Because we feel this way, we might decide that unless we do something with our misfitness – preferably something brilliant – all of our suffering and not fitting in has been for naught.

There is something so beautiful about this story – that we must turn our suffering into beauty.  Into light.  Into something that break the frozen sea inside us (to paraphrase misfit Kafka). 

There is also something dangerous in this story – that we must earn our weirdness, that we must redeem it. I love a good redemption story as much as the next gal yet believing I have to redeem my basic nature through doing makes me very queasy.

After I graduated from USC film school, I worked at a very fancy LA talent agency. I rode the elevator with Madonna and flirted with Dustin Hoffman (okay, just once but still!). And on the weekends, I wrote. Every spare minute, I wrote.

Good girl, go, write, learn your craft.

Not so good. I became terribly depressed.

I did so for a number of reasons but a big one was: I had begun to believe my worth as a weirdo = producing good writing that then sold for lots of money and changed lives.

Ouch.

Plus, I was getting no play time, it was work, work, work, strive, strive, strive. Even a 23-year-old can’t do that 24-7.

You are weird. You’re human! So create because you must get that shade of turquoise onto the paper or you must tell the stories of your bizarre family or because you want to have a ticker tape parade in honor of your inventions but don’t create to earn your right to be who you are.

Consider yourself earned.

Oh, and don’t work all the time either. But you already know that. Or you wouldn’t be reading my stuff.

P.S. Need to recharge your creative ju-ju?  Need a space to be and listen to what’s what without needing to make anything happen? Two places to do that in July: my retreat at Kripalu and my retreat in Taos. For wandering, wondering, weirdos. Come join us!

P.P.S. Free totally non-pitch call with Sarah Robinson and me next Tuesday June 22nd! Register here.

June is crazy busy around here.

• talking about self-care on behalf of a big huge wonderful company to big huge media
• a retreat with my beloved Brain Trust
• a family reunion with my beloved’s family in Oregon
• being a single mom for next three months
• getting my daughter ready to go to Mexico for a language immersion and service project  (this for a kid who has never done a sleep-over camp)
• preping a workshop for the Romance Writer’s of America conference – self-care for the published author
• writing the novel that seems to be coming
• gratefully hanging with the Comfort Cafe where we’ll be talking about (thank God) taking simple action on one desire and Lisa Sonora Beam will join us for her take on how to do that.
  

Oh the Squirrel is in heaven!

Things to do!

Lists to make!

Bags to pack, planes to catch, people to woo.

Reasons to feel self-important.

Meanwhile, the one who is afraid of being imperfect

wants to eat gluten-free cookies and read People of the Whale and hide under the covers, way under the covers.

I spend a lot of my time swinging between being creatively adventuresome, putting myself way out there, and hiding.

Hiding? Really?

Yes!

How do I hide?

Oh lots of ways. One of my favs? Hanging out in the territory of I’m-About-to-Figure-it-All-Out.

Otherwise known as when I do figure it all out, things are going to be so easy. I’ll never feel stressed again. I’ll never doubt my work or its effectiveness again. I’ll never try to cram too much into one day again. Not after I figure it all out. What would it be? Ah, that is the golden question!

Sometimes, for variety, I visit the country right next door instead, the land of If I Could Just.

As in… if I could just do something easier and just focus on that – just be a fiction writer, just be a painter, just travel the world with my beloved, just nurture the Comfort Cafe, just garden, just do yoga.

The tempting country of If-I-Could-Just shares a border with the fiefdom “I’ll chuck it all and go ____.” That’s where, when the anxiety of creating their lives gets to be too much, people go around saying, “I’ll chuck it all and go live in an ashram” or “I’ll chuck it all and open a B&B on the coast”or “I’ll chuck it all and go write novels.”

I can spend hours and days hiding in these places.

Traveling here helps me manage my anxiety, the anxiety that comes from living my life at the edge of my abilities.

We all have our favorite comfy ways of managing our anxiety.

The question is, are you managing yours in ways that help you or hinder you?

This Week

I’m going to lovingly notice when I take a trip to the land of “If I could just” and I’m going to bring myself back to my body. My breath.

I’m going to look at this picture of me in 1970 and delight in her wide open presence.

I’m going to check in with God and hear I am utterly okay no matter what.

I’m going to dedicate my efforts to a child in our community who is very ill and all parents fighting much more real fears than my fear of being imperfect.

And I’m going to plan my days the night before and keep resisting the lure of adding in one more thing because just you never know today I might be super human.

(Another country I visit often – the super human I can work non-stop for fifty hours producing original creative work land.)

What about you? What pattern or story will you lovingly notice this week?

I’m trying to do it differently this time because last time (I wrote a novel) it was like carrying an 80 pound pack while walking on a beach in the pouring rain (if you’ve ever backpacked on sand, you know what I mean) or trying to talk politics with my dad (Daddy, you know now we agreed, down deep? That’s one of the things you got to learn in heaven, right?)

Since this month at the Comfort Cafe we’ve been talking about daily rituals, it got me thinking about creating a ritual for writing my novel.

First I thought about the ritual needed to do, what its purpose would be.

• To help me hold the writing lightly – what Mark calls “writing on the muse stream” so I don’t get mired in perfection and drown the story in that
• Make a heart commitment to write deeply and truly and to let myself care madly about this story
• Keep moving the story forward and
• Refuse to burden the story with my dreams of grandeur

My Morning Writing Ritual is Born

The night before I turn off email and Twitter (practice starts the night before).

When I go up to my studio in the morning, I light two candles made by Carla. One candle has a writing quote on it by me and the other is from a dear client and represents my wish that my work radiate good into the world.

I prop up a copy of a Harry Potter book to my right to symbolize my desire to have fun and keep the story moving forward.

On the ledge to my left is a postcard of the Medicine Buddha held in place by a small green wooden mouse from my childhood – to represent discernment and listening to my intuition about what to write.

On my desk is a blue glass container filled with owl feathers from a hike near Point Reyes. These represent magic, what I want to touch in my writing.

I do a little Shiva Nata.

I put in headphones and listen to music to help me concentrate – I especially like Gaia by the Monroe Institute.

Then I write without much editing, stopping when I get stuck to breath and listen to what word or idea wants to come, letting the props and music hold and support me.

I’m thinking about sharing more on my process and even some of what I’m writing here, so stay tuned.

What helps you create with more ease and trust, less fear? I’d love to hear!

In Which I Reveal My True Silliness and talk about the Cafe, too

(If you can’t see a video, come here: http://www.comfortqueen.com)

Comfort Cafe info here – it’s one buckaroo (1$!!!) for the first month but only until February 1st

Writer’s Coaching Group (also involves some happy dancing) 8 spots total, 4 spots left / Begins February 9th (I said January in the video – doh)

Upcoming Retreats live in person!

Newsletter sign up, as always, here.

Love, as always, everywhere!

Otherwise known as Fear I Will Never Create Again.

I knew this but I forgot it. If I’m not creating pretty regularly (with frequent shortish breaks otherwise creative burnout can result) empty space opens up where fear likes to take up residence. This isn’t true for everybody but some of us need to regularly create with the intention of finishing a discrete something to our own satisfaction.

Why finish to our own satisfication?  Because:

1

Finishing gives you a feeling of success simply through the act of completion and when you cajole your way through to finishing, you inevitably learn a number of things–  from how to deepen a piece of writing to how to apply that varnish you bought but never used before to how to cast off.  You also create momentum that can take you into your next project. I had a writing teacher who advised us to take parts of our novels and turn them into short stories, particularly good advice when you are working on a long haul project.

2

Being a creator means you will forever be assessed – some people will love what you do, some will like it, a few will hate it, and most won’t give a poop. I can read a book and press it on my friend telling her it will change her life and she can read it and say, “WTF?” If we are to stay (relatively) sane as creators, we must declare our own conditions of satisfaction for our work, conditions that are not dependent on anyone else. This is a hugely freeing idea that I talk about a ton at the writer’s retreat and with my writing clients.  Here are some examples from the retreat.

Before I write and if I start to feel lost or stuck, I check in with my heart by stopping, feeling my butt in the chair, and remembering a time I felt loving and connected.
I do not check email while writing.
I read a poem or short story once a week and make notes about sentence structure, words I like, and character development.
I look ahead each evening to when I will write the next day and make an appointment.
I record on my calendar that I wrote.
I generate new work four out of seven writing days.

Versus:

I’ll write when I feel inspired
I know this project will get done but it has it’s own life and I can’t rush it.
I have to hurry up and write this in a week because this idea must get out.
I must get up at 4 am every day to write seven days a week.
I have to go away to write, I can’t write at home
I’ll be happy when it is finished and I publish it and everybody loves it.

But wait? What if you can’t even get to the work because you are too afraid to sit down or even look at your supplies? You’ve got to ease into it, baby, ease in. C’mon on in, the water is fine. Here are a few very gentle ways to start:

• Pick up your pen or your paintbrush or a scrap of collaging material. Put it back down. That’s it for the day.
• Pause near your work space or your materials and as you gaze at them, recall a time you were creating that felt great: you were in the flow, you loved what you were doing, you were totally enjoying yourself. (When I do this, I think of a very specific moment rather than big swath of time.) Concentrate on those feelings of being in the flow and let them grow stronger. Relax into the good feeling.
• Pause near your work space and think about how much you love creating. If thoughts come chattering along like “You are so worthless for not working again today” or “You should give all those luscious paints away to someone who will appreciate them,” allow the thoughts to be there like you would allow clouds to be present in the sky. They don’t change the sky, they don’t hurt the sky, and they never ever stay put. Let the thoughts be there, neither resisting nor engaging.
• Ask yourself, “If it didn’t matter what I created or what I did with it or who liked it, what would I really really love to do today?”
• Take your art journal or computer to a cozy cafe. Sometimes you need other people’s energy to get started.
• Find a very supportive teacher and coach who showers you with love to jump start you.

What are your favorite ways to ease into creating?  And don’t forget to sign up here for the pre-release plus extra goodies and heck, I might even throw in my first born child if I actually finish the damn thing discount on my Comfort During Fearful, Perplexing, Overwhelming Times.