(Well, at least for the next two weeks, anyway.)
Yesterday I had kind of a break-through therapy session, and although I don’t typically share what happens on the couch, I am doing so this time because the session ended with my therapist prescribing the following assignment: For two weeks until I see her again, I must say “yes” to every first creative thought, and ignore all the neurotic after-thoughts that ritually conspire to kill the initial ones and effectively shut me down.
“Instead of psychoanalyzing the reasons behind why you have a habit of succumbing to those follow-up thoughts,” my therapist suggested, “what do you say we just try changing the habit for a couple of weeks?” Oh, my god – you can just do that?? Well, I’m about to find out.
This is the first creative thought that came to me today, and by writing it, I am dutifully following through on my assignment. Hooray.
I’ll admit, though, that it’s a steep challenge to shut out the follow-up thoughts, such as: Who the fuck cares? Just who do you think you are? Why are you writing about the challenge of writing when you could be working on some of the other more concrete (not to mention commercial) ideas you’ve had cluttering your brain for YEARS, which people would probably enjoy more? Of course, then you’d have to decide which of the other possibilities to execute first. The one most likely to sell? Or the one you’re burning to write? You should really aim low and just write this as a blog post – although, come to think of it, no one reads your blog. Why do you have a tumblr anyway? You’re 46. Grow up.
I realize it is possibly cheating on my shrink’s assignment for me to display those secondary thoughts for you here. But let’s agree to cut me some slack so I can provide you with the full picture of what I’m up against. Every. Fucking. Day. Okay? Maybe you can relate.
Yes, I do this to myself daily. On most mornings, I hike up a sort of mini-mountain behind my house in New York’s Mid-Hudson Valley. It’s a 45-minute hike, round-trip, which turns out to provide not only exactly as much aerobic activity as I need to maintain my weight, but also just enough time for me to birth what feels like a really strong idea, and then kill it good and dead before I return to the wooden gate that leads into my back yard. It happens again and again these days, almost without fail.
It wasn’t always that way. Some of my best ideas, the ones I’ve followed through on in my life, have come to me while walking by myself, whether in the quiet woods or the bustling, noisy, narrow streets of Chinatown. One time, when I was jogging through the East River Park, I felt compelled to call my answering machine from a pay phone so I could record a story idea that came up. I got home, wrote it as an essay, and soon after, placed it in an anthology. So, there was a time when I trusted my instincts. I was never gangbusters about it; ambivalence and self-doubt were always factors. But I had some amount of confidence in the ideas that percolated, and almost every time I just went with them, it paid off.
But then…I hit my 40s. People in my life started asking, “When are you going to publish your own book already?” Already. What an awful, disappointment-saturated word – one I’d already sent knocking around my brain on my own, thank you very much. Not that those people in my life deserve any blame for my writer’s block. I am not blaming them – they say those things with the best of intentions, to be encouraging. The implied message is, “When do I get to read your book? I can’t wait! I know it will be good!” No, it’s my own expectations of myself, and my fear of taking a chance unless I’m guaranteed a positive outcome, that make me hear their encouragement all wrong, and perpetuate the neurotic bullshit that keeps me in the business of repeatedly conceiving and then aborting what are probably at least decent ideas.
And so, as I ascend Joppenbergh Mountain each moring, huffing and puffing up the steep rocky incline, some new idea for an essay – or an approach to one of the books I have started and not finished – dawns on me. My pace quickens as my brain fires off it off and it begins to develop. Somewhere near the summit, though, I get ahead of myself. I imagine where I might publish this brilliant essay I just conjured. I consider a few publications, and then start wondering how I’d need to tailor the piece to fit each of them. And do I know any editors at any of those publications? Do I even know anyone who knows anyone? I haven’t been good about keeping up my relationships with editors. Why haven’t I been good about that? I should have been good about that. How am I going to even get anyone to read this? And even if they do, will they like it? I mean, it’s not that original an idea. It would need to be funny anyway, and I’m not that funny. You know, it’s harder than ever to get things published these days…
Thus begins my descent, back down the mountain, and into the dark side of this regular exercise in futility.
But not today. Today I did not let myself hike the mountain until I took the first creative thought and wrote. And so begins my two-week tour of the land of “yes.”
26 responses
How about writing from a physical as well as figurative place of yes, by taking a notebook with you and stopping at the peak to jot something down, before you get to the negative thoughts on the way back? I had to comment as the wee picture and the title combined had me thinking that was what you were planning anyway.
Well I read every word and thought it was great–real, a stark glimpse of an inner world. Riveting. Fuck the begrudgers is always a handy come-back line for the destructive voices
What she said. Precisely, exactly, overwhelmingly what she said. My daily *mountain* is the drive to and from my kid’s school, but typically with the same net result. You go, Sari. Yes.
Go Sari go!
LOVE this. I’m going to try it to. (Thank you for sharing… I can’t afford actual therapy.)
please be my best friend, sari. this is weirdly inspiring.
Boy, did this sound familiar. Good for you for trying to change the pattern. I’ll be interested to hear how your two weeks of yes go.
Sari,
I don’t pretend to know you after reading this brief essay, but my advice would be F it.
That is, F all the nonsense that has been dragging you down.
F whatever success is supposed to me.
F it all.
Go into that place of creation that you love – the music, the books, the films, the nature, the whatever.
Don’t think about the other side. If you got to 46, you must be doing something right.
Dig in where it counts.
I guess what I’m trying to write is that I’m rooting for you.
“If you got to 46, you must be doing something right.” That, and this. Yes. Thanks. You inspire other “yes”es.
This is beautiful, Sari. I can’t wait to see all the places your yeses take you. You’re so good.
I’m loving this. Yesyesyes. Thank you.
Thank you all for your kind words and support! I’m glad so many of you can relate. It’s an alternately challenging and liberating exercise, and so far it is helping. I recommend it.
Forgive me Sean – and thank you for the encouragement! – but I have to add that I am CRACKING UP from the line, “If you got to 46, you must be doing something right.” It reminds me of what we say about my 90-year-old mother-in-law making marshmallow peeps her main staple: “Well, if she got to 90 eating that way, I guess she’ll be fine…” I laugh because internally I feel like I’m about 11 and basically dress like I did in junior high. Not having kids seems to keep me on a different conveyor belt than everyone else around me, moving at some alternate pace. Thank you again – for the kind words, and for making me laugh.
This is AWESOME! Pat yourself (heavily) on the back!
Sari, I loved reading your tale of YES! I’m inspired! Here is my all-time favorite poem that also inspires yeses in me.
The True Love by David Whyte
There’s a faith in loving fiercely the one who is rightfully yours
especially if you have waited years and especially if part of you never
believed you could deserve this loved and beckoning hand held
out to you this way.
I am thinking of faith now and the testaments of loneliness
and what we feel we are worthy of in this world.
Years ago in the Hebrides I remember an old man
who would walk every morning on the gray stones
to the shore of baying seals, who would press his
hat to his chest in the blustering salt wind and say his
prayer to the turbulent Jesus hidden in the waters.
And I think of the story of the storm and the people
waking and seeing the distant, yet familiar figure,
far across the water calling to them.
And how we are all preparing for that abrupt waking
and that calling and that moment when we have to say yes!
Except it will not come so grandly, so biblically,
but more subtly, and intimately in the face
of the one you know you have to love.
So that when we finally step out of the boat
toward them we find, everything holds us,
and everything confirms our courage.
And if you wanted to drown, you could,
But you don’t, because finally, after all
this struggle and all these years,
you don’t want to anymore.
You’ve simply had enough of drowning
and you want to live, and you want to love.
And you’ll walk across any territory,
and any darkness, however fluid,
and however dangerous to take the one
hand and the one life, you know belongs in yours.
P!, that is wonderful. Thank you for sharing that here. This elicits a resounding Yes!:
“And if you wanted to drown, you could,
But you don’t, because finally, after all
this struggle and all these years,
you don’t want to anymore.
You’ve simply had enough of drowning…”
Glad I made you laugh Sari – it’s too easy to be serious all the time.
I’m not sure if I should provide any clarification, but when I wrote that if you got to 46, and as such must have been doing something right, I may have been a bit sloppy with my intent.
What I meant to say is that we spend too much time fixated on all the things that we have done wrong and spend little of our time on the things we’ve done right. You get to 46, you gotta have a few in the yes column.
Once again, I’m not trying to trivialize what you’re dealing with; I’ve met that 700 pound guerrilla, and the dude’s a douche.
I can’t wait to read more of your work; I get the sense that kicking 700 hundred pound gorilla booty is your thang.
Rock on.
Hi Sari,
So good to read this. I am going through similar stuff myself. Right now I’m at the place of pitching the book and trying to sell it. It’s so terrifying, letting it go. Calling it done.
The freedom of accepting myself as a “writer” and honoring that piece of myself, no matter what, has put a new fire under my ass.
My writer brain tells me: You’re Not A Writer! Your Book Won’t Sell! You Don’t Deserve Success!
But now, at 42, I am ready to get aggro with this Writer Brain, and am wrestling it to the mat.
Keep on writing, knowing full well that your manuscript has the perfect home waiting for it. Sending you good thoughts and a big thank-you for sharing this piece. I heard it loud and clear.
Sari, thank you too for sharing the comment about not having kids, conveyor belts, and having a timeless style. Me too. Where I live I sometimes feel like the only one. So I am waving to you from my off-the-beaten-path path, and decorating it with “yes.” In an environmentally friendly way…
ah. nice. and to think our Mt Jopp. The mountain that almost got away, that we near sighted townspeople almost didn’t dare to claim for our very own and for everyone’s was the stairmaster of love and guidance for your machinations. What is it about that “Ivan, devil in my ear”? as Spaulding Gray said. Can we all hold hands and jump together and rid ourselves of that damn hair suit, judgement, ONCE AND FOR ALL. I relish, devour and always look forward to reading your innerds, Sari. Thank you for your bravery to share those dank moldy places we all drag around hidden like holey underwear, just waiting to rip off and leave at Mt Joppenberh.
Another comment directed to me recently may have resonance:
The only way to fail is to give up.
sari i will need to re-post this on my own page…it is absolutely beautiful. say yes…choose joy and follow your heart. once upon a time, i thought i wanted to be an academic. then i thought i wanted to fit in to a corporate setting (talk about EPIC FAIL). then by accident i became an athlete. and on purpose i became a mom. and then i combined the 2 disciplines to become a pilates and fitness instructor and coach – my place of YES YES YES. believe and achieve sari…beautiful words 🙂
Well said! I can certainly relate. A lady in a writing workshop I took not so long ago told me her personal mantra for dealing with the self-defeating voice in your head, which is “Slap that bitch and give yourself an A.” I think about it all the time.
Sari: “I realize it is possibly cheating on my shrink’s assignment for me to display those secondary thoughts for you here. But let’s agree to cut me some slack so I can provide you with the full picture of what I’m up against. Every. Fucking. Day. Okay? Maybe you can relate.”
Me: Hellz yeah!
Great post! I feel like I know you. Doing the “opposite†has been a powerful arrow for many quivers since 1994. I also however am not always so brave. Keep going!
The Opposite→http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Opposite
You could be 47 and know deeply that you are a creative person, a writer, but that doubt and fear stopped you from putting yourself out there at all, even for freelance work. If you look at it that way, you are doing great. I’m jealous actually.
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