Another New Beginning

Wishes. Ideas. Decisions. Plans. Unknowns. Uncertainty. Possibility.

First steps. Deep breaths.

I begin again. Back on the path of what I love to do: Write. Coach. Facilitate.

When I read back on the journey I've been on these past few years ... I am inspired by what I've learned. I want to reap more as the journey continues. I want to witness and savour it through this process of reflecting and writing. 

So I re-establish this blog, accepting the gaps. It will continue to be a place to share my perspective on change and transition and uncertainty … LIFE really! Insights and tools pondered and gleaned from the work I co-create with others, from the resources I find along the way, and from reflections of my own experiences. I hope you'll be inspired to add your own voice here too.

I dedicate these musings to anyone who is in the midst of a change or a transition themselves...

     be it a coming together or a coming apart; 
     be it with a job, a community or a person; 
     be it a fear faced or a dream realized; 
     be it a time of learning or unlearning or rediscovering.  

     Let's figure out more about how to be with whatever is.

Let's Live Aligned with curiosity, wonder and purpose!

Breathe Big!

Linda

the novel of novels

I'm reading novels again. It is an absolute joy to be returning to this simple pleasure. Especially while gently rocking in the hammock, feeling the light breeze, occasionally glancing out at the trees

I gave up the habit a long time ago when I noticed I couldn't put novels down to attend to the other things in my life. Played a lot of Russian Roulette. I began to reserve fictional reading to holiday time...and before long that dwindled too.

For the past few months, perhaps stimulated by my shifts at our local library, I have been diving in again. I love how it can restore my energy after a spout of doing or giving. Though I can still get caught up in a story such that I forget the rest of the world, I think I'm a bit more balanced now.  (Perhaps because I'm giving myself permission to?)  Instead of feeling guilty I savour the experience, sink into it wholeheartedly.

As someone with a dream to share her own words, thoughts, stories...this simple pleasure also serves as a support mechanism. My delight in reading is a reminder of how words and perspectives can uplift, provoke, comfort and inspire. May this realization be one more step towards my own written work...however that may manifest itself.

What pleasure are you avoiding? How does denying yourself this experience affect you? What would happen if you gave yourself permission to try it again?

stillpoint

It seems many roads are leading me to acknowledge, embrace and accept that I am indeed where I need to be. And right now that entails non-activity, non-striving, non-productivity. Simply being, observing and noticing. 

This too is part of the creative and the writing process. Can I accept this? Not easily. Social conditioning, along with certain personality characteristics, do get in the way at times.

Last week one of our Wakefield Fringe guests, Alison Wearing ["Confessions Of A Fairy's Daughter"] talked about writing looking a lot like this:  and she slumped in her chair, gazing out into space. I recognized myself. I felt somewhat affirmed. 

Earlier today I had my first coaching session with Laura.  My homework challenge this week is to spend an hour a day this week not working on this illusive book project...and to journal about not working on it. Curious juxtaposition. Not quite sure what that will surface but I'm looking forward to seeing what does.

And just now I re-read a post I saved from Wild Artist and received another affirmation for me to be exactly where I am:

To sing, you must put courage behind your song. To be heard, you must put heart and time into your song. But first you need to pause. Power comes from the quiet inside. The power to paint.

Except for the point, the stillpoint,
There would be no dance,
And there is only the dance.
     - T.S. Eliot

Balance requires a still point. Everything unique and beautiful grows out of the still point; your dance needs to start first in a place of quiet reflection, meditation, prayer.

I can almost see myself see-sawing between my various wishes and paradoxes, swinging up and down, bumping hard each time one end hits the ground. I feel viscerally the chaos I've been experiencing as I struggle to choose something, anything...just get moving, doing, producing something!

But now these words, these gifts from others, are allowing me to see my daydreaming, my non-action as this still point, a possible birth place for something to be born. I am just a bit more able to accept that this non-doing, non-focused time is actually a necessary part of the process for me to move forward with ease and integrity. Eventually. When it's time.

Once again what is right now (when I stop struggling against it) is actually quite perfect.

trusting myself

I finished an article for fall publication this Monday. As usual it took longer than I expected - but I did meet the deadline and I am happy with what I wrote.

Yesterday I heard that the publisher liked it - a lot! (Phew.) As much as I thought it was a good piece I wasn't sure if it was the content or style that they wanted. I was prepared to write something else if that was the case. In the end it appears that the match is good.

So there's a few things that I'd like to acknowledge to myself:

• At the top: I trusted myself and followed my heart and mind in terms of what and how I wrote.
• I was prepared to accept that the article might not be a fit for the magazine without believing that that meant it wasn't good.
• I didn't beat myself up when the writing didn't come as smoothly and as quickly as I'd imagined it would. I went with the flow, trusting that it would come. 
• It helped to give myself an earlier deadline than the magazine requested. That gave me a strange mix of space and pressure.
• The initial conversation with the publisher a few months earlier gave me some idea of what they did and didn't want. It also forced me to get some initial idea's down on paper to send to them. This in turn gave my 'back burner' time to be working subconsciously on the subject.
• I had someone encouraging and supporting me through the process. Thanks Erin!
• I'm pretty sure blogging has helped as well. It is a practice in writing from my heart and my experience, in letting go of perfection and in honouring my commitment to myself and the life I want to live. 

Feeling quite aligned at the moment and it feels good!

How are you honouring and trusting yourself these days?  I invite you to post a comment - there is likely someone out there who will be encouraged by your story.