It’s been a bit since I’ve written anything. I’ve been trying to deconstruct the reasons for that and lo and behold, guess who showed up to the party? Judgment. This is going to be a bit of a quagmire wandering through my thoughts around this but as always, I’m doing it anyway without editing. 

Very brief backstory – it took a lot of encouragement from others and belief in myself which is usually in short supply to even begin to write much less share my musings with others. But, I started this blog space and began filling it with my daily shenanigans and how trauma shaped my experiences. I met someone that inspired me to take my words to a potentially broader audience. I chose to invest in a year long coaching/publishing program. I was finally going to write and publish a book. Then life happened. I’ve already written about those details but that life event replaced my inspiration with doubt. So, I stopped writing, completely. I didn’t even write for myself. I was swimming in emotions and circumstances that paralyzed me.

Fast forward five months, still no words. Bring on the avalanche of judgment! The itty bitty shitty committee that holds court in my head got really loud. While others were telling me nearly daily how I inspire them or how proud they are of me or what a “beacon of light” I am (someone actually said that), the voices in my head were carrying torches and pitchforks, storming my confidence and determination. “See? You can’t do it.” “What made you think anything you have to say has value?” “How stupid are you? You spent this money then wasted it by doing nothing.” My belief in my message having meaning was obliterated. But then I talked about it in therapy. What began as a conversation about disappointment in my employment turned into more questions about purpose and where I could find that outside of my job. Writing…..

As we discussed this journey of starting and stopping the blog, I became aware of yet another example of how attached I get to concepts and outcomes. It’s like I make a statement to either myself or the world and by God, it’s etched in stone. I don’t allow myself room to consider new information, growth, changing landscapes, nope. I said it and I will live and die by that statement. It’s like I make some worldwide declaration that I don’t allow myself to back away from even if it no longer serves me. In this case, the longer I’ve gone without writing, I realized that I became attached to this martyr bullshit of how broken I’ve felt. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. I’m denying myself a therapeutic outlet and a realization of my purpose because I was sad for a time. 

The more we dug into this, the more bubbled up to the surface. My usual overthinking ruminated on why I got stuck, why I got attached to being stuck, and how to get unstuck. This is a familiar pattern. Rather than just fucking doing it, circular thinking becomes a procrastination tool. And this is why writing is so useful for me.  I can’t “think” my way out of things. I process through writing and the answer reveals itself to me. We talked about why I’m motivated to share my experiences and my story. We revisited why people say my blog is different – authenticity, vulnerability, courage, saying the things that others keep hidden, the “me too” experience, etc.

I thought Ok, I’ll try. And honestly as I’m typing away on a Friday night, it feels clunky and messy. It’s a muscle I’ve let atrophy. So what am I going to write about? Hell if I know. Typically it just comes to me but since I’m out of practice, this feels a bit forced and contrived. But I reminded myself that life is messy and that includes this process. As much as I want to present myself as put together and organized, I’m not that and that’s a big part of why others relate to me. While people were telling me how inspirational I am this week, I wanted to say um, have you looked at me? I’m in the fetal position in the middle of a shit storm. And therein lies the gift of perspective. From my point of view, I’m in the middle of it. Others see that I’m in the middle of it but they also see that I continue to take action, make good choices, continue to try, and continue to serve others. Funny how I discount the positive and only hold onto the negative. I see those things too but my perspective is what choice do I have? I suppose there are lots of other choices and that’s what others see. 

As my therapist and I further processed this inability to write, more was revealed. When I began the coaching/publishing program, I was asked to do exercises to formulate the structure of my book and to propel the momentum required to make it happen. I realized that a couple of those exercises left me feeling less than, like I don’t fit, like I shouldn’t try. One exercise was to visualize holding my book in my hand. Imagine what was on the cover. Was it images? Words? A picture of me? We did this as a group exercise. The other writers were describing in great detail what their book would look like. Me? I imagined a hardcover book wrapped in white butcher paper. Blank. Nothing. Because I couldn’t conjure up anything, I felt like I’m not capable of doing this because once again “SEE” showed up. “See? You don’t belong with this group. You can’t do this. You’re not smart enough.” Another exercise was to put together the outline for my book – the basic structure of chapters and concepts and submit it for review and feedback. I couldn’t finish that exercise. My vision didn’t fit into the structure that this program uses so therefore again, I’m not doing it right. And if I’m not doing it right, I can’t do it. Period.

This took me back to why I wanted to even write a blog in the first place. And that is that I’m as normal as they come. I meander through life just like everyone else. There’s nothing unique about me other than I’m willing to share my struggles. I allow my challenges, shortcomings, lessons, “less than” to be visible. Social media can be a great tool for staying connected but it can also really fuck with my head because most only post the highlights and my life is the blooper reel. According to Brene Brown in her latest series “Atlas of the Heart,” which is awesome, by the way, especially for someone like me that values language and word choices, we are hardwired to compare. We don’t have a choice about that. Our choice lies in what we do with that comparison. We desperately want to belong, to fit in, but we also want to be just a little bit better. Sigh. Maybe it’s our performance based culture but I have yet to meet anyone that’s proud of being a solid C student. We don’t value the C student that met the expectations and had a balanced life that included friends, family, hobbies, and work. We reward the people that kill themselves to overachieve.

So then THAT took me back to fear, getting it right, and judgment from others. I remembered the first time I wrote part of my story and shared it with others. I received incredibly positive feedback. I wanted to share it more. I submitted it to a few online forums and it was published there. Pretty cool. Then, I went to share it with my sister. That scared me more than any of the rest of it. Before I read it to her, I prefaced it with “please don’t fact check this” because much of that writing included common childhood experiences. I didn’t want her to correct me as though it didn’t happen that way. And being the awesome, wise sister that she is she said “Sue, you can’t get it wrong. It’s your story.” Mic drop. Another lesson in perspective. Even though we had the same experience, how it impacted us and what we chose to do with it was very different. Her version was just as true as mine. That one little sentiment gave me such freedom to just write whatever I wanted. My “book,” if it does get published, doesn’t fall into the self help category nor does it fall into the biography category. It’s purely my experience.

So, if I imagine the structure of my book, the outline, the cover…I imagine it as messy and disorganized. Maybe there will be textures on the cover. Maybe the pages will have water marks from placing a cold drink on it in the warm Hawaiian air. Maybe there will be a coffee stain on a few pages. Maybe the edges of the pages will be torn. Because it’s my book. I can do what I want. Whether or not it fits into the norm of what is marketable isn’t the point. This is a huge lesson of doing the work, putting it out to the universe, and letting go of the outcome. Which begs the question then….what IS the point? The point is to show that life can be messy and full of struggle but that we are all having the same experiences. Some of us just choose to hang it on the clothesline for the neighbors to see.

*****Update – as soon as I hit “publish,” I fact checked myself. My short-term memory is shot these days. Turns out I have written some since December 3 when I signed up for the coaching program. I forgot. Turns out I’m still not perfect.