What Kind of Writer Do You Think You ‘Should’ Be?
On letting go of the story you thought you were going to write
Yesterday in my writing group, we spoke about the ideas we have on what we ‘should’ be writing, versus what is actually arising.
It’s an informal group, started by a friend of a friend in England. For two hours on zoom, we sit at our computers and write. Afterwards we stay and chat for fifteen minutes, or log off, it’s very noncommittal and go-with-the-flow (the flow! that elusive and ecstatic state we crave.)
Letting go. What do you want to let go of today?
Everything and nothing, I want to dissolve, I want to be in control. I want to create. Don’t I need deadlines and discipline to do so?
Yes and yes and no, it’s not only that - there’s more.
There’s something wild that comes from within and from beyond. That flow state, it is asking for you to surrender. To open.
Surrender. Open. Have you heard this before?
The truth is not original, it’s repetitive, iterative, it’s wanting to be expressed again and again through us all.
The ego hates this kind of writing, it dismisses and judges the floaty-cliched words about surrender and Being.
I thought I was going to write a book about science, serious and grounded in neuroscience and written in a way that is also transcendent.
And maybe I will. But that’s not what is true now, this is not the story I am writing. Instead I am using the language of healing and practice, meditation and embodiment. The voice in my head hears this and panics about what I ‘should’ be doing instead, the judgments are harsh and dismissive,
Letting go, letting go…
(and that’s a wrap up, it’s been twenty five minutes).
