Comfort Queen » fear of writing

Distillation – Kripalu 2010

Jennifer — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 13:16:00 +0000

Guest post by the Amazing Joanna Meriwether

We sleep like girls-
in bunk beds
with sheets and blankets
messy on our shoulders and hips

As goddesses
we have spoken poetry
to the noise of our lives
and watched it dissipate
like morning mist

There’s something there
deep in the middle
of the labyrinth
As we dance in and dance out
the body knows its own joyful nurturance

We see the gift in the center
our own luscious hearts
softly singing “I found you…I found you”

What will we take into the world?
Images of creativity and love,
our own good enough selves.

I bow to Joanna and each wide-hearted woman who loved herself enough to ask “What do I want?” for 3 full days.

And listen to the answer.

To allow yourself to want what you want.

To greet yourself right where you are.

My heart remains with you.

P.S. A family emergency means a mother and her daughter cannot attend Taos. Two spots are now open. If Joanna’s poem sings to you, if your creative heart aches to be nurtured and held so that it can really create, then please join us. All the details here.

Choose Your Life Mondays – The Honoring Edition

Jennifer — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 07:01:42 +0000

I’ve been doing Choose Your Life Monday posts for awhile now. I like spending a bit of time on Sundays thinking about how I want to choose my life in the next week and discussing that with you.

Over the course of Choose Your Life Mondays, I’ve blogged about being aware of various patterns, I’ve shared Life Organizer questions, and today, I’m in the mood to do something a bit different.

Friday was big juicy AHA day for me.

My therapist and I discussed my unmet needs and my resulting Bright Shiny Object attraction, and she said,

A teacher of mine said God gets pissed when you don’t honor what you’ve been given.”

I felt a total heart-gut-body thunk.

Which is my body’s way of saying, “This is important information. Pay attention.

As we talked, I realized that, even though I have worked on this for 19 years - I still don’t always honor and value my work.

For many odd and good-hearted reasons, I do not revel in my work.

I do it (whether it is write a book, an article, give a speech, teach a retreat, coach someone) and it’s over. Finto.

Which would probably be fine, even a good thing (no attachment, etc.) except I don’t get fed.

It’s like I’ve been creating this wonderful banquet for everybody and forgetting to eat myself.

I’ve known this for years and years but I always got stuck taking in praise and good feedback because I thought I would get a big ego.

I would get inflated.

God knows, I’ve met enough writers and teachers with big egos who are not nice people.

God knows, I’m so sick of the self-aggrandizement and narcissistic look-at-me nature of the Internet, I regularly think about opening a cheese shop instead.

But you know what?

Honoring what has been given has got nothing to do with getting a big head.

Getting a big head or being a dick head involves a story. Judgment. Comparisons. Your blog is bigger than mine or you fill a workshop faster than me or you were on Oprah twice and I was only on once kind of crap.

What my dear therapist got me to see Friday was:

What I’ve done is to be honored because I did it.

It’s not about good enough or reaching lots of people or even about changing people’s lives – although that is a nice thing to honor, too.

But first, and primarily, it’s about sitting smack in the middle of, “This is what I have created” without judging (discernment has its place, just not right now).

It’s about owning the creation and the ideas and words. “I did this!”

Without saying, “But if I had only said this” or “So-and-so said it better” or “Why did she write about the same thing and sell 2 million more books than I did?”

Creative people, this is so precious, pay attention!

If you are feeling stuck or scattered or always pinging to the next thing, try, please try, stopping to acknowledge and be with what you have created.

Experience it with your body, your senses, the is-ness of what you have created.

Drop all comparisons and ideas for improvement.

And if you have been given money, accolades, relationships, experiences as a result of your work, honor those, too.

Not because they make you special or better than someone else, but because they are here.

Honor what has been given.

The Irony is Not Lost on Me

That I help people own their creativity. It’s the essence of what I do at my retreats, especially the Writer’s Retreat, and when I coach my beloved clients.

So this week I will be – with my full heart and my healing body – HONORING WHAT I HAVE BEEN GIVEN.

I don’t know from where these gifts and words and ideas have come or why I got to be their steward.

That’s not my business.

My business is to honor what has shown up.

I will honor do so while writing my novel, when reading your comments, when creating December’s content for the Comfort Cafe, when planning February Virtual Retreat… oh yes! Does this feel good!

Comment requests:

What has been given to you that you would like to honor? I would so love to hear!

Comfort During Fearful Times: Fear Reflects How Much You Care

Jennifer — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 19:40:53 +0000

Right now, I’m afraid.

Terrified even.

I want to jump out from this computer and run screaming out of my office and straight back to bed. Pull the covers over my head. I’m thinking how good a lunch break would be even though it’s closer to breakfast than lunch. How much I wish I could go open a cheese shop.

You see, I’ve been trying writing about fear all morning, trying creating an interactive digital experience to transform fear.

Wait, you may be asking, why I am crossing the trying word out?

Because here’s one thing I have learned about fear in my research fest:

fear is more about trying and not so much about doing. As soon as I start doing (which today means writing) I am beset with doubts which quickly turn the doing into trying. Today’s doubts are:

This isn’t a good idea.
Why should I write this?
There is so much already written about fear.
I won’t be able to find a good copy editor.
I won’t be able to afford a good e-book designer.
Wait, what am I doing?

Suddenly my idea for a digital hope fest isn’t very clear anymore. Am I going to write a series of emails leading you through a process I’ve cobbled together? Or would an e-book be better? Audios of the process or just calming audios or both? A virtual retreat? I watch my project careen from focused and worthwhile to huge and overwhelming to wait, there is no project! All of which happens in a matter of two breaths.

Then I could start down the very long and winding trip of “What should I be doing with my life? Should I be writing X instead?”

Stop!

This is where I’m learning to stop myself and remember: The question is not, ‘What should I do?’ but rather ‘What do I want to do?’

I care so much about doing good work and living a meaningful life that I get constipated and can’t get anything out because what if it’s not purposeful and meaningful? The longer I go without creating, the more plugged up I get. What if it is not up to me what value or meaning something has but up to the person receiving it? What if it just up to me to show up?”

What I’ve discovered is my washing machine of fear is created by how much I care. That deep caring used to fuel me to create, no matter how imperfectly. But somewhere along the line, I started believing that if I were doing what I was supposed to be doing (notice the abandonment of choice), my days would be ease-filled and fear-free. Right livelihood got conflated with feeling no fear. As in “I’m on the right path if everything feels great all the time.”

When I would feel fear and doubt, instead of taking these emotions as a sign to check in with myself or an indication I have left my comfort zone and am taking a risk, which means I need some extra healthy comfort and support, I would hightail it down the slippery slope of questioning everything I was doing.

What if instead, as Frances Moore Lappe and Jeffery Perkins propose in You Have the Power:

Fear is pure energy. It’s a signal. It might not mean stop, it could mean go!”

But only if I stop and unravel what I am feeling, connect back to my essential caring and my essential choice!

Which often means actually stopping. Which I’m going to do. Right now.

P.S. What form would you like the hope fest to take? Send idea to jen at jenlouden.com

And don’t forget to sign up for the cheap pre-release price to celebrate me getting over my fear and creating by saving money.

Kindly Finding Yourself

Jennifer — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 18:48:58 +0000

That’s the tag line for this blog/website – Kindly Find Yourself – and it’s a phrase I’m sweetly resonating with right now. It is becoming my little creative beacon.

My friend Eric wrote this in response to me talking to him about Kindly Find Yourself as a retreat/class title:

Kindly – Do this with loving kindness.

Kindly – This is my gentle request that you turn around and find yourself.

Kindly – (with a little more edge in your voice) Stop tying yourself up in the knots of your stories. Find yourself.

For me, the first step in kindly finding myself is letting myself be lost. I feel so ashamed that I don’t know what I’m doing or who I am at 45, almost 46. I like to keep stopping and saying, “It’s okay to feel lost right now because that is how I feel right now. It’s okay to feel bad about feeling lost right now because that’s how I feel. It’s not necessary to beat myself up for feeling lost nor do I feel lost in all domains of my life. This feeling of being lost in my creative work won’t last and even if it does, it’s okay because I am not what I do.”

Speaking of “I am not what I do” am I the only one who wants to run away from the Internet and all social media because it feels so overwhelming? It’s like a demon named Do Everything and Do It Big and Do it Now is biting at my heels ((I just joined FaceBook so that might be part of it). I want to run away . Okay, going to stop and welcome that feeling Demon too… “It’s okay to feel overwhelmed because that’s how I feel. But god, I hate feeling this way. It’s okay I hate feeling this way, I can still feel the feeling.” It really helps if I do this welcoming while relaxing my body or going for a walk or doing some art journaling. Also reading Rumi helps:

THE GUEST HOUSE

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

The second thing that helps is reading other people’s journals and blogs and talking to my friend Ann and my beloved Bob so I feel/ see/ know I am not alone in feeling lost, and that most of us do — especially at mid life. I have to remember to reach out and get some of this support when I need it most instead of telling myself I AM THE ONLY ONE FEELING THIS WAY and then not spend all day reading blogs and talking on the phone so that I don’t actually do any creative work because doesn’t feel good.

The third thing that helps is watching happy movies that are smart like Miss Pettigrew Lives for Day and reading books like What It Is by Lynda Barry

Okay, back to kindly finding myself and designing a class and retreats so we can do it together. Love to hear what you are doing to kindly find yourself today!

Afraid to Blog

Jennifer — Sat, 10 May 2008 21:56:53 +0000

I’m afraid to blog. I know, that’s sounds a bit absurd but I have been missing writing in this format for months and although I’ve told myself, “Wait until your sabbatical is officially over June 1st” and “Wait until the new blog is up at Comfortqueen.com so you don’t have to import any more text” I know that’s bull hockey.

I’m afraid to write. I’m afraid to create. I have never been so afraid to create, I don’t think, in my life. I’ve become the queen of busy work and I’m pissed at myself.

What am I afraid of?

Do I really care? Naming what I’m afraid of feels so boring and so besides the point. Because the point is: I need to create to live and life doesn’t feel good when I’m not. But one night, when I wasn’t looking, even in the midst of my retreat (more on that later but not this post or I will never push publish) my old nemesis “BE PRODUCTIVE” latched on to me and has been riding me raw ever since.

Developmental psychology posits that when we are destabilized, we regress to the level of development where we last felt stable. Because all development happens in waves, we surge forward or upward into more complex ways of being (think of learning a musical instrument) and then when life presses on us (in positive and negative ways), we fall back (you suddenly can’t remember that chord progression for the life of you). My stress has been overwhelming miraculously positive (I’ve fallen madly in love) . I’m feeling so much joy and letting go in my body and heart — you might think that would translate to wild abandon with pen and paper and ideas and you know what, you be wrong! Feeling so much joy has destabilized me and sent me back to a former, more stable, but much less satisfying way of being creative: be productive, get things done, worry about money, no time to play, etc.

So here I am, writing this to create something. I’ve also been art journaling and making weird messy paintings.

Off to exercise and then family night – yes, blended family dates are happening, he has a 11 year old, the sweetest coolest boy in the universe.

Ah… Breathe, Jen, it’s all going to be okay.