For so long I’ve felt stunted in writing in this space. In fits and spurts I manage to create a little something here and there, but consistency has eluded me, pretty well from the start. I go for weeks or months without writing, and then announce out of the blue when I’m back.
I’ve questioned this erratic pattern, I’ve told myself that if I want to make something of my writing I need to get consistent, I need to be creating content, I need/should/must do this and that. Constant judgement and criticism. And that, my friend, is a prime recipe for procrastination & paralysis.
When inspiration hits, the words come flowing in my mind. I’m consumed by them, I’m illuminated by them, I’m propelled by them.
Sometimes, I prioritise getting them out of my head and onto the paper or screen. Other times, I tell myself “later”, because there’s the cooking and the washing and the million other things on the to-do list. Generally, later never comes, or if it does, the words seem to have left the building – what was earlier an abundant overflow of ideas and words becomes a deserted, empty, echoing chamber. That is frustrating.
The thing is, I know that it’s futile to wait until my ducks are all in a row to make a go of creating something of beauty, meaning or significance. And yet, it mostly feels like life is always in the way.
My journey, particularly over the past 3 years, has bought me so far. So much healing, so much growth, so much expansion. And yet, so often I find myself questioning why I haven’t reached my destination yet – I have this vague concept of arriving in a place of perfection where all my wounds are healed, I’ve got my sh*t completely sorted, I’m in perfect health, I’m living a life that from an external perspective looks successful, and I’m in perfect alignment with the divine and living my soul’s purpose. From that place, I tell myself, I’ll be able to share words of wisdom that are truly of service.
This egoic questioning is ceaseless, and the judgement and criticism of not being “there” and of being where I’m at, of course, drags me down and pulls me further and further away from this imaginative nirvana. It also goes against everything I’ve been taught.
It physically feels like being caught in the thick and tangled web of a mammoth spider, so rope-like and thick that it chokes my breath and holds me captive, blocks my view, weighs me down and slows me to a crawl. It feels incomprehensibly penetrating, like it pierces through my body as though it wasn’t even there. And yet, I know there is a way out. I know that I haven’t been wound and tightly bound by any spider, helplessly trapped and doomed for annihilation. I walked my own way into the web, and got myself into this mess, entangling myself more and more with every egoic thought that I entertained.
And so, the time eventually arrives when I see the thoughts for what they are, I recognise that they’re just thoughts and they’re not me and they’re not truth, and I am freed. Things pick up, and I swing into an up-cycle where I’m on top of the world and at peace within.
I know, when I’m on the high, that the low thoughts will return. I’m aware and on the lookout. Sometimes, when they arrive, I see them for what they are, and I sidestep another low. Other times, they hit me and I forget all I’ve learnt, and I go through the cycle again until I catch a glimpse of the light and bring myself back to peace again. And on and on it goes.
The downs have become fewer and further between, but they have persisted. Sometimes, the very fact that I’ve avoided a downer in so long becomes fodder for my desperate ego to latch onto, as I criticise myself for falling victim to this habitual pattern again after doing so well. Why, I ask myself, do I allow this to happen when I know better? Why do I fall continually when I know how to rise, why do I fall victim when I know what’s coming? Why do I allow myself to descend into hell when I know how to reside in heaven? Why do I do this, as I watch my peers and teachers continue to rise and transcend their hell? And then, in a disorienting twist of consciousness, I know that this thought is just a thought and if I allow it to it will drag me down further, and yet I believe it. I merge with it. I become overwhelmingly ensnared within the web. I identify with the egoic part of me that says this is true, even though I know it’s not and I know it’s simply a thought that my mind is having. **Exhausting.** Confusing.
So today I’m here. The thoughts and ideas of my morning mind wanderings are not morphing into the words right now that I expected, but they’re along similar lines. What I know is this: just because I haven’t got it all worked out, just because I haven’t arrived in that utopian paradise where I’m essentially a saint or a guru or spiritually enlightened, doesn’t mean I don’t have value to share. Just because I don’t have all the answers doesn’t mean that there’s not value in the lessons I have learned, or even in sharing my lows along with my highs. My intention has never been to seek sympathy or publicly air my demons for the purpose of narcissistically offloading my woes. I speak of my shadows and darknesses in the hope that I can aid someone, anyone, even just a little, in lightening their load along with me mine.
And then, so easefully and gracefully, everything changes. I remind myself that the utopian paradise, the idealistic destination, doesn’t exist – it’s a figment of my imagination. There is no destination. Only a perpetual journey. In the simple turn of a thought, I find myself surrendering to what is and letting go of the pain and the epic struggle. The spiderweb disolves into nothingness. I discover that I’m back on the upswing, and I’m once again living in heaven on earth.
Main image credit: Rain and Rust by Mooganic via Flickr. Used under licence.