The 5 Phases of Writing (and Life)

1) Getting the Delighted Idea.
Ooh la la!  Wouldn’t it be great to write about this! You can’t really start writing until you have an idea (or an assignment).  In life, this is the phase where you allow yourself to be led by your joy.  Where does my joy wish to go today?  This is usually an automatic answer, something that rises up inside of you.  (Or is handed to you.)

2) Developing with Love and Care.
This is the time to get clear on what it is you really want to say about this anyway.  I have written about the exercise   Where you talk to yourself on paper about what you want to write, without worrying about “writing” it. I like to do this by hand, so it’s closer to my heart, more flexible.  For instance, you might say, “I want to write about the phases of writing.  I want to show that it can be the same as phases of life.”  Writing easily about it and inserting notes like, “What about making it a numbered post?”  In life you might see this phase as figuring out just what you want.  Getting clear on it.

3) Type it Up.
At least in this day and age, it’s important to get it onto the computer.  This is tending well to it.  Rather than leaving it on a piece of paper which can get lost or stuck with other papers, this is a way of preserving it, making it real.  Even if you begin with a typed first draft, this is where you can play with it – now that it’s on the computer.  As you type it up or read it over, you can flow a little more with it, come up with new ideas, settle on a direction, rearrange your thoughts.  When we tend well to ourselves, we prepare ourselves well for the journey ahead.  We take care of ourselves and get what we need.  We give ourselves and the piece our attention.

4) Refining and Revising.
This is the heart and soul, the work of writing.  This is where it all happens.  Making it “money.”  In life, we are taking the steps toward what we want. Sending out the ships, as Chellie Campbell says.  There are those who teach that writing is really rewriting.  I see it as taking the raw materials and mixing them together into what you wish to create. Working the dough until you get it just right.

5) Letting it Go.
This can be tricky.  But there must come a time where you need to say it is finished.  I like to review it one more time to make sure it rings true and then let it go.  In life, we have to trust and surrender to the path in front of us.  Let go of things we no longer need and let our light shine for others to see.

Thanks for listening.

Belief and Trust

I am grateful for this powerful combination for doing everything with fun and ease.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could see everything as enjoyable?  Perhaps the only thing that keeps us all from living that way is Belief and Trust.

It’s fun to believe!  To make believe, believe in magic, in fairy tales, that all will be well, in God . . .  When life is treated in this light-hearted spirit, we can set our hearts to believe that all is well, that we can handle whatever comes up.  How delightful to step into belief!

Trust is the easy part.  Resting into trusting that all is well. Just relaxing and letting go of any disbelief, unclenching. I think it is a more natural state for us. So we can just sit back and allow ourselves to trust.

This is not a lolly-gagging bit of easy going.  Like in Tai Chi, the easier, lighter hand is the stronger hand. In that state the body is far more aware and prepared to strike.

These are really practice mechanisms.  When you’ve played with these two for a while, you will find yourself transforming into Knowing.  Add some gratitude along the way and you can arrive quickly at that place where you no longer need to trust. It always has been, always will be.  In that comfortable space, you know you can handle whatever happens.

I’m using this method to help me hold a stronger vision of people.  See them as whole, well, and abundant, rather than needy.  Believing that they will be fine. Trusting their lives will be whole again.

Finding Completion

“There are two ways to complete a task: 1. Do more.  2. Let go.” – Alan Cohen

This makes a lot of sense.  It may be that you have to get busy, get off your duff and do more to forge toward completion.  Sometimes you can’t see that the end is just around the next bend.  There may well be times when you’ve just not done what was needed. Perseverance is key to completing anything you undertake.

But there are other times when you’ve done all you can do and it’s just not coming to an end.  It’s important to know when it’s time to give up.  At this point, if you want completion, in order to keep the books clear, you must let go.  It may be time to decide that you’re not going to finish it.  Have done with it, move it aside and get to the next thing.

However, letting go does not always mean giving up.  It may mean letting go of your heavy hand in the mix. Letting go of the need to complete the task.  Or letting go of your need to be the one to finish it.  Sometimes you  have to trust and allow the Universe (or someone else) to see it through. The world may be asking you to release and let the flow of life take it from there.

5 Steps to Miracle Making

I wanted to go to a concert a good distance from my home.  I could take the train to get there, but wasn’t keen on doing that at 11 or 12 at night. So, I needed a ride home.  A week before the show, a friend told me she’d be happy to give me a ride.  But the night before the show it was looking like it wasn’t going to happen.  Still, there was hope.  By the next morning, the ride had fallen through.  What was I going to do?  It would be hard to find another ride this late in the game.

At the very last minute, the perfect ride (there and back) materialized.  The weather, which was supposed to be cool and rainy, turned out sunny and 70. I even got to eat at one of my favorite restaurants!

It all came together, I believe through this process:

1)  Decide what you really want.  In other words, set an intention.  I could’ve stayed home, but I decided I really wanted to go this concert. If I had been too ambiguous about this, it might not have worked so well.  Sometimes I may say I want to do something, but I’m not fully clear on it.

2)  State the reasons why.  As I went over this, I saw what the important features were –eating at the restaurant, hearing the performance, seeing some friends and contacts.  It fueled me and solidified my desire.

3)  Imagine yourself having it, being with it.  Being able to see myself there, smiling at good friends, eating good food, enjoying the concert, made it more real for me.  If I could see it, maybe it could happen.  As in all attraction, it helps very much if you can generate a good, strong feeling around it.

4)  Expect a Miracle.  This means acting as if it will happen.  Through the morning of the concert, I did as planned just in case.  I set my sites on that miracle and was determined to be ready if the opportunity arose.

5)  Let it go.  This may be the hardest step.  After all that build up, you need to allow yourself to be okay if it doesn’t happen.  Make a plan B and be comfortable with it.  Find the benefits in doing the alternative.  I resigned myself to the fact that I might well be staying home and looked to see what I was going to do instead.  I thought about how it might be a better thing if I stayed home.  I could get some things done, rest, make phone calls . . .  The more you can let go of needing plan A to happen, the more you open to the possibility.

Can you imagine all the things you could do, how magical your life would seem if you did this all the time?  I’m going to try it next on healing a relationship which could surely use a miracle.

I believe in miracles!

Aligning with Life

“You don’t have to make anything happen.  Just align yourself with what wants to happen and let it.” – Alan Cohen

Alan Cohen always gets me thinking with his simple prescriptions of ease.  I like this one especially. It seems to capture so much.

I am intrigued by this notion of “aligning’” myself with what wants to happen.  How do you do that?  I had a thought that it’s kind of like putting yourself in glory’s way.  Why put yourself in harm’s way when you can step into a spot where good things can get you?

There’s also the job searching/networking theory of putting yourself out there.  I guess that’s good for a lot of things.  If you want something good to happen to you, it’s a little foolish to hide out at home, talking to no one.  It simply can’t find you.

Maybe it’s about flowing with life.  Letting go of the resistance and allowing it to happen, to come into your life.  Alan asks us to let it happen in the second part, but maybe it’s in the moving piece too, the lining up.  Makes sense that there’s a certain amount of letting go involved in getting in line.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this Resistance thing. Eckhart Tolle says it’s the ego trying to protect itself. Resistance causes blockage and dis-ease. (Doesn’t sound like a clear flow to me.)  I’ve always been taught to fight through resistance.  But I’m getting the message lately that it’s better to accept it. The tides of my life are trying to flow in a different way than how I’m going. That is Resistance.  If I let myself move where life wants to take me, perhaps I will align myself with what wants to happen.

I just love the ease in this.  It’s about surrender which – though I can’t say I practice as well as I’d like –  I do believe in.  It’s that softer touch, going with the flow.  Acceptance of what is going on is the only sane way to live. Anything else is useless, and perhaps bordering on madness. We haven’t yet figured out how to bend space.  You can exert effort, but you are not often enough to change the course of things.  You can only affect its path a little.

Perhaps it’s a daily practice.  Aligning day in and day out.  Trusting, sort of sitting back and watching life happen.  After all, we’re all conscious and aware.  We’ve set intentions. We can trust in that.  Making choices in the now, accepting and aligning with what is happening in front of us.

Letting Go in the Now

I was planning to write about the sanity of being in the now.  But, my computer came down with a virus and must be shipped off with all my precious documents to, if all goes well, be restored to me.  But there are no guarantees.  All my hard work, important documents tucked away in folders, special things I’ve saved. .  . who knows if I’ll ever see them again?  All I can do is wait and practice letting go.

I see, though, that this is very much a now issue. I need to focus on what’s right here, right now.  And all is well.  I have email, a place to write, Pandora is singing to me and I don’t, at the moment, have need for anything else.

If I’m not caught up in the memory of all that I can’t get to right now, or anticipating what I will need, eventually, I can maintain a sense of equilibrium. Later, if I find a need for something, I’ll either have it or I won’t.

There really is no middle ground here, no waffling whether I will or I won’t let go.  This is the reality of the now moment:  My blood is pumping, I’m breathing, life goes on.

Letting go not only comes in handy with events like this, it’s also quite good in defeating the aftermath in the need to be right.  I play games in my head: I am convinced I’m right that this sucks, my life, as I knew it, is over without these files, I have to start over again on everything, this kind of thing always happens to me, I deserve something like a cookie to soothe my frayed nerves.  But I can let go of all that.  It isn’t necessarily right anyway.  I certainly am in no position to predict what the future will bring.  So I can let go of being right about this situation, right now.

There really isn’t anything but now. When and if I reach that point of having lost all my files, it will be in the now, then. But this now includes none of that forever stuff. If, in the future, I don’t get my files back, I can make a decision in that now moment to let go, because there really won’t be any other choice.

To think there is anything but now is futile. As futile as wishing my files back if they’re gone.  It’s true I could fuss about it, cry a lot, get angry, but none of that would do me any good. It would be a fact of my life, just like the present moment is a fact.  The moment you start to say it’s otherwise, you’re into the next now moment.  There is no one I know who has mastered the art of being anywhere but now.

Right now, I will let go of worry about my files and rest into the present. Let go of being right about this whole mess and just be in what is happening in my life at this moment of now.

Getting Specific

Cheryl Richardson speaks about creating an Ideal Profile.  I have heard this notion before.  To outline what you want in a perfect world, if things were just exactly the way you want them. I blanch at the idea of this, frankly.  Because I so often make too specific demands.  I go overboard and get it down to the color of the shutters on the windows. And so often, I’m disappointed.

I realize, though, the validity of this process.  It’s a really good place to start.  If you don’t know what you want, you’re going to have a very hard time finding it.  I like to say, too, that if you don’t know where you’re going, what you’re aiming for, it’s highly unlikely that you will arrive – or realize it when you’re there. And as Cheryl Richardson points out in her examples – you might throw out the baby with the bath water  – giving up something good for the wrong reasons.  Treating something that isn’t really the problem. 

Cheryl tells us of a woman thinking about selling her successful business because she has grown tired of the work and uninspired.  When Cheryl suggested she try the Ideal Profile exercise, the woman came up with a description of her ideal client. Then, Cheryl asked her to “give up good for great.”  That meant, not settling for less than the ideal, not taking on a client that was “almost” there.  In the process she turned her business into one that truly excited her.  The trick is to have the faith to pass on something that is close enough. Instead to hold out for everything you want.  Wow!  That feels hard to do.  What if I end up with nothing?  But that’s the risk and I think it pays off.

Caroline Myss describes money as something which faith attracts. I know this about the law of attraction that if you don’t think you deserve something, you probably won’t get it. This holding out process says, yes, I can have this.  I believe our President won, against all odds, with something similar.

I have done this before and watched the Universe produce.  I wanted a new bag.  My coach had me outline just exactly what I wanted to carry and then let it go.  That’s an important step.  Otherwise you keep looking for those shutters and miss the perfect house just because it has slightly different shutters. I ended up finding the perfect bag in my closet.  That worked because I had a clear picture of what I was looking for and didn’t feel I had to settle for anything less.

Let’s take a moment with this concept of letting go.  I could, perhaps, write 3 or 4 posts on this topic.  It can be key in attracting things into your life.  Neediness doesn’t create a wide open path to you.  If you need it too much, you actually shut down the flow. That certainly speaks to your deserv-ability.  Neediness turns your faith way down.  So the letting go, the surrendering to whatever happens, the trust factor, is crucial in attracting and finding what you really want.

When you are light about it, you have a sense of knowing that it will arrive. You know you deserve it, so you’re not worried about.  From this place, you’re more able to give up the good and wait for the great to show up.

The process has to begin with your intention – your Ideal profile, your specific request if you will. You can use this Ideal Profile in many places.  Certainly for a new job, but also for a pen, or even what you want to eat. Feel good about it, imagine yourself having it, generate some good feelings around it, knowing you deserve to have it and then let go.  Then, all you have to do is rejoice when what you’ve asked for arrives.