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18 may 2022 I spent the weekend at Kripalu in the company of some pretty extraordinary individuals writing and reckoning with "the stories we have to tell" under the guidance of the remarkable Cheryl Strayed. It was an early birthday present to myself. The energy in the room could be summed up with this one T-shirt: brave and afraid. What does it mean to show up before you feel ready? I am reminded of this every time I take a writing workshop or go on a retreat. Every time I am faced with a blank page, a prompt and (my personal nemesis) a fixed increment of time in which to write. Seven years ago I had another version of this experience, also at Kripalu, and in the very same room with the man who used to be my husband. Getting the Love You Want: A Couples Workshop While not exactly a writing retreat, Mike and I were still prompted to write a better story of what it means to be in a relationship. I'm happy to say we did get the love we both wanted and deserved, it just wasn't with one another. What does it mean to write your future and come face to face with a ghost? Only that memory is complicated, both bitter and sweet. So is writing. So is life. Still, to only perseverate on our painful pasts (as I can be prone to do) is another form of sabotage. It’s no different than believing I can produce something polished and “perfect” before I've yet begun to write. Because every time I believe to know my ending, I have always been surprised. And it's usually far better than what I scripted in my mind. Trusting the process can be hard but this weekend became my opportunity: To take deep breaths, to believe today’s blank page is all the more rich, indeed it only exists because my life is an accumulation of the many ways I’ve shown up before. Every room I sat in, every lesson learned. And then to say “thank you.” In believing this I know my words will come, because they always do, and whatever spills forth will be just as it is meant to be.
But the only way I have a chance (the only way any of us do) is to become willing to begin. To put one word down, and then another.
And if I don’t? The story I have to tell, the story that wants to be heard, the story that's already there, will remain forever locked inside. I'm not sure it was a weekend of my "best" writing and I'm equally sure it was because I was writing. Because I was willing to show up and practice. Because I could respect my resistance and welcome my possibility. Because sometimes we have to start before we are ready. And if I’m not willing to admit the ways I struggle to take my own leap of faith, how can I ask others to do the same? What kind of teacher would I be? What does it mean to you to show up before you are ready? here is my birthday wish: may this be the year I choose to live brave and afraid and fabulous! may this will be the year we all do xosew … . ..
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