Not practicing what I preach

Jun 17, 2022 | Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom, Writing

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my desire. No. That’s not quite true. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my lack of desire — my resistance to it. Not across the board — but in particular areas of my life.

This awareness has come as a surprise to me, quite frankly.

Desire is hardly a new thought or topic in my world. I’ve learned to follow its impetus and wisdom more times than not (after many decades of just the opposite). And I’ve certainly written and talked about it a ton — redeeming Eve’s story in ways that reveal her as inspiration and model of desire — in the best and most perfect of ways. Our blueprint, our forebear, our legacy! She calls us, beckons us, invites us to desire; she reminds us that our desire is good, that we are!

All this said, you can see why this is a conundrum for me, this chasm between what I practice and what I preach!

A dear friend came to visit me. We sat in my living room and talked of many things — among which was our respective books. She told me about just recently turning her completed manuscript over to a designer who will now create the book itself in preparation for self-publishing. (It’s going to be magnificent.) I spoke of my own manuscript, my timeline, how I am (mostly) pushing past my resistance. And we bantered back and forth — sometimes lightly, other times with much more angst — over the whole world of marketing, publicity, and promotion that yet remains. And all with no guarantee of “success.”

In the midst of all this, I said, “What if I just don’t care? What if I just write the book because it deserves to be written, because I want it written, and then let it go? What if don’t worry myself with the outcomes, the numbers, the success (or not)? What if it’s really about the creation of it — not what happens once it’s finished?”

To which she replied, “I suppose that’s one option, Ronna. Or you could actually acknowledge that you do desire so much more. If you’re being completely honest, you want your book to be wildly successful. You want your work honored, your voice heard — not just by some, but by many. Maybe you could let yourself have that: all of your desire — whether it happens, or not.”

Record scratch.

That was weeks ago. I have been sitting with her words ever since.

Actually let myself want? Really acknowledge my desire? Open myself up to that kind of dreaming — even though it feels completely unrealistic and outside the realm of possibility?

If I don’t desire — at least not in amazing and vast and extravagant ways — if I tamp it down, then I spare myself that pain. Sort of. Not really.

To let myself desire — honest, raw, and unedited — means that I allow disappointment instead of trying to avoid it.

*sigh*

Every bit of my resistance (and yours), every emotion that rises to the surface for me (and for you), invites me/us that much deeper and further in — to our stories, to our soul, and yes, to our honest, raw, and unedited desire. Which, of course, is good…and amazing and vast and extravagant. Really.

When Eve bit into the apple, she gave us the world as we know the world — beautiful, flawed, dangerous, full of being… All we know of heaven we know from Eve, who gave us earth, a serviceable blueprint: Without Eve there would be no utopias, no imaginable reason to find and to create transcendence, to ascend toward the light. Eve’s legacy to us is the imperative to desire. ~ Barbara Grizutti Harrison, Out of the Garden: Women Writers on the Bible

The imperative to desire.

May it be so, yes? For you and me both!

About my recent book-proposal rejection

Nov 19, 2021 | Hope & Encouragement, Women's Wisdom, Writing

A month or so ago I got a rejection letter from the publishing company to whom I sent my book proposal. To be fair, “rejection” is too harsh. It was more of a “suggestion” letter: recommended next steps, etc. But to say I was not disappointed would be too “light” and dismissive.

In the throes of all my emotions, I remembered a year-plus ago when I was still in my corporate position. I taught a program on confrontation. As part of the in-classroom experience, participants wrote out a statement using a particular framework and then read it (in simulation) to the person they were confronting. One part of that “script” was naming their feelings about the situation, the offense, the issue at hand. For example, “When you lied to me, I felt angry (or betrayed or sad or frustrated, etc.)” As I walked around the room and listened in, I’d inevitably hear someone say, “When you ______, I felt disappointed.” That was my cue to interrupt the process for a few minutes, head back to the front of the room, and offer the following:

“I forgot to mention: ‘disappointed’ is not an emotion. It’s your (unmet) expectations; not what you’re actually feeling. When we tell someone we are disappointed in them it evokes their shame, which isn’t going to get us any closer to resolution. What do you really feel?”

And that memory? Right. Got it.

Disappointment is real, but it’s not a feeling — not like grief, joy, anger, or fear. It’s a circumstance or state-of-things. It only shows up when my expectations are not met — which feels important to name. And it is only ever present because of me: my thoughts, my hopes, my beliefs (even if misguided).

So what do I really feel? Sad. A tiny bit angry. Frustrated. And clear…there is more work to be done.

Yes, of course: I am disappointed, too. It would have been lovely to receive an enthusiastic “yes.” But underneath that, further up and further in, when I was willing to look closely, I was able to return to some things that feel more important and more true:

  • When disappointment arrives (which, of course it does and will again), we would be well served to ask how its presence might serve us. How it might remind and reinforce exactly what we care about, why we’re doing what we’re doing, that it matters? For me, the rejection, though a sting, actually compels me to be even more committed to what I’m writing, to stay the course, to remember why it matters and just how much.
  • Look closely at what is actually happening, actually being said, actually true. This took me a hot minute, believe me. I had to read through the email a couple more times before I could find the suggestion instead of the rejection; the affirmation of the overall concept, my writing, and its importance; the encouragement to finish the manuscript and circle back. Right, that.
  • Acknowledge that disappointment has to do with our own unmet expectations, no one else, nothing else. Maybe those need to be looked at more closely and recalibrated. And maybe, just maybe, that means I need to look most closely at me not “them.” I still have agency and choice, even (and maybe especially) when it feels like it’s been taken away.

Even in writing this piece, in openly admitting that I didn’t get an effusive and immediate “yes,” I can feel the disappointment resurface. Natural. Normal. And not where I want to stay…

There’s more writing to be done!

Today: 10 years of Blogging!

Nov 15, 2015 | Writing

10 years ago today, November 15, 2005, I wrote and published my very first blog post.

No one knew but me. And that was enough. Because when I started, that was all that mattered. I needed a space in which I could tell my truth. I found it.

How could I have predicted that this space and telling my truth would push me, compel me, strengthen me, challenge me, and change me as it has? How could I have guessed both have been the vehicle through which I have met some of my forever dearest friends? How could I have anticipated the way in which one small post would turn into 1065 of them (as of today)? And how could I have ever known that for all its evolution, for all my own, that one thing would remain the same? It was then and is still a space in which I tell my truth.

Gratefully, amazingly, miraculously that truth has changed so much over the years! Gratefully, amazingly, miraculously I have, as well.

10 years ago, I was 44.

10 years ago, there was no gray in my hair.

10 years ago, my daughters were 9 and 7.

10 years ago, I had just finished my Masters program.

10 years ago, I had just started a new job.

10 years ago, I was still married – about to celebrate my 13th anniversary.

10 years ago, I had no thought of being a divorcee – or a single mom – or an entrepreneur – or a writer.

10 years ago, I had no conception of subscribers or Notes From Her, or SacredReadings, or SacredConversations, or a SacredMuse App.

10 years ago, I had no idea that I would beprivileged enough to give a TEDx talk or feel so profoundly humbled every single day to work with clients (that I LOVE).

10 years ago, my very first post consisted of only four sentences and 78 words:

I’m always so impressed that people find the time to blog; to write meaningful reflections about their lives, their thoughts, their questions, their musings, their joys, their frustrations. I want to be one of those people too. I have a life, thoughts, questions, musings, joys, and frustrations – and so much more. Maybe this will be a place where I can share those with others and, in the process, begin to understand them better myself. May it be so.

All of this has been so – and then some.

I would be remiss to let this significant marker pass without extending an arms-flung-wide-open embrace to you. The days are long gone in which I write only for me (at least here).

And gratefully, amazingly, miraculously that has transformed me. You have. Thank you.

Here’s to the next 10. *clink*

May it be so.

Turning This Impossible Page

Sep 19, 2015 | Mothers and Daughters, Women's Wisdom

I bought a new journal a few weeks back. Planning ahead. Knowing my current one was nearly full. Wanting to make sure I didn’t run out of pages. But here I sit, the last sheet of lined paper filled with words, and yet unable, unwilling, to close the cover.

“It’s just a page,” I tell myself. “Turn it, then open up a new one.” Impossible.

How could I have known that I would finish my most recent journal on the very day that marks my first-born leaving home, the day before I take her to college, the day that perches precariously between all that has gone before and all that is yet to come?

The symbolism is not lost on me.

~~~~~~~

With every journal I complete, I feel a certain sense of satisfaction, of accomplishment, of “success,” somehow. It’s a physical sign of something completed. I close the cover and hold it in my lap for just a moment – palpably aware of all I’ve experienced and expressed in and on those pages. All I’ve grieved. All I’ve imagined. All I’ve hoped.

I can’t bring myself to close this one, these 18+ years, these everyday days. I can’t bring myself to open a new one to late night phone calls and weekend visits and home-for-the-holidays. I can’t bring myself to face the empty page, the now-empty half of her room, the empty space no longer filled by her everyday presence. How can I?

As my hand hovers on this last page, this tome that is Emma Joy, I am flooded with so much of the same. She has been physical sign, daily reminder, visceral presence in my life. A life that, with and because of her, is complete and rich and messy and whole. Every word, sentence, paragraph, and page so full, so true, so worthwhile. I held her in my lap for hours, the most-profound and miraculous manifestation of me-as-creator, the end to infertility’s grief. More than I ever imagined. More than I could have ever hoped.

How can this day be here? How can this journal be filled? Wasn’t it just yesterday that I opened to the first, fresh, brilliant page that was her? Wasn’t it just yesterday that she scribed herself across my heart?

~~~~~~~

As I (will, eventually, necessarily) close this journal, it is Emma Joy who opens the new one. As it should be! Blank pages upon which she has yet no idea, no notion, no preconceived idea of all the glorious prose and poetry and music and drama and grief and imagining and hope that await her powerful, poignant writing – on the lines and between them.

This is the gift of a new journal, of life itself: wide open space, freedom, and stepping into an unknown that awaits creative engagement, consistent presence, honest truth.

What more could I possibly wish or hope on her behalf?

Turn the page and write, Emma! College-ruled paper. New pens. Words and stories and experiences and expressions to create, compose, and live. Write yourself! No pseudonym. No holding back. No editing. No restraint. Because you can. Because you know how. Because you’re ready. Because you will change the rest of the world just as you have changed mine.

And remember that it will require no more effort to do so than your willingness and maybe the occasional reminder from your
mom that this is what you have always done, that this is who you are – indelibly inscribing yourself onto every heart you
touch.

~~~~~~~~~~

“It’s just a page,” I tell myself. “Turn it, then open up a new one.”

Not impossible, just not yet. Not today. Maybe tomorrow. But for now, I’ll hold it in my lap just a little bit longer. Pen in hand. Heart on sleeve.

Using a Pseudonym

Sep 12, 2015 | Women's Voice & Power, Writing

I’ve been wondering lately what I would write if I had a pseudonym, if I wrote with some super-secret name. Countless women over countless centuries have hidden their gender behind the veil of masculine pen names, an effort to be received fairly in an inequitable world.

Louisa May Alcott (A.M. Barnard)
Mary Ann Evans (George Eliot)
Charlotte Bronte (Currer Bell)
Emily Bronte (Ellis Bell)
Nora Roberts (J.D. Robb)

My query has nothing to do with gender or opportunity; more, with wanting complete freedom and total permission. Let me repeat that (for myself, if not for you):

Complete freedom and total permission.

My clear and endless desire for these things, begs two more deeper questions:

1. What is it that prevents me from telling my story and speaking my truth in full disclosure and full volume?

2. Why do I not live and move (and write) from these places already?

And those two prompt two more:

1. What if I did?

2. What if you did?

May it be so.