and life.
Artist's Way Week 2 Logbook
I'm only 2 weeks into this book/course/experiment and after last week's Ahas and divine moments, this week leaves me feeling down. I have not been feeling great this week or particularly creative in any way.
God isn’t channeling great poetry or anything this week, I wrote a bunch of things but nothing I felt was good, and I'm already getting skeptical.
I feel irritable overall and getting annoyed at all the instructions and exercises. However I know that there is something beneath this resistance and so I continue working through it.
Since this is a creative recovery , I know I have to wait.
Morning Pages:
✅ Still did it every single day despite going on the road for a few days and my overall rising skepticism about this book’s process.
I have been journaling almost all my life , but 3 pages is still a lot, and I notice a lot of resistance to continue writing them.
I just freeze or daydream or do anything to distract myself from writing it down.
What I also noticed, is that right around the edge of that resistance, is a thought that is either shameful or scary. Always.
This damn pages squeeze shameful parts out of my old wounds and onto a piece of paper. Ouch.
A lot of ouch.
It is like broccoli, you know it is good for you so you shove it down regardless of how disgusting it is. But I digress.
Now on a streak of 19 days. That motivates me to keep it going.
I must be liking something about it.
Artist's Date:
✅ Found it it be a challenge to take time completely to myself, but I finally got myself to a cafe and watched people for a few hours. I’ve always loved that.
The cafe had a James Bond poster and the quintessential bond gun was pointed at me. Right next to it, was another typical Don Corleone Poster.
I felt like the Godfather was giving me ‘a story I can't refuse to tell' about the people I was watching and Agent 007 was going to kill me if I don't finish my novel.
I'm starting to have weird thoughts like that the more I believe I am a writer.
Also a lot of self doubt this week.
Do I really have an important story to tell?
Why does my voice matter?
“Stop dreaming and be more realistic.”
Stuff like that is coming up for me.
🍞 The idea in the book is that these anxious thoughts pop up like pieces of toast, and you gotta catch them, and then nourish them.
👶 Giving your younger parts what they need is the name of the game.
🥪 Like butter that melts on the hot toast, and then you spread your favorite fig reserve or cheese or meat on it.
That last bit is just my own interpretation.
I think my inner child is hungry.
😵💫 The book has mantras that she is asking me to read every week. 😵💫
I still don’t like it when people give me mantras to repeat.
I feel like it has to come from within me to work.
Maybe I’m just skeptical.
But maybe the author is a dictator, and that her way isn’t the only way.
But I digress.
See you next Sunday with another Artist’s Way update before I switch back to Sunday Musings and take a few weeks off to creatively recover further.
Take it easy on yourself and nourish it when you can.
Omar
I LOVE broccoli.:)
Don't judge or be so harsh with yourself. I'd read Thich Nhat Hanh, who believed in talking to, nurturing, and loving the parts of yourself you are punishing or being harsh with. Every part of us needs love and understanding, especially from ourselves. Ernest Hemingway wrote in A Moveable Feast, "All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say." Writing one true sentence might take a whole day. Or longer. We can't rush these things. Your writer's block may be trying to tell you something. Maybe you just need to listen to what it might be, love and nurture that, and keep going. I admire your quest, and your willingness to share your doubts and vulnerability with us. Your journey is precious whatever the outcome. Which great writer said, "The journey, not the destination, matters."? I wholeheartedly agree.