writing for self-discovery

You blew me away with your responses! What great suggestions you all made! I’ve taken your advice and have been busy rewriting and expanding to the next few chapters. Once again, critics have at it! Please!

I do have a few specific questions.

1) I’ve written in a very informal style, incorporating comments from my everyday life. Is that working?

2) The information isn’t new, but my goal is to present it in an engaging way. Is that working?

If you could respond to those and then freely voice all other thoughts, criticisms, and advice, I’d be thrilled! Here goes round two!

Don’t Hold On To What You Can’t Have

CHAPTER 1

Grasping, clinging, and telling myself lies compromised my happiness long past the use-by date. So where do I get off asking you not to hold on to what you can’t have? How do I dare offer advice when I personally screwed up so brilliantly?

If I had an imposter syndrome, that would shut me down. But impostering isn’t one of my issues. How do you measure what has been learned over decades? Here I am, a seventy-something who fudging knows a bit from living it. I’ve laughed, loved, failed, and yet come out on the other side vigorous and vim-full of…well…you decide. 

I want to talk about letting go because it’s sticky, and tricky, and one of the most important keys to happiness. There are times when it’s necessary to sever all bonds, and other times when subtly loosening the grip does the job. 

But it’s knowing, isn’t it? Knowing who we are, what we need, what we want. Knowing when enough is enough and too little is too painful.

Socrates, one of the great philosophers of all time, is credited with saying, Know thyself. He also said that self-knowledge is a philosophical commandment that can help people avoid mistakes in their relationships and careers. 

Philosophical commandment! Holy ravioli! What does that even mean?

Ravioli – I’m starving. Time for lunch. More later.

CHAPTER 2

Okay, I’ve given it some thought. Let’s reduce philosophical commandment, to a less lofty-sounding but equally valid expression. Let’s call it the guiding rule. Self-knowledge is the guiding rule that helps people avoid mistakes in their relationships and careers. When it’s spelled out that way…so logical…right?

Until I read the iconic book by Kathleen A. Brehony, Awakening at Midlife, I had not devoted one iota of bandwidth to pondering those essential questions about myself. I was living on autopilot, numb, checked out. 

Sadly, we can’t flick a button to light up our awareness. Learning who we are is a process; if it hasn’t been part of the daily regimen to date, there’ll be some catching up to do. 

I was in my fifties with four failed marriages and a felony conviction to my credit (or debit) when I began to ask Who am I? Fortunately, the conviction was overturned on appeal, but I’m just saying, I was a late bloomer at the awareness table. And, I hate to admit this, but even after I began the process of self-discovery, I married and divorced one more time. Breaking old patterns is a bitch. 

 On the flip side, my transformation is a testimony to the fact that it’s never too late. Are you listening? It   is   never   ever   too   late.

Uncovering who we are is an exciting journey. I didn’t know I was a writer. Didn’t know I loved solitude. Didn’t know how much I needed adventures, challenges, experiences, and an out-of-the-box reality. It gives me goosebumps to write this, to remember how lost to myself I was.

When we don’t know ourselves, we’re vulnerable. Instead of choosing what will feed and nurture us in healthy ways, we run the risk of falling prey to opposite energies. That’s what I meant when I said I was on autopilot. I let life happen to me rather than making informed choices to determine my fate. Self-knowledge = informed choices = a higher potential for happiness and success.

What does all this have to do with holding on or letting go? Everything. Yup. Absolutely everything. 

Okay, it’s 32 degrees Fahrenheit, as warm as it’s going to get today, and it’s already closing in on 2 p.m. I need to get my walk in before dark. In the frozen tundra of northern Minnesota, winter brings nighttime virtually on the heels of sunrise. I need to catch while catch can – back soon!

CHAPTER 3

It’s a quarter to eight in the morning and still dark. In honor of all that’s true and holy, I’m letting go of my need for sunlight and embracing the gloom. To my point – I’m choosing not to hold onto what I can’t have right now. I’ll practice patience. That’s a good place to start. I’ll loosen my vise-like grip on the desire for a bright and beautiful day knowing that if I’m patient, that day will come. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, and if I check my weather app, maybe not for a week. But it will come. So, Sherry, give up your infantile whining already! 

Patience isn’t always a virtue. It’s good to have patience for something over which you have no control. Like the weather, for instance. But in circumstances where your needs aren’t getting met…. Here’s where you have to know yourself. If you don’t know what you need, you don’t know when you’re not getting it. To be a healthy human, you must know when action is required to make a change for your well-being. 

So let’s help you get to know you.

After I read that life-changing  Awakening book, I set out on my journey of self-knowing. I made a list of things I love. Not people. Not pets. Things. One of them was sunlight through French doors. Really! That’s random. But it’s something I love. My list went on for pages and pages. I found myself returning to it throughout the days as another ‘love’ popped to mind. 

What a simple task, right? But, by becoming aware of the things I loved, I was able to give myself more of that. I immediately weeded out of my life the things I didn’t love. Itchy clothing, stinky candles, lumpy pillows…. You get the drift!

#1 – Make a list of the things you love

When I well and truly couldn’t think of another thing I loved, I asked myself, What do you want that you don’t have? I quickly realized I’d opened Pandora’s Box – a real can of worms. My day-to-day was a shallow shell of shoulds. I was trying to fit into a mold of imagined expectations – what I thought others wanted of me – that had no resemblance to the life I desired. I remember thinking, I’m just marking time, waiting to die.

I panicked. I’m not kidding. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. My breath came fast and shallow. The room faded in and out of focus. I was cemented into a job, a house, a marriage, a community, an entire life that belonged to someone else.

We stuff this information so deep…we tell ourselves stories to support the lies…we deny, deny, deny, that anything’s wrong and put on a show of the perfect family, the perfect marriage, the perfect employee, the perfect wife, when all the while we are perfectly miserable.

If our reality is dreadfully out of alignment with our heart, it will require great courage to take the steps necessary to shift it. As I viewed my list of woes, my first thought was, no way. There is no way out. My second thought was, But this is unsustainable. I’m just marking time. I have to find a way.

According to the Constitution of the United States, the pursuit of happiness is our inalienable right. Deep down I felt that. I hated what I had to do yet I knew I deserved better than a robotic, disengaged existence. But, Oh! My! Where to begin?

And there are times, like now, when my heart says, Keep writing, and my body says, It’s noon! For god’s love, stop and eat breakfast!

‐———-

After breakfast, I did a new vision board.

After lunch, I walked with my sister in a marshmallow world.

After the walk, I worked on chapter 4! Now I await your feedback!