I tell the story about one of my grandmother’s a lot. She was born in 1896, which means she’d be 127 now if she was still alive, which is kind of staggering. She died in 2001, which if my math is right, means she made it to 104, which is pretty staggering, too. My dad was her youngest child and I was his youngest child by a lot, which is why I’m not 80 right now.
Anyway, my grandmother was about 4-foot-10 and she loved art and books and music and deep thought. She wasn’t a positive person. This was not a woman who would give you a pep talk. Ever. I mean, if you think about it, she’d lived through two world wars and a depression.
She painted. She was embarrassed by her creations and would hide if her sons bragged about them.
She wrote poems. She said they were swill.
But she had this appreciation—this state of awe—for so many things.
She’d see a perfectly formed tomato and tears would come to her eyes. She’d touch her grandchild’s (or great grandchild’s) arm or cheek and marvel at the softness, the texture, the youth of their skin, the clarity of their eyes. She greatly appreciated things—small things and refined things.
A painting by me.
Because she fed a family during the Great Depression in Staten Island, she would wax poetic, in total awe, over butchering a piece of meat and bemoan the state of meat in grocery stores in the 1990s (and probably before that).
According to the Greater Good Magazine, “Awe is the feeling we get in the presence of something vast that challenges our understanding of the world, like looking up at millions of stars in the night sky or marveling at the birth of a child. When people feel awe, they may use other words to describe the experience, such as wonder, amazement, surprise, or transcendence.”
Every time I put something out (art, a news story, a blog post, a book, even something as simple as a Facebook post), I think of my grammy and how cool it would have been if she could have been okay with not being perfect and with sharing things she might want to share. I remember my little kid self looking at her paintings with awe and reading her poems and trying to understand the mystery in the enjambments and in the lines. I had fierce grandmothers, too. But Grammy Barnard? She was the one who fell in love with the world, one skin touch, one tomato, at a time.
May you feel awe today. May you be brave enough and open enough to let a tomato’s perfection bring you to tears. May you marvel in beauty of skin. May you inhale the world around you and embrace those things that make your understanding a tiny bit bigger.
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Marsie: You’re afraid of failing, of being vulnerable, of exposing yourself to the world, am I right? Or worse — What if nobody even notices you? Or worse — What if there is suddenly no catnip in the house?
Marsie with one of her humans
Me:
Marsie:
Me: How do you know so much?
Marsie: I am a cat. Therefore, I know all things. Plus, I know about fear. But I don’t care. I live my life. Look at this photo. I am on the dog bed and right there — it is the evidence that the dogs destroy things! That was a perfectly good owl toy and it is dead now. That dog has jaws of steel and could eat me in a second for daring to be on her bed. But do I care? No! I still claim the dog bed. You, human, need to claim the dog bed.
Me:
Marsie doesn’t understand that sometimes it’s hard to claim the dog bed. I wrote about this on Instagram awhile ago because I was thinking about one of my grandmothers.
She wrote so many poems and made so many paintings that she never let anyone see.
She couldn’t handle the scorn. But she couldn’t NOT create things.
She was afraid of the ocean, thought it was this massive, beautiful deadly force.
Men can be like that too sometimes, she told me. I don’t know why we are expected to be so strong. Why must we be so strong and vulnerable?
I was like ten when she asked me that so I didn’t have an answer.
A blurry image. Sorry for the blur.
This painting is inspired by one of her paintings that she left unfinished. I don’t know if she had copied the original or if it was her own, but the woman walking across a realistic earth, approaching the sea all huddled and afraid and then reaching out for the unreal sky makes me think of her. Afraid but reaching out.
I am not an artist. I have absolutely no training at all except for a high school art class, but all I want to do is paint.
I am not a great philosopher, but still I’m compelled to share what I think.
I sound like a Muppet and slur my s’s, but still I’m making podcasts and I’m in charge of a really intensive online writing class that forces me to talk on video to 12 people every month. And the whole time I think — I am so afraid to do this. People will hear my voice and laugh (not in a good way).
All these things scare me so much.
And every time I write a book, I think:
What if nobody reads it?
What if nobody likes it?
But life and creating is all about vulnerability. It’s about saying yes to experiences even though it’s so scary. Yes, just writing a blog post is scary to me because it’s vulnerable. You can do that, too.
Really. I’m not very exceptional at all, but I try to become better. Sometimes I fail. Sometimes I have to make my cat talk to have a blog post, but that’s okay. Because it’s something.
You are something, too.
So, maybe think for a second:
What is it that makes you vulnerable?
What is it that makes you scared to say ‘yes’ to things?
Because here’s the thing (cue meditative Stuart Smalley music from that ancient SNL skit): You are enough. You are good enough and real enough and authentic. Your story matters.
And if other people don’t see it? Their loss. What matters is that YOU see it.
Marsie is right about that. Not so right about the cat nip.
Seriously, this is what happens when you have too much cat nip.
injustice often came from not taking care of the earth and then not taking care of each other.
This year, I’ve been talking to a lot of people that I used to be a little afraid of.
And it’s been?
Lovely.
It’s actually been lovely.
People that I was intimidated by, I now message on Facebook.
People that I would stress about seeing because they had no problem telling me uncomfortable truths? We talk on the phone.
People that were so beautiful and confident that I would sort of gawp at and run the other way? We smile and talk now. We make eye contact during meetings when other people are being dorks.
And this? It’s kind of a beautiful thing and a lucky thing. It’s all just because I stopped being a wimp and started just going into everything I’m afraid of with the goal of being nice no matter what.
Tomorrow is the tenth year anniversary of Richie Havens’ death. This man was a talent, an enhancing talent, but also someone who spent a lot of his life making the kind of music that preached love and kindness for each other and the environment.
Next week it will be the tenth anniversary of my little hobbit dad’s death. He was no Richie Havens, but he, too, dedicated so much of his time in love and kindness for other people, for the environment, breaking into song or whistling because the music of the world meant a lot to him and was a part of him.
And both of them seemed as if they could be skeptics; they were comfortable and familiar with unease.
And I think both of them believed (at least at some point in their lives) that injustice often came from not taking care of the earth and then not taking care of each other.
Today, I decided (again) that I need to rededicate myself to humanhood – to the hope that I can find a way to see everyone as part of a great, big human system that we are all in together.
There is magic in the earth. But it has to be tended to.
There is magic in humanity. But it has to be tended to, too.
I am tired of enemies. I am tired of thinking in a way that makes other people enemies or the earth, an enemy. I want a world that doesn’t have that, yet I still think that way sometimes. Recently, someone who has some issues and has been kind of mean to me, asked me, “How can you still be nice to me? I don’t understand how you can still be nice.”
It’s the only way I want to be. And, I TOTALLY fail at it sometimes, but that doesn’t mean I am going to stop trying. I want a world of nice, or magic, or tending to, a world where we celebrate each other being brave even when the result is sort of a mess (like my sketch below).
I can’t control anyone else, but I can at least partially control myself, so I’m going to try.
I’ll call it the Nice Experiment. It’s starting now. Fingers crossed that I’ll do okay with it. Fingers double crossed that people like Havens and my dad are still here, paying homage, creating music with words and thoughts and guitar riffs and hobbit voices (my dad, not Havens) that matter.
You can buy prints of some of my art if you’re into that.
I was going to write about so many people being brave in our high school’s lockdown this week, but I’m not ready for that yet, and this came out instead.
It’s long (I write novels), but I hope you’ll give it a look anyway.
I was talking to a man at the Chamber of Commerce dinner this week and I hadn’t seen him in a while.
Okay, let’s face it. I haven’t seen anyone in a while unless you count Halloween and picking up the farm share and going to the farmer’s market.
And I told him how terrified I was about going up to get an award for being someone that the Chamber president thought did good things for the community or that they admired or something like that.
“We’ll be rooting for you, Carrie,” he said. “You’ll be great.”
“God love you for a liar,” I said.
“No! No, you will.”
Two minutes before I got the award, I went to the bathroom and realized that I put the Spanx underwear I’d bought on backward and the lacy parts were not on my front, but on my butt, making my already non-existent butt even less existent.
“No,” I half yelled.
A woman in the next stall made a shocked noise.
I was not alone. I was with someone who made shocked noises.
Here’s the thing: I could have done one of two things. I could have taken my underwear off, turned it around, and have her see in that space below the stall me trying to yank up my underwear over my big, knee-high boots that are supposed to make me feel like Wonder Woman.
There in the bathroom stall of the Atlantic Oceanside, I did not feel like Wonder Woman. My boots were highly recognizable. She’d totally figure out that it was me who yanked her underwear off and did a switch-around in the stall.
I imagined going up on the little stage and having her stand up and shout, “THIS WOMAN JUST TOOK OFF HER UNDERWEAR AND SWITCHED IT AROUND! SHE CANNOT EVEN PUT HER UNDERWEAR ON CORRECTLY! DO NOT GIVE HER AN AWARD!”
I did not have that kind of courage right then, and I yanked those stupid underwear right back up backward and flushed the toilet and opened the stall. I washed my hands, but I couldn’t even look in the mirror.
“Coward,” I whispered. Not very self-love, I know.
A tiny bit later, Nina Barfuldi St. Germain said a bunch of super lovely things about me and my news blog and I heard none of it. She said my name. I stared. A million years passed. Well, they did in my head.
Alf Anderson, the director gave me a sympathetic look and for a second, I thought he knew about my Spanx, but no. He knew about my stage fright, which happens before I speak, but especially happens in front of people I know locally. The smaller the crowd, the worse I am. Shove me in a school, put me in another state? Put me in front of 1,000 strangers. I rock it. But my own community? With backward Spanx?
I stood up. I walked over. I got on stage somehow, hugged Nina and thought, “Her shoulders are so tiny, how does she do so much, how does she hold so many things together?” And then I thought, “I bet she isn’t wearing her Spanx backward.” But I looked at Alf and Nina and the lovely man from the beginning of the meeting and Shaun, and they gave me safety.
The award was supposed to be about me, but I knew it wasn’t. The award was about community and people loving you and you loving them even when your Spanx are on wrong and everything might seem backward.
While up there, I told this story about how my daughter and I were once stuck in a flash flood in Charleston and how we hunkered under an awning, watching water spew, filling up the road, thundering down around us, and a kid looked at me and said, “ ‘Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced,’ Soren Kierkegaard.”
And I was sort of flabbergasted because here I was in a flash flood in Charleston and a pre-teen, barely teen, guy was quoting Kierkegaard at me. I wasn’t flabbergasted that he knew the old philosopher because I know teens are smart and amazing. I was flabbergasted that he gave me that quote like an offering. It was a special offering because in one of the book that I had coming out, the teen protagonist is a big Kierkegaard fan.
And my own little quote came to me, “Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living.”
I gave that to him and he smiled. He said, “You either brave it or you don’t. But I will root for you.”
And that’s what it’s all about. It’s about rooting for each other and sometimes our own selves. It’s about giving offerings like Nina of the strong but tiny shoulders did. It was about all those people in that room, working hard, being brave, supporting each other and the kids and the employees, and places like the library, and making community.
Helping others is an act of bravery because it’s an act of hope.
Caring about others is an act of bravery because it’s an act of empathy.
Rooting for others is too because sometimes they might not be wearing their underwear correctly.
I promise that I will root for you through all the forces, hidden and unhidden, and I truly hope that we can all root for each other—in good times and bad—and maybe especially bad. I will root for you. And sometimes that’s a little brave.
*These paintings are some of the first I did and they are on bookshelves because I thought only ‘real’ painters used canvas. And I’m sharing them here because for me they are about hope and becoming. And they remind me of all the people I’m rooting for.
I’m going to get an award and it’s freaking me out.
No, writing world, it’s not a National Book Award, but an award in our local community, and it’s very lovely and also very strange because it’s a recognition of me trying. Trying to do good stuff. Trying to get facts out. Trying to make the community a better place. Trying to make sure people have a voice.
It feels weird to be recognized for that when I don’t ever feel like I’m doing a good enough job.
Eleven years ago today, I was doing press via national radio news things for the book, DEAR BULLY, which I co-edited. It was an anthology of true stories by writers about the impact of bullying on their childhoods.
These radio moments on places like NPR were totally outside my comfort zone because I have a Muppet voice and slosh my s’s, and radio is all about voice. Kind of like podcasts.
And it was sort of weird because my piece in DEAR BULLY was about getting mocked about my voice and being told I would never be successful because of my voice, that nobody would take me seriously.
Which is probably a big part of why I am a writer.
Nobody can interrupt you when you write.
Nobody can hear your sloshy s-sounds.
And nobody sees it when your skirt falls down.
But awards? Awards and radio interviews or even goofy podcasts like our one tonight mean that for a tiny brief moment people can see you.
And it’s cool. I’m super lucky that I get to be a writer and I wouldn’t change it for anything, but sometimes I wonder what I’d be if I didn’t have this voice. Would I be braver about things like awards? Would I be an actress or a singer instead of a writer? A public speaker? Something else entirely?
Or if I had this same voice, but we lived in a world where difference didn’t easily mean cruelty would my anxiety be a bit less about people noticing me.
You know?
Despite what it might seem like on social media or podcasts, I’m a person who actually prefers to sit on floors rather than stand behind podiums, to applaud others and celebrate their awesome. And every time something good happens where I get attention, I kind of look over my shoulder and wait for something bad: some criticism, some complaint, or — you know — just my skirt falling down.
I’m trying to stop that looking over my shoulder and it’s not always easy, but I’m trying. It’s all part of evolving, right? So, I’m really thankful for this chance to evolve.
Choosing to see light in other people can be hard sometimes when there is mockery and politics and trolls. Choosing to promote light can be hard, too, because then people call you schmaltzy or a Pollyanna or Captain Hallmark. But trying to make your choices be full of gratitude and light? That can sometimes be the hardest thing of all. So, I’m trying to push my anxiety down and be cool about this award from our local chamber of commerce.
One of my old writing teachers created a book for other teachers (before the era of self publishing) and in it, he talked about “breathtaking rough drafts.” His favorite rough draft was like the one created below by one of his students.
And I’ve got to tell you, I think I’m still in that rough draft stage, hoping to someday be a breathtaking final product but currently in the massive throes of revision with scratch-outs and additions everywhere.
Anyways, if you are being mocked for being different, I am SO sorry. I hope you find the strength to make it through. I hope those people who are mocking you realize how poopy they are being. I hope you can find a way to realize that difference is an awesome thing. I hope that we all can move into the world of breathtaking together. ❤
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It’s BE BRAVE FRIDAY, and so many of you are being brave in really big ways every single day. Dealing with cancer. Dealing with kids. Dealing with justice issues and war or work things. Dealing and dealing and dealing.
My offering today isn’t all that much. Not in the big scheme of people’s lives. I think part of this painting was originally inspired by something, but it’s been so long now that I can’t remember.
For years it was just this girl on a blank canvas. She was made of blobs. The blobs connected to make a person. Each blob a moment, a memory, a joy, a pain. She had one hand lifted like she was ready to create something.
But there was nothing there.
Blank canvas mostly.
I took the painting into the basement and because it was so old and so raw and I couldn’t remember what inspired it, I just started filling in the blankness.
And she started to become something else. A dreamer? Definitely. But maybe also a creator? Maybe someone who didn’t care that she was made of blobs because she could recreate who she wanted to be, who she dreamed of being, and it could explode out of her fingertips.
I hope you can recreate yourself if that’s what you want, that you can put all those blobs together and become. Not necessarily become something more, but just become.
And no, I don’t think this is done yet. I think it’s still becoming. Just like me. Maybe just like you?
XO
Carrie
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I’m feeling pretty overwhelmed. My work load these past two weeks (and until Tuesday) has been huge. A lovely writer that I work with in Write Submit Support at the Writing Barn (and who only knows what I do there) said, “I don’t know how you get done all you do.”
Sometimes I’m not sure either. And weeks like these, where I will have read about 700,000 or more words and written well over 1,000 pages of feedback, working from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Plus, my own story, sandwiched in between deadlines, makes me not terribly balanced in this thing called life.
I’m lucky because I have work and work equals money to support my family, and that’s important.
I’m lucky because I really love story and helping people make their best ones.
I’m lucky because I have work. And yes, I’m already stressed about making enough money in May because that’s the way my anxiety rolls.
And Tuesday will come. And I’ll get to rest soon. And I am so lucky to be a part in other writers’ journeys as they forge ahead creating this brilliant stories out of their amazing brains.
Gosh though, right now, I’m so tired.
But Tuesday will come.
And I will jump into its arms, grateful and tired, but mostly grateful.
This is an old painting because I’m not quite brave enough to share thanks to:
1. Money anxiety
2. My tiredness
3. Not having a new painting, mostly because I haven’t had time to work on any.
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So, I went on a quote hunt and I found these bad boys.
“Neuroeconomist Paul Zak has found that hearing a story—a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end—causes our brains to release cortisol and oxytocin. These chemicals trigger the uniquely human abilities to connect, empathize, and make meaning. Story is literally in our DNA.” — Brené Brown
“We have to be continually jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way.” — Kurt Vonnegut
And I just gave up trying to be a real painter and threw paint and things around and made a giant scribble this week and those it is not terribly technically adept (especially when I think of my artist friends’ works), I kind of am okay with it because there is joy under all that chaos.
My painting this week.
Right? There can still be joy underneath all the pain and worry, the anxiety and grief. Hope. Sometimes it’s hard to hold onto, but it’s still there, damn it. It’s still there.
“Find a clear path. Being able to see how the steps you are taking will lead to desired change is critical to having hope. If you don’t logically see how what you are doing can have a positive result, then carrying out the plan will likely be difficult. Write down each step that you need to take to get where you want to be. If someone else is working with you, then push him or her to explain how the steps lead to the results you want.
“2. Look for role models who have found solutions. There are many, many people who have overcome tremendous adversity. Reading their stories and surrounding yourself with supportive messages and people can help you build hope.
“3. Do what you know you can do. When you are in despair, taking one step that is out of your routine can help break the sense of powerlessness you have. Make your bed. Cook dinner. Talk to a friend. Take a step you know you can do and that action can make a difference over time. Keep doing it, and then try to add more actions. Overcoming the inertia of helplessness can help you build hope.
4. Perform an act of kindness. Doing acts of kindness can have a dramatic effect on your mood and outlook. Kindness triggers the release of serotonin, so it has an anti-depressant effect. It also calms stress and helps reduce pain.”
For me those things sometimes help. But what also helps me sometimes is:
Getting outside. Just going outside and seeing the world makes me have hope because trees? Trees are lovely.
Getting exercise. I like endorphins. They are my friends.
Remembering the good. Thinking about victory and kindness. It’s not so much about finding role models for me, but seeing how wars have ended before, how pandemics have been dealt with before, how individuals have been brave and good and triumphant.
Creating something. It might be muffins. It might be a poem or a story. It might even just be creating a cleaner space, but tangible things? They help ground me. Even singing in the shower–if I can force myself to do it–can make a different for me, lean me towards hope.
How about you? How do you find hope?
The Places We Hide by Carrie Jones (That’s me. If you click the image, it will bring you to the Amazon page!)
The third book in Rosie and Seamus’s story of adventure, mystery, and death is here!
Sometimes the treasure is not worth the hunt . . . .
When a little boy goes missing on a large Maine island, the community is horrified especially almost-lovers Rosie Jones and Sergeant Seamus Kelley. The duo’s dealt with two gruesome serial killers during their short time together and are finally ready to focus on their romance despite their past history of murders and torment.
Things seem like they’ve gone terribly wrong. Again. Rosie wakes up in the middle of the woods. Is she sleepwalking or is something more sinister going on?
What at first seems like a fun treasure hunt soon turns into something much more terrifying . . . and they learn that things are not yet safe on their island or in their world. If they want to keep more people from going missing, Rosie and Seamus have to crack the puzzle before it’s too late.
To buy it, click here, and let me know! I might send you something!
Share this if you want and also because it would be super nice of you!
Today is Be Brave Friday, and I don’t have a ton of insight. I know! I know! Way to sell a blog post, Carrie, right?
Me and Em not being scared.
So, I thought I should look to some wordsmiths instead.
Courage is found in unlikely places.
J.R.R. Tolkien
There’s something that compels us to show our inner souls. The more courageous we are, the more we succeed in explaining what we know.
Maya Angelou
Courageous people do not fear forgiving for the sake of peace.
Nelson Mandela
I am no Tolkein, Angelou, or Mandela, but there’s a great compulsion in me to edge toward peace at all times, to expose my innermost self, and to learn and learn and seek, which is why I hope to find courage in unlikely places as I contemplate some big writing leaps this weekend.
It’s a time for new projects–projects I’m a little afraid about, honestly.
And speaking of projects, this is a giant (for me) painting that I’m working on. I’m not done with it yet, so try not to judge too harshly.
Unlikely Places
Courage is sort of an elusive beast for us sometimes. I get anxious just posting, but what helps me to move past anxiety and fear is to stop thinking about myself.
I’ve been so lucky because I get kind people giving me feedback that my random thoughts and bits of brave have helped them get brave, too. That’s mind blowing to me actually. But it helps me to keep posting and keep revealing.
Here’s the thing: If you only think about YOU, fear starts taking over.
When fear starts taking over, it’s harder to act.
I could never post a poem or painting or podcast because I’m scared about being ridiculed or exposing my vulnerability, but when I stop focusing on me and what could negatively impact me, I allow myself to make connections with others and hopefully help them, too.
One of the easiest ways to take action, to move forward, to be courageous is to think about other people, the world outside your brain. If you have a sense of purpose (even if it’s to make someone else less awkward at a board meeting), then you can eat away your fear.
Caring about others, caring about helping others helps us shift the focus away from ourselves, but it also helps us push down our fear to a back corner in where it belongs.
POSTS AND PODCASTS THIS WEEK
And just to catch up, here are the posts from this week!
Over on Medium and my social media, I post motivating daily thoughts from my animals. On Medium (and only on Medium), I post poems that I’ve written (usually) every weekday. You should check it out! And clap or something so I can make $1 over there this month. 🙂
How About You?
There you go! And how are you doing? Are you hanging in? Being brave? Thinking thoughts? Sharing new things?
NEW BOOK OUT
It’s called THE PEOPLE WHO LEAVE and it’s the latest installment of the Dude series. Shaun (the husband) and I are currently arguing about whether it’s the last installment. I say yes. He says no. Feel free to weigh in if you’ve been reading it.
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A lot of people ask me how I get so much done. And a lot of other people think that I don’t do anything during the day at all, which is pretty funny, honestly. Those people are mostly my surviving relatives.
When I was in seventh grade, I didn’t want to shovel and one of my siblings said I was lazy. They said the same thing when I quit my job at fourteen when I was mugged. It had an impact. But more on them than on me. And that’s one of the reasons why I firmly believe we can never let other people define us. Only we get to define us.
But despite that sibling’s belief about me, I pretty much work from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day at a minimum. Sometimes I don’t stop until 10 p.m. That’s when I teach at the Writing Barn on Tuesdays.
To be fair, I do the Pomodoro method, which helps me survive.
My average week involves:
reading and editing 1,000 pages of other people’s writing,
writing about 100-200 pages of feedback for writers,
co-hosting, editing, writing two podcasts, even though my voice is the biggest thing I am uptight about thanks to bullying,
writing about 5,000-10,000 words of my own stories,
sharing chapters as I write them (on one story in progress) on my Patreon,
sharing weekday quotes from my dogs and cats on social media,
deleting a lot of junk mail. 🙂
It can be a lot and I tend to get burned out every November/December. The holidays don’t help because I suffer that ‘mom holiday syndrome’ where I have 8,000 traditions and food and worries. And then I revive and get psyched to do more.
But here’s the truth: I kind of love it.
I don’t like being inactive. I don’t like stopping. And I use my free time (when I have some) to be with the people and animals I love.
It’s all pretty cool. And I’m lucky.
Now it’s time to be brave, get naked, and be real.
I’m so driven because I live a life where I’m currently the primary wage earner, and I am terrified of not being able to support my family, of losing my house, of not being able to feed and clothe everyone.
As the much youngest child (fourteen years), after my stepfather died, my mom raised me alone for most of my life and I remember what it was like to tell bill collectors she wasn’t home, to eat commodity cheese, to feel guilty to need things, to listen to her cry about money, to sell the house my dad built so we could live in one that was cheaper and had less property taxes. She ended up having to sell that one too.
That fear has driven me for a long time. And there was a short time in my adult life when I slept in the car in the winter in coastal Maine because I was too afraid of sleeping with my husband.
Hot tip: Big, furry dogs are good at keeping you warm.
But getting everything done is only partly about my fear. It’s also about habits.
“The life you want is built on habits. There’s no way around it. What you do consistently will determine who you become in 5 years. What I’ve realized is the hard part isn’t habits. No.
“The hard part is habit maintenance.
“When tragedy or bullsh*t strikes the temptation to give up your best habits for a day, week, month, or year is tempting.
“The days you don’t want to do your habits are the days you must. The trick isn’t to become a navy seal and develop a mind like a fortress. All you have to do is show up for 15 minutes and reinforce the habit on a bad day.
“Habits maintain the belief of who you seek to become.“
That’s how you become unstoppable. You strip yourself naked, show your fear, face it slowly or in big lumps, do the things you want to do so you can become who you want to be, and keep going and going and going.
But it’s not the only fear that drives me to have those habits and to try so desperately to evolve.
I’m also a little afraid of stopping.
I’m also a little afraid of having people realize how much I actually love writing my own stories, how invested in them I am, how I worry that they will vanish into obscurity, how I worry someday that I won’t get to share those worlds I make up at all.
Fear can lead to paralysis.
I’ve seen that before with my sweet mom, with a lot of friends that I love, and writers that I meet, and I know that I can’t let that fear stop me though, just like I hope you won’t let your fears stop you.
To get what you want, you have to journey into places that you haven’t been before and that can be scary sometimes.
To get what you want, you have to create the habits and do the work and that can be tiring sometimes (and scary too).
To get what you want, you have to be willing to face the discomfort, the fear, the yearning and that can be absolutely terrifying sometimes.
Is it worth it? Hell yeah. I think it is.
Ferris writes in that same article:
Success is the willingness to feel vulnerable
Many things in life make you feel vulnerable and like you want to curl up into a ball:
Saying no
Presenting a new idea
The prospect of marriage
Having kids
Accepting failure
Starting a new project
Getting a new job
Challenging leaders
Telling it how it is on social media
If you can’t lean into these vulnerable situations, you live life at a massively lower level. You avoid discomfort. Eventually you no longer feel like yourself anymore. It doesn’t make sense.
We all have to lean in and lean in hard if we want to grow. We have to face the discomfort and anxiety that greets us and embrace that Nike slogan and just do it.
Next year, I hope to continue doing and expanding and doing things I’m afraid of:
Start another podcast.
Feature more author interviews though they make me nervous.
Have a writing retreat here in Maine if COVID chills out. Let me know if you’re interested.
Write more poems even though they make me feel naked and exposed.
Write more books including a book of my animals’ inspirations.
Write some really different stuff under a pen name.
Keep on fighting my fears.
Maybe start a local news blog.
So, thank you for helping me to keep on keeping on being a writer, a podcaster, an editor, a writing coach. Thank you for helping me keep bill collectors away and feeding my family. I appreciate it and you so much.
What habits do you have? What habits do you want?
What fear is holding you back?
My little, creepy book baby is out in the world because who doesn’t want sad, quirky, horror with some romantic bits for the holiday season?
