January, 2020: What I’m Learning
This month I’ve been learning a hard lesson, which encapsulates my last year: I do not need to earn my worth.
I’ll get to how, but first, some backstory.
As an Enneagram 1, I identify as an idealist and perfectionist, which means my Basic Fear is being bad, corrupted, or devoid of integrity. This being the case, my worst enemy is my Inner Critic, which my former therapist (an apparent LOTR fan) called the Eye of Sauron—the haunting, never-resting search for the ideal.
Why am I this way? Well, my full name is Teresa, which means ‘Industrious One’, so if you believe in nominative determinism, there’s that. But I think part of it has to do with my conservative protestant education, which often leaves me wondering if I’m good enough, working hard enough, and hence, worth enough. Here’s the clearest (and most frightening) illustration I can offer:
In my early twenties, I worked 60+ hours a week, volunteered, went to church and was by all accounts a contributing member of society, but I felt useless. I regularly begged God to show me my Purpose with a capital P. When pondering my blessings, instead of feeling grateful, I thought, “With all I’ve been given, may I be damned if I can’t do something great.” And I actually believed it.
That shit was bleak.
Ten years later, I no longer hold the absurd belief that I belong in hell based on my productivity. (I no longer believe in hell, either, but that’s a different topic for a different time.) Yet, over the last year, and especially in January, I’ve been challenged to excavate my deep-down feeling of worthlessness more than ever.
If you’re someone like me—someone who feels worthy only when you make a self-deemed ‘meaningful contribution’ to the world—you know what you could do to drive yourself absolutely insane? Write a book.
Yes, in 2019, I completed a manuscript. It exists! An actual novel! I have friends and critique partners reading it now! All facts deserving of the exclamation point. But for me, it’s hard to feel any joy or accomplishment unless it makes its way into the world and improves it in some small way. As such, writing a book is a GD masterclass in patience.
Taking all the subjectivity of the publishing industry aside (which could mean my book will never see the light of day), an inability to share a year’s worth of work takes an emotional toll. So, I’ve had to learn how to go to bed with myself every night knowing that, regardless of the outcome of my efforts, I deserve to see another tomorrow simply because human life in all its mystery and absurdity is precious. And that includes, somehow, me.
Then January came. And it’s weirdly felt like a Mario/Bowser scenario for my inner journey.
While my book is being critiqued, I’ve been forced to take a break from editing it. I’ve been able to research a new project and work on things like creating a newsletter (*waves*), but in January I’ve also become acquainted with the many creative ways an upper respiratory infection can wreak havoc in the body (hello, pink eye).
Between the recess from editing my book and the need to sleep so much, silencing my industrialist, pain-in-the-ass ego has never been harder. (Ask my husband, who just this last weekend held me as I cried after having another coughing fit into my soup.) But the universe is kind, and has given me some new ways to achieve a deeper level of personal acceptance.
If you suffer from similar anxieties, here are three ah-ha moments that helped me.
It’s good to compost. After confiding my anxiety to my critique group (as I often do) I was relayed a bit of wisdom, courtesy of Anne Lamott, that writers need to ‘compost’ from time to time. After a lot of output, it’s necessary to take time and let things meld so something new can grow. Here’s a quote from Lamott that I found after our meeting:
“We’re taught to improve uncomfortable situations, to change things, alleviate unpleasant feelings. But if you accept the reality that you’ve been given—that you are not in a productive creative period—you free yourself to begin filling up again.”
PS: If you’re a writer, get yourself an encouraging critique group like mine.
PSS: If you’re not a writer, you can still compost your leftover veggies. #climatechange
‘Make Progress Visible.’ I’m lifting this one from my wonderful teacher, author Nina LaCour. She’s been preaching this message all month and I’ve never needed it more. There’s so much more to writing than growing your word count. Nina gave us a template to track the progress of writing a book in all its forms. Even though for me it’s almost exclusively been researching, it’s given me a way to note progress and check boxes, visually showing that despite it all, I am in fact inching toward something meaningful.
PS: Nina has opened enrollment for her next Slow Novel Lab and I just can’t fangirl enough. If you’re a writer and you have the means, Just Do It ✔
When in doubt, science. One of the books I read this month is called The River of Consciousness by the late neurologist Oliver Sacks. Sacks talks about how the body has a homeostasis, or balance, between two parts of our nervous system. The Sympathetic part increases the heart’s output, sharpens the senses, and generally speaking, improves the body. The Parasympathetic part does the ‘housekeeping’, like slowing the heart, promoting relaxation and sleep. And the housekeeping is just as crucial as the improvements. When I read that, I realized that my creative process needs to be a little more like the human body and less like a college kid cramming for a midterm.
My Battle for Inherent Self Worth™℠®© will no doubt be life-long, as it is for many, if not all of us. (If you’re like, “I’m good!”, tell me your secrets?) But as this month comes to a close, I’m feeling more at peace with who I am and the progress of my writing journey, whatever that may or may not be.
I leave you with one other note from Oliver Sacks. In the book, he talks about the state of euphoria and transformation that some feel once they’ve recovered from an illness and re-achieved their balance. (This was especially interesting since, you know, the-coughing-and-crying-into-soup thing.) He shared this passage from Nietzsche, which I’d love to share with you now:
“Gratitude pours forth continually, as if the unexpected had just happened--the gratitude of a convalescent… The rejoicing of strength that is returning, of a reawakened faith in a tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, of a sudden sense and anticipation of a future, of impending adventures, of seas that are open again.”
- Tess Canfield, January 2020 via The Latest