Fallow Periods
I don’t think life is meant to be a continuous charging forward—one with no pit stops, no breakdowns, and no change in direction. And yet we act like it is. We act like unless we are walking a certain path, with a certain style, we are failing at life. And then if we have a catastrophe or if we aren’t sure where we are for a little while, we’re doing it all wrong.
But that’s not really how life works.
Like many other humans, I can say that almost nothing has gone according to plan in my own life. I might have a destination in mind and maybe I get there eventually, but the directions often rewrite themselves along the way. Or the road isn’t as smooth as I thought it would be, or it doesn’t wind in the direction I expected. And then sometimes I find myself at a dead end entirely, sitting in a pile of loose dirt that marks a fallow period and therefore breaks up my journey with seeming non-movement.
And that’s what I want to talk about now. Fallow periods. The times when we feel like we’re at a standstill but perhaps really aren’t.
I often think about how fields cannot produce abundance without time for the soil to lay fallow: to replenish its nutrients, to regain its energy, to recover its ability to push out incredible life forms. And so it goes with humans, too. Sometimes we’re simply in a fallow period and, although we don’t see it that way, it’s actually a necessary period we need to pass through in order to recalibrate our journey to whatever comes next.
A fallow period can appear in a lot of ways, I think. It can appear most prominently via unemployment when you’ve literally got nothing to do. All the downtime then forces you to sit in the present moment and to confront your own emotions around what that present moment means. Then maybe you move into thinking about what your past looked like and how your future may look a bit different, and sometimes you even change direction—either by necessity or by force.
It can also appear when someone dies. A death often makes us hit pause on our own lives as we fall into grief. Then we find ourselves in a sort of suspended animation, watching the rest of the world as through a window, with everyone moving along as if nothing has happened. And yet we now have to stop everything before we can start anew, because our life is so different without that person in it.
It can also appear in times like these—pandemic times. Times when we’re forced to be more still, to wait, to suffer, to reevaluate. Times when we’re unsure of when it all will end and what it all means anyway, and times when we’re forced to look at our lives in a fresh way. What’s really important? Who is really important? Am I using my time in the best way I can?
This year, 2020, was a significant fallow period for me—and not just because of the pandemic. And for a while I was really distressed by it. By this pause, as I wrote about in The Big Pause. By this not doing of anything, really. And then I realized what it actually was (a fallow period) and I told myself it was okay. I gave myself permission to have a fallow period and to experience it in whatever way that might be.
If you’re in a fallow period right now, regardless of how that period arrived in your life, could you give yourself permission to just be in it? To experience it fully as a period of preparation rather than as lack of progress? And, yes, to recognize that it’s a period of uncertainty and discomfort, but to also know that it’s a necessary one to propel you on your way?
I started emerging from my fallow period only a few weeks ago, and when I realized the fallow period had ended of its own accord (without much effort by me, to tell the truth), I was glad I’d chosen to sit in it while it was here. To not fight it, but to instead use it as a space to ready myself for whatever came next.
Do not fear the fallow periods. Use them instead for self-discovery, and to tune in to your internal frequencies. And also, try not to stress about them even though they can be very stressful (especially if your unemployment benefits, for example, are about to end like mine were).
Remember that something greater than you could ever imagine is moving the pieces on the game board and closing or opening doors for you. Trust in that presence—whatever you believe it to be—and just sit in the moment that has been given to you. Every moment, including a seemingly inactive one, is always given to you for a reason.
———
To leave a comment or share this post, scroll down.
My first book, Halfway There: Lessons at Midlife, was released on August 18, 2020 by Warren Publishing and was re-released on February 16, 2021 by White Ocean Press. To read an excerpt, check out reviews, see the author Q&A, or find links to buy, click the Learn More button.
Daily Word Counts
Do you give yourself a daily word count to hit? Have you thought about smashing that rule to pieces?
I’ve been writing for two decades so you may be surprised to hear that I’ve never given myself daily word counts. But before I elaborate on why you might want to follow suit, I do think a daily word count works for some people. Reasons:
- It forces you to maintain discipline
- It helps you meet deadlines (if you have them)
- It makes you feel good about your work
- It is a tangible measurement of progress
But here’s what I think happens sometimes when you impose inflexible word counts on yourself:
- You get stuck/blocked
- You write uninspired drafts
- You become too frustrated
- You sometimes feel like a failure
- You write before you’re actually ready to do so
I like that last point the most, because sometimes you’re just not ready to write the thing you want to write—as crappy as that might feel. Sometimes you need to live life, get some experience, and find inspiration. Sometimes faster isn’t actually the goal, and sometimes you’ll finally release a torrent of words after a long drought.
For me, daily word counts force me to write when I don’t want to or when I don’t actually have anything to say. So how do I make progress, you might ask, if I don’t use word counts? Well, I set broad goals for myself instead. Here are some recent examples:
- I want to release a book of poems. I’m going to continue writing them as they come, and then when I have enough, I’ll comb through them and see what’s there.
- I want to finish a draft of my second book by the end of 2021. I’ll make sure to write a page or two as often as I can, and try to target 5,000 words per month, but if I run out of ideas or am uninspired, I’ll stop until I have more to flesh out. This is okay. I can adjust my date if necessary, because uninspired work is not what I want to produce.
- I want to submit some poems to a few literary journals. I’ll do this within the next three months. I’ll find some suitable journals first, and then I’ll identify some pieces to submit.
Sure, this means it sometimes takes me longer to get a project done. But the draft I do write is much stronger than the one I’d write if I forced my brain to string together words it hadn’t quite figured out. It’s also a much less frustrating process.
And I’ll leave this little nugget here too: You do NOT have to write every day to be a “real” writer. I’ve had people tell me I need to write every day. No, I don’t. What I need to do is to write regularly so that I continue to work on my craft, but I don’t need to write every single day – and neither do you.
What do you think? Do you like word counts? Hate them? Have you tried it both ways? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!
———
To leave a comment or share this post, scroll down.
My first book, Halfway There: Lessons at Midlife, was released on August 18, 2020 by Warren Publishing and was re-released on February 16, 2021 by White Ocean Press. To read an excerpt, check out reviews, see the author Q&A, or find links to buy, click the Learn More button.
Tips for Getting Moving
I recently came across a writer who had been sitting on an outline for years. He wanted to lock himself in a cabin to make himself write, but I argued that locking oneself in a cabin will be ineffective if the underlying issue is fear.
Are you afraid to write?
If so, tell yourself the following:
1. I am allowed to write badly. Everybody writes garbage.
2. I can’t edit a blank page. It’s better to have something there.
3. I am going to write without editing. I can do that later.
4. I will refrain from judging anything I write. I can do that later.
5. If I don’t do well enough the first time, I’ll just try again.
6. My desire to write a book comes from something that is greater than my mind. I am going to trust whatever that is to also grant me the ability to do it.
Once you’ve solved this problem, feel free to go lock yourself in a cabin. 🙂
———
To leave a comment or share this post, scroll down.
My first book, Halfway There: Lessons at Midlife, was released on August 18, 2020 by Warren Publishing and was re-released on February 16, 2021 by White Ocean Press. To read an excerpt, check out reviews, see the author Q&A, or find links to buy, click the Learn More button.
The Worm That Changed My Mind
About a month ago, I came across a tomato hornworm on my cherry tomato plant. If you haven’t seen a tomato hornworm (and I don’t intend for this to be a long, boring diatribe about a worm, but you need to read the story to get my point), it’s a really large, green worm that is about as big and thick as my thumb.
As is often the case with Mother Nature, these worms are cleverly made to blend in with their target plants and are therefore extremely hard to spot. For the previous 36 hours, I’d scratched my head and stared at the plant, wondering what could possibly have decimated it so quickly. A third of the leaves were gone, half of the fruit was gone, and the stems were eaten down to nubs. I looked and looked but couldn’t find any anything out of the ordinary.
I’d learned a few months back that sometimes cutting off all the injured or diseased parts was step one to a plant’s healing, much like how we humans start to heal when we treat our underlying disease or remove things that are broken (like my poor gallbladder, may it RIP). And it was when I went around to prune off the jagged stems and half-eaten fruit that I suddenly spotted him gnawing contentedly on one of my green tomatoes.
I dropped my pruner and ran inside the house. Yelling up the stairs to my husband, who was working in his office, I requested that he come down immediately to provide moral support while I attempted to remove a huge worm from my plant. He was unsure of why I needed such support, but as good husbands do, he came outside.
“I don’t see anything,” he said.
“Right there. Look. There.” I pointed.
“Where?”
“Right here, see? He’s on the stem,” still pointing.
“I don’t see it…”
And then, “Ohhhhh. Wow, they sure do blend in.”
As someone who likes to be thoroughly prepared so as to assure my own success, I’d already researched every possible tomato plant (and pest) issue – including the tomato hornworm. And the internets had told me I should remove said worm and throw him into a bucket of soapy water to snuff him out – much like stink bugs and caterpillars and the like.
Okay.
So I went and got a clear plastic cup, added some water and dish soap, put on my glove like a surgeon, and went back outside to attempt to pull him off while proclaiming, “Yuck yuck yuck!” audibly enough for the neighbors to overhear.
Except he wouldn’t come off.
I tried, he clung tight. I tried harder, he didn’t budge. Eventually I realized I wasn’t going to squish him if I gripped and pulled him off like Velcro, so I finally won the battle and quickly heaved him into the cup.
“Phew,” I said to my husband, relief washing over me that I’d done this necessary gardening thing and therefore was probably legit initiated into it now.
But then I looked over and saw this poor worm struggling, drowning, suffocating in a soapy swimming pool with insurmountable walls. And I felt my heart start to crumble.
“Gawd. I just can’t do that to him, Jason,” I said, and quickly dumped him out onto the grass. “It makes me really sad.”
“Yeah,” he said, understanding what I meant.
I thought for a moment about what I ought to do next, with said worm now squiggling around on the grass helplessly near my back gate. So I scooped him up in the empty cup – which had small soap bubbles still clinging to the rim – and then I marched out of my backyard, around my house, and down the street to a little clump of native brush that somehow hadn’t been destroyed by the construction of our neighborhood about 12 years ago (Texas has a nasty habit of bulldozing everything to the ground). I then heaved him into said brush even though I’d come to realize he’d likely die anyway from the soap residue, and I sent a silent well wish and an apology to his little soul.
Maybe my behavior sounds a bit nonsensical because, after all, it’s just a worm. But I tell you this story because the worm changed how I see the life around me. It made me realize that we often fear the things we do not understand – and this fear response is an important behavior for us humans (myself included) to learn to manage properly.
I feared him because he looked different than any bug I’d ever encountered. He was large, he was green, he had a little horn on his back, and there were multiple sets of feet clinging tightly to a branch that was half the diameter of his massive body.
I also feared him because I did not truly see him. What I mean is, I didn’t see him as part of the same life that exists in me, nor did I see him as an important part of the well-oiled mechanics of our planet. He was just hanging around, doing what he’s supposed to do – which is, yes, eat my tomatoes – but I didn’t acknowledge that he has as much right to the plant as I have. We all share this planet and its resources, and I really had enough tomato plants left over that I could have given that one to him and been just fine.
I think we do this fear response thing a lot, fellow humans. I think this is why we have so much prejudice, and intolerance, and lack of understanding, and weird behavior. It’s because we don’t understand the “other” and therefore we are afraid of that thing or person or animal or way of life.
And what do we do when we’re afraid? We self-protect. We mount our defenses. We turn our heads in disgust, we kill, or sometimes we just run away. In other words, we lose ourselves in some weird egoic protective instinct instead of clearing our heads and seeing the world for what it really is: a place where we are all kind of the same.
Back in grade school, I was fascinated to learn that everything is made up of atoms which are then comprised of sub-atomic particles. A recent Google search says the smallest currently known particle is a quark (these are sub-atomic particles that combine to create protons and neutrons), and that we don’t yet have the ability to break these particles down further.
So we are ALL comprised of this stuff at our core – and it’s true as much for you as it is for a rock, a bird, a tree, or a worm.
I feel like once we get in touch with what this really means, we can start to rethink some of our behaviors. This is why I felt sad for hurting the worm and had to abort the mission: killing him was killing a part of myself, a part of my essence, because we are formed from the same stuff. And not everyone is going to be able to follow me when I say that (it’s okay if you don’t). But I try very hard not to kill anything and this little guy was new to my world. So I got afraid and lost my center until I looked, understood what he was, and immediately changed course.
Have you lost your center with people who aren’t like you? Or maybe with that little rat who lives outside your house, doing nothing but trying to live life just like you are, but you simply don’t want to share the space with him because you’re afraid he’ll <fill in the blank>?
What this time in our history has taught me is that so many people live their lives in a fear state. It’s MINE. They’ll TAKE what’s MINE. There’s not ENOUGH to go around. I’ve got to have my SHARE. They’re coming to take my LIFE, my PROPERTY, my LIBERTY.
Me, me, me. But what about others?
What about this planet of ours that is smoldering? What about the humans who are starving? What about the ecosystems that are collapsing?
What about the trees that are eaten by big machines to make way for MORE buildings? And what about the animals that are killed with poison, with shovels, with guns simply because they want to exist just like you do but landed in your space by chance?
It’s not all about us, fellow humans.
So I can tell you exactly how I’ll react the next time I see a tomato hornworm: I’ll look at him with kindness and I’ll tell him hello. And then I’ll tell him I appreciate that he’s visited and has found some food, but that this is my food, and I hope he has had a good helping and can find more food elsewhere.
And then I’ll glove myself again like a surgeon to pry him off the stem, but this time I’ll place him gently into an EMPTY cup. I’ll walk down the street to that patch of brush, drop him there carefully to give him his best shot at survival, and wish him well as he goes on his way.
This is how life should be, guys. This is how we should be to each other – to other people, to animals, to birds, to bugs, to plants, to the planet. Let’s not forget that we all need each other in order to exist. Too many people don’t seem to understand this anymore, and if we don’t get it together…well, I don’t want to think about that. We’re already seeing it on the west coast, and with storms, and with temperatures rising, and with…so many things.
Let’s all just try to do better.
———
To leave a comment or share this post, scroll down.
My first book, Halfway There: Lessons at Midlife, was released on August 18, 2020 by Warren Publishing and was re-released on February 16, 2021 by White Ocean Press. To read an excerpt, check out reviews, see the author Q&A, or find links to buy, click the Learn More button.
2020
2020
by Elizabeth C. Haynes
The clouds are moving in, over my life.
Rolling dark gray since the pandemic.
With the sick tumbling across the land
Inundating beds, and nurses, and doctors.
But with a populace looking on, utterly unconcerned
Because they’d rather pretend to be free.
———
To leave a comment or share this post, scroll down.
My first book, Halfway There: Lessons at Midlife, was released on August 18, 2020 by Warren Publishing and was re-released on February 16, 2021 by White Ocean Press. To read an excerpt, check out reviews, see the author Q&A, or find links to buy, click the Learn More button.
Dollars and Cents
Dollars and Cents
by Elizabeth C. Haynes
I envision some of the men
with souls inside like Shrinky Dinks.
Withering away with each new dollar,
billions of them, piled on top,
weighing down and dissolving the
skin and bones into their essence.
The eternal self.
Far away and small, though,
the lights barely lit.
Their very existence diminishing
with made-up dollars and cents.
———
To leave a comment or share this post, scroll down.
My first book, Halfway There: Lessons at Midlife, was released on August 18, 2020 by Warren Publishing and was re-released on February 16, 2021 by White Ocean Press. To read an excerpt, check out reviews, see the author Q&A, or find links to buy, click the Learn More button.
The Big Pause
I was sitting on my patio this morning watching some rare summer rain rumble in from the east, the winds pushing through the neighbor’s trees as the sparrows flitted around my feeders, when I coined a new term for myself and my current reality: The Big Pause.
I’m in this weird place in my life right now where I’m sort of “in between.” In between then and now. In between health and sickness. In between joy and sorrow. And in between who I was and who I may become. As a result of all of this instability, I’m spending a lot of my time during this pandemic (and during this break in my work life) just sort of existing.
So this means I get up in the morning and I make some sort of breakfast, whether it’s oatmeal or eggs or gluten-free pancakes, and I follow it up religiously with a little cup of homemade vegan chai. I sip it from my pale green, polka-dotted teacup with a rim of gold that I bought myself after buying one as a gift for a dear friend of mine. I loved it so much – and she loved it so much – that I ordered one for myself, too. It not only made me happy, but it made me feel closer to her in a way. We are separated by hundreds of miles and many states the last few years, and I miss her dearly as a physical presence in my life.
When I’m finished downing the many pills and supplements I have to swallow in the first hours of my day, I use the mental notes I’ve taken on my body and my health since I woke up to decide what I’m going to do next. I have just a few choices these days and most of them don’t involve much.
Option 1: If it’s cool enough, I go tend to my plants in the garden or look for my squirrel (yep I feed a squirrel; I have named him Marley).
Option 2: If I have enough energy, I do a fifteen- to twenty-minute yoga practice by myself in the spare room.
Option 3: If I’m feeling creative, I sit down to write or maybe head to the kitchen to bake something.
Option 4: If I’m feeling sick, as is quite often the case in the last six months, I don’t do much of anything. I lay on the sofa and let myself reside in the “in between.” Or, as I was doing this morning, I sit outside with the rain brushing against the side of my skin nearest the wind, and I watch it form puddles on the ground.
I breathe. I wait. And I don’t rush whatever is to come next.
I’ve coined this time of my life “The Big Pause” because that’s really what it is for me – the biggest pause of my entire life. But also, I got to thinking about how most of humanity could really use a Big Pause sometimes. We go and go, and traverse a number of obstacles and heartaches, until we get to a point where we’re just worn out and have nothing left to give to ourselves or to anyone else. We’re tired from our hearts all the way to our bones and our skin, and we badly need to take a rest (although most of us rarely do).
Many of us have finally been given that bit of rest because of the pandemic (not a stress-free rest, mind you), and I’ve observed so many people talking about “making the most” of the time if you happen to find yourself in a pause because you’re jobless, or because you’re scared to leave your home, or because the world is crumbling around you and you aren’t sure how to handle it all just yet. And I don’t think becoming more busy is necessarily what we should be doing.
Well, not all of us anyway.
I think 2020 will unfold very differently for each person depending on their individual circumstances and their personality. And we should make room for every version of this unfolding in what is considered “okay” and a “successful use of time.” Some people might put immediate action and goals into place – and this is great – but some people can’t do anything but just sit and wait for a while.
I’m sort of in the latter category: I’m sitting and waiting. I know things are changing dramatically and that I’m getting closer to some truth about myself that’s been brewing for decades, but this process is not one I can push along. It’s not one I can write my way into or out of, or will my way into or out of, or otherwise tangibly manipulate until the time is right for it to manifest in my life. And on some days, when I feel particularly lost or worried about finances, it’s an exceptionally painful time to traverse.
I’ve seen many people building masterpieces in their Big Pause, which is great if that’s how life is unfolding for you – and I kind of wish it was that way for me. I honestly felt distraught in the beginning because I wasn’t able to do something of the same with my own free time. However when I examined the unique circumstances of my life rather than looking at the lives of others, I realized I was already at the end of my masterpiece (my first book). I’d been working on it for several years and was wrapping it up when the pandemic hit, so I wasn’t in a place to light new fires and create new contributions.
I’m still not.
And I keep wondering when I will be. Maybe in 2021?
I think most people mean well when they say you should take advantage of every moment you have right now (or in life in general), but I think we also need to examine what we define as “advantage.” For me, taking full advantage of this moment means I’m not doing much of anything that would be considered productive – not unless I feel like it, like I do right now. I’m in a period of desperately needed rest that I’ve pined for since late adolescence, and I’m not going to squander it.
I know there will come a day when The Big Pause will be over. I know there will come a day when I’ll be ready to do something else or move in a different direction. But I’m not going to force it to come before it’s ready, and I’m not going to busy myself into creating something that others deem more valuable – like churning out another book when my heart couldn’t possibly be in one right now. I’m going to do what feels right for me. And I encourage you to do the same.
Times are tough for everyone and we are all processing things differently. Don’t fall victim to the idea that you have to be anyone other than who you are in this moment, even if that means you feel like an outcast or that perhaps you should order some bonbons with your next grocery pickup.
Remember that gardens need a fallow period in order to grow green riches that spill over the sides, with tendrils grasping at soil and air, climbing out to become the greatest expression of what they were meant to be. Don’t skip that part. Don’t be ashamed to not “produce” for a while. Don’t be afraid to take your Big Pause – especially right now. I think more people than ever need to stop and breathe for a bit so that maybe humanity can be different going forward.
———
To leave a comment or share this post, scroll down.
My first book, Halfway There: Lessons at Midlife, was released on August 18, 2020 by Warren Publishing and was re-released on February 16, 2021 by White Ocean Press. To read an excerpt, check out reviews, see the author Q&A, or find links to buy, click the Learn More button.
Difficult Times
I’ve never lived through a pandemic before and I’m pretty sure you haven’t either. So each one of us is approaching our lives right now without a toolbox. Without an instruction booklet. Without a compass or a shortcut and without knowing how to make it to the other side.
Go easy on yourself.
I think we’re all having days where we’re struggling to maintain our positivity. Sometimes the dark thoughts completely char our world for a few hours, or sometimes we recognize keenly that there will be more collapse and death before this chapter of our history is closed. The ongoing daily trials of soldiering through so much uncertainty can make us feel very sad or very afraid sometimes. At least, this is what happens to me regularly now.
But I like to remind myself that my feelings are heavily influenced by my brain—the part of my body that thinks and plans and maps out a future that doesn’t even exist yet. It’s just one part of my body, true. But it’s a powerful one when it goes rogue from all the stress.
So when I feel like I’m drowning emotionally, I’ve made an effort to put my screen away and get quiet instead. I use that time to tune in to my essential self: the “me” that sits calmly beneath the ruckus, unbothered and unafraid. The “me” that knows humanity has been subjected to plagues and pandemics before, that many people died, but also that many people lived and went on to build new and different ways of being—often better than before—from the ruins of those experiences.
The essential me understands that we humans are mere specks on this planet and in this universe, and that although we think we are in charge, we really aren’t. We have an illusion of control because we conquer and destroy and consume, but we don’t have it, really. So then I ask myself, “Why, Elizabeth, are you worrying about a lack of control when you never really had it to begin with?”
I find it’s often best to let my fearful thoughts roll onward like storm clouds, and to just make the best decisions I can every day. You know, like washing my hands and staying safe at home. It’s also helpful to stand back a little and observe whatever transpires in order to discover the lessons in what I’m living through. I don’t think it’s an accident that any of us are alive at this moment in history.
Some of you know that I used to be a yoga teacher before my health issues hit. In fact, I’m a certified yoga and meditation teacher although I don’t wave it around obnoxiously. I tell you this because I think now is an exceptional time to learn how to get quiet. It’s the best way to maintain our sanity when we’re flailing around, because we remove ourselves from an unwritten future and instead focus on the present moment. And unless we’re in the hospital or being mugged or our cat is dying, the present moment is usually okay.
I like to take my lessons from the pages of Thich Nhat Hanh’s playbook. One of them goes like this:
1.Sit quietly.
2.Breathe in and out.
3.Notice that you are breathing in and out.
That’s it.
My favorite variation of this exercise, if you want to explore it a bit more, is where you say to yourself (while breathing):
“Breathing in, I smile. Breathing out, I release all my worries and anxieties.”
I find that even a few breaths like this can be grounding and will turn down the intensity of my emotions.
I know it doesn’t feel like it, but there really are so many things we can do despite living in a time of social isolation and perceived powerlessness. We can choose how we respond to the world and to our stresses, and we can choose to do this positively (to the extent that we’re able to, anyway). We can also breathe in and out, as I mentioned. Or we can think about our dreams and start sketching out a roadmap. Or we can write. Or we can walk. Or we can find ways to help others. Or we can just rest.
There is so much possibility in the pause.
My hope is that all of us take this time to not only contemplate what we might like to do differently in our lives going forward, but to learn something about ourselves and how we can continue to evolve. I know you’re hurting in one way or another; I’m hurting too. Even the people who still have jobs and whose loved ones aren’t sick are hurting and live in fear of what’s next.
You are not alone.
So while you try to cope, make sure to breathe and pull yourself back into the present moment every once in a while—where you are okay, where you still have food, and where you still have a roof over your head. None of the catastrophes in your mind have happened yet. And anyway, you’ll figure out how to persevere through everything once “everything” finally gets here. You have infinite knowledge in the quiet place inside of yourself…that non-thinking place. It’s where the answers to the hardest questions in life lie.
And if all of this doesn’t work on a particular day? Just go to sleep and try again tomorrow. Shutting my eyes and starting over with the sunrise works miraculously for me when even breathing feels too hard. Mornings have a way of bringing new perspective and a fresh start.
———
To leave a comment or share this post, scroll down.
My first book, Halfway There: Lessons at Midlife, was released on August 18, 2020 by Warren Publishing and was re-released on February 16, 2021 by White Ocean Press. To read an excerpt, check out reviews, see the author Q&A, or find links to buy, click the Learn More button.
Being Authentically You
I was listening to a podcast the other night and it really resonated with me because I’ve struggled for decades to find meaning and my place in the world. There was a specific quote from Oprah that has stuck with me, and she said, “Whatever is holding you back in your own life, whatever is preventing you from being your authentic self, is also keeping you from your truest, greatest power.”
When I look back at the last 17 years of my life (meaning the time I entered the professional workforce after college), what I see is that graduating from college was the point at which I began rejecting my authentic self. Up until that point, I’d followed my heart and did what I wanted to do. I wasn’t worried about bills or the future or choosing a practical field; I wanted to study literature and Spanish—so I did.
After that, as real life hit, I almost always took whatever jobs were available regardless of whether or not I wanted them. I was afraid to change trajectory and afraid to examine what could be, and I was also afraid to walk away from any opportunity to earn the money I needed to pay bills. The result is that the last 17 years have been a complete and total loss of myself despite material advancement and professional success.
The podcast was looking back to 1997, when Ellen Degeneres came out and when I was 16 years old and still being me. It examined how the negative fallout of her telling the truth morphed into something beautiful and impactful, and ultimately became the best version of Ellen’s life that there could be.
I’ve found myself in the same space lately. I’m forcefully rejecting who I’ve pretended to be for so many years (a corporate professional) and instead am seeking to become who I truly am (a writer and a teacher). If you’re out of a job like me, it’s the perfect time to contemplate whether or not what you’re doing is authentically you. Are your life and/or career choices allowing you to not just grow your bank account and skills, but to grow into the greatest version of who you were meant to be?
I said to someone the other day that I’ve been chasing money for a long time. I’m not a materialistic person at all, to be clear; I’m a person who spent her childhood and most of her young adulthood hurting for money. So I live in fear of returning to a feeling of lack. I live in fear of running out of food, of losing my home, of not having even fifty cents to spend on anything extra. So my response to that fear was to use my liberal arts degree as a way to chase increasingly larger paychecks in the absence of a meaningful career path, and therefore avoid finding myself in a bad financial spot.
But what happened was that, while I avoided becoming financially poor (although I did become poor again for a while in 2010), I instead became a different kind of poor. I became poor in spirit, because I was doing jobs that sucked the life out of my soul. I became poor in health, because the stress of my work was taking a daily toll on my body. I became poor in emotional happiness, because the turmoil of doing something that was not “me” was a constant gaslighting on the inside.
I’ve spent years insisting that everything is fine, that I’m making good money, that I should be grateful instead of perpetually discontent. And I’ve also reasoned that life is pretty darn good and that I really have nothing to complain about, so I just need to soldier on because nobody really loves their job anyway.
But lying to myself is pushing the real me down into a black pit. It’s dimming the light inside of me that has always strived to do and to be extraordinary, and instead has caused me to settle for what is instead of striving for what could be.
As I sit at this juncture in my life (as an unemployed person who’s lost yet another corporate job that was antithetical to who I am), I feel like Ellen probably felt in 1997: I can no longer continue living a life that isn’t actually who I am. I have to tell the truth about me. And the truth is the complete opposite of the life I’ve been living.
“Me” is not the managing editor in charge of digital marketing programs to make a corporation money, like I most recently was. “Me” is not the technical writer or the project manager or the marketing consultant, which I’ve been too.
No, “me” is the writer who creates meaningful blog posts like this one and who also has a book coming out about how to get through life. “Me” is the 5th grade teacher that I was back in 2010-2011, who wanted to make a difference in the lives of kids but was dismayed to find it was just too hard.
“Me” is also the Student Body President I was in high school, leading other students in activities such as painting an old man’s house with Habitat for Humanity, or cleaning up garbage along a creek, or tutoring elementary school kids who needed help. “Me” is the lit major focusing on American lit and African American lit before life hit, and having in-depth conversations with professors and students about humanity and all its flaws.
So that’s me.
Now, who are you?
It pains me to admit that the only true-to-me things I’ve done in my post-college career are writing a book, starting this blog, and teaching school. Everything else was a boldfaced lie that I told to myself and to the world so that I could avoid that poverty thing I’m so afraid of. And I suspect this is probably why every single one of my corporate jobs imploded—even the ones that started out with promise. They just weren’t who I wanted or was meant to be. I only did them because of fear, every single time.
Change is hard, but when I look at Ellen and how her life completely transformed after she had the courage to just be who she was, I can’t help but think my life will be the same. All of our lives could be the same if we just had the balls to figure out how to be more truthful about ourselves. Sometimes it’s hard to stand vulnerably in front of the world, waiting to see if you will be accepted or rejected for who you are. But there is no other way to live fully except to be whoever you happen to be.
To discover our true selves, we can start by listening to our guts. I think if you have a nagging feeling that something isn’t right in your life, or if you just can’t seem to be fully content in your days, or if you think you would love to do (or be) something else, then you’re probably living some form of a lie that you know is there. The question is, how long can you continue living it before you just can’t do it anymore?
I turn 40 in November and I’m at a point where I cannot, for one more second, continue to live the lie. I cannot work in places I am morally opposed to. I cannot participate in capitalism when the real me is not a money-making machine. I cannot give so much of my creative and physical energy to jobs such that there is nothing left for myself. And I think if I just follow “me” wherever I go, as long as I really do follow my truth, things will turn out ok. I’ll make it. Life will unfold in a magnificent way.
So I look forward to stepping boldly into my next chapter with naked authenticity. I look forward to finally being myself and experiencing the magic of living a life based in truth. I also look forward to seeing who will accept me and who will reject me, and finally deciding I just don’t care about anyone’s opinions anymore.
How about you?
———
To leave a comment or share this post, scroll down.
My first book, Halfway There: Lessons at Midlife, was released on August 18, 2020 by Warren Publishing and was re-released on February 16, 2021 by White Ocean Press. To read an excerpt, check out reviews, see the author Q&A, or find links to buy, click the Learn More button.
I Know You're Angry
I woke up this morning to a friend messaging me through Instagram about her anxiety around the news and all the civil unrest. It was good timing because today is one of the rare days when my anxiety is mostly under control, so I was able to console her a bit.
As a mostly white (I’m honestly all mixed racially, though) woman who is married to a black man, and as someone who studied African American literature in college, issues of race are really important to me even though they don’t usually affect me very much. I’m not going to get all pedantic about the state of the world and try to lecture people one way or the other, and I’m also not going to go into why I think what’s happening in the streets right now is predictable. But what I will say is that whatever you believe is the correct behavior for the moment, what’s actually happening is that humans are really hurting.
When I went through my divorce many years ago, I passed through a stage where I was so angry that I couldn’t say enough F words to get it out. I was not a person who had ever cussed much, and I certainly never said that word because it felt like the worst of the worst, but an accumulation of negative experiences began to change who I was and how I behaved. I was looking for a valve to release the pressure and that word was the best one I could find.
I’d also started to go through these mini rages at home alone when I’d never been a particularly angry person before. After each storm finally passed through my system, my true emotions would start to take over and my eyes would rain buckets as I realized I was actually deeply hurt. People who are angry are hurt. Remember that. An angry person is someone you could potentially be if your life circumstances had aligned in a certain way.
Most of us can surely recall times when we’ve exploded. We usually explode with words and use them to wound those around us, but sometimes we take a step beyond words into physical action. This may mean we throw something against the wall or punch a hole in it because we recognize that hurling objects (or fists) at humans isn’t a good way to go, and thankfully most of us engage in these escalated explosions sparingly.
When I used to explode particularly badly, my favorite behavior was to use a pillow to beat the arm of the sofa or the footboard of my bed. There was also one time, again during a divorce-era mini rage, when I took a big wine glass and shattered it in the sink so as not to create a huge mess for myself after the explosion was over. At least I had the mental faculties to contain the glass to a small area rather than spewing it across my kitchen.
Even with all of the work I’ve done to be a happier person and to heal myself, I still beat the bed or sofa with a pillow on the rare occasions when lifelong hurts get the best of me. And I wonder if that’s how some people with lifelong hurts are feeling right now? And then I think, what if my own hurt/anger was amped up by centuries of abuse and pain rather than just a few years or decades? I wonder, then, what sort of explosion I might have?
I don’t condone violent behavior. I never do, because I don’t think violence is a good solution to anything and it usually brings about more violence. But I do understand it at this juncture in our history, and I encourage you to try to understand it (understand it, not condone it) instead of judging people for their explosions—especially if you’re a white person like me.
A few days ago, I cried on my husband’s shoulder and hugged his neck, spitting out words in between sobs about how I didn’t want him to be next and how I was afraid he’d get hurt. He reminded me that he’s had to watch his back his entire life, and that what we’re seeing isn’t all that much different than the things he’s had to be aware of for more than four decades while I was blissfully privileged to be born a different color.
As I’ve caught up with the news about fires around the White House and extreme unrest all across the country today, I’ve wondered again if there’s a better spot on planet Earth for me to live out my days. For now, though, I’m going to continue to stand with the oppressed in whatever way I’m able (through my writing, through petitions, through awareness) and just wait to see what transformation comes (or doesn’t come) out of this moment of chaos.
Sometimes big changes come painfully, and I do wonder if we are in the last few pages of a dramatic chapter in the human story. I also think that humans, as a species, can’t seem to get where they need to be without first creating destruction. I’m not sure why this is the case.
But if you’re reading my work, you’re probably one of the humans who is striving to be better. You’re probably a kind person with a good heart; you’re probably introspective and thoughtful; you’re probably someone who would help your neighbor as much as you can. These are the types of people I try to connect with through my writing because we can work together to become a beacon in the darkness. We can still be angry ourselves (my anger is deep and scarlet, believe me), but we can express it constructively while also understanding and holding up our fellow human beings who simply cannot restrain themselves in the same way.
I invite each of us to save our judgment of one another for a different day and instead work together to find solutions. And when we can’t do that – either because we’re emotionally exhausted or because we have no idea what to actually do to help – let’s at least stay in our own bubbles and do no additional harm to humanity while the world is swirling. As I said in my poem, Morning Trash, “We are one people. Two eyes, two feet. Two hands to hold or to steal life.”
Be well and be kind.
———
To leave a comment or share this post, scroll down.
My first book, Halfway There: Lessons at Midlife, was released on August 18, 2020 by Warren Publishing and was re-released on February 16, 2021 by White Ocean Press. To read an excerpt, check out reviews, see the author Q&A, or find links to buy, click the Learn More button.