Pish posh pash push

What's with this "Pish posh pash push" title? It's true I'm a fan of alliteration, but I promise the title of this post is about more than that poppin' p sound.

I've not done much writing lately (other than posts on Facebook and assorted message boards). The obvious scapegoats are my two children, who have been home on spring break this past week. While I am, admittedly, slow to adjust to changes in my routine, I cannot place all of the blame on vacation week. I've managed to teach/write/blog with my children home at other times.

As usual, I'm the one to blame for my own failings.

To quote Led Zeppelin, it's nobody's fault but mine.  (Hey, that song rocks. Let's digress and enjoy some of Bonzo's beats:
Nobody's Fault But Mine )



Seriously, though, earlier this week, I was on top of the world. The week stretched ahead of me, open to many possibilities. Twice, I awoke and remembered to pray before leaving bed: Help me write, God; help me stay present. At first, it seemed to work. After praying Tuesday morning I was able to blog that night (ErNoWriMo and the anchor of prayer). I was on a roll! Except. . .I wasn't, really.

Two days have passed and I haven't had any desire to work on my novel. I've been trying to convince myself that since May is Erica Novel Writing Month, I don't have to work on it during April. (Yes, I am rolling my eyes at myself.) I haven't even been willing to open my novel and stare at the screen. What gives, God? I prayed on two days. Let's get down to business. Make me willing, ready, and able!

It seems I forgot what PUSH stands for: Pray Until Something Happens. It's not PASH--Pray And Something Happens. There's no immediate cause and effect here: flip the switch and the light turns on; press the button and a buzzer sounds. Rather, the PUSH acronym is all about build up, accumulation, small actions leading to larger ones: bake until done; drive until you see the gas station; study until you learn the formulas; pray until something happens.

It is with a gentle "pish posh!" that I reprimand myself for expecting more progress without putting in more work.  How slow I am to learn matters of the spirit! Why, just on Tuesday, I wrote about prayer anchoring me in humility. Humility? Pish posh! It appears after I clicked "post" on Tuesday, I forgot all about the time and dedication it takes to develop any kind of practice (be it yoga, writing, or prayer). Let's hope this lesson--PUSH, not PASH--stays with me long after I click "post."

ErNoWriMo and the anchor of prayer

No, that's not a typo in the title of this post. You have perhaps heard of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). NaNoWriMo is an event held each November during which would-be novelists attempt the insane task of writing a draft of a novel in 30 days. (Click here to learn more about NaNoWriMo.) I've decided the next 30 days will be ErNoWriMo: Erica Novel Writing Month. There's nothing national about it--it's just me (and my cat, Mittens), here at my desk trying to make progress on my novel. 

Mittens says, "You no has plot."

I don't even need to complete a draft in 30 days; I'll save that insanity for November, thankyouverymuch. I simply want to have a chunk of my book written before I begin teaching again at the end of next month. By chunk, I mean that a hard copy, double spaced and single sided, would take both my hands to hold. Notice I say "my hands" because I have very small hands (so we're talking, what? 50? 100 pages?).

Not quite that small. . .

What does ErNoWriMo have to do with PUSH? In the past, I've needed the pressure of outside deadlines to help me focus my mind. Self-imposed deadlines don't work quite as well for me. . .when I know that no one else is waiting for my work, it's hard to sit and write. In the May 2012 issue of Yoga Journal, there's a section about author Ann Patchett and her yoga practice. Patchett describes the connection between yoga and writing like this:

It's about being able to sit in a chair all day. It's about being able to stay with one thought for hours at a time and yet have peace of mind. Yoga is a balm to antsiness. And antsiness is the foe of writing a novel. (as cited in Sexton, 2012, p. 100)

Yoga isn't praying, not exactly, but I find prayer and yoga work in similar ways. They ground me in my day. As yoga anchors my body in the moment, so does prayer anchor my mind. Prayer keeps me humble.

Don't confuse humility--the state of being humble--with humiliation. The latter is forced on us from the outside in order to degrade us; the former can only come from within us and is achieved when we're honest about our strengths and weaknesses. When I write from a place of humility, I recognize that my writing is a gift. I acknowledge not everyone carries stories and poems in their minds. I accept that I am not the best (or even one of the best) writers of my time and I do not feel ashamed by this. Uninhibited by fear (what if people do not like what I've written?!), typing my words feels nearly as effortless as breathing.

Later in the Yoga Journal piece, Pratchett shares about "coping with criticism":

Having a practice that helps you maintain a strong connection to who you actually are is essential to the creative life. Otherwise, you can lose your mind from the criticism and, for that matter, the praise, which can be equally damaging because it doesn't create a clear picture of who you are. You can't control what other people think about your art. . .Yoga and meditation can help. (as cited in Sexton, 2012, p. 100)

And prayer. Prayer is how I "maintain a strong connection" to my true, humble self.


Reference

Sexton, S. (2012, May). Express yourself. Yoga Journal, 246, 96-101.

Placebo effect?

You may wonder how I'll know if my prayers really work. What if any progress in my life is just coincidental? What if prayer doesn't really work and my progress is only a spiritual placebo effect?

I'm reminded of the stretch of postpartum depression I suffered after my oldest child was born. The first medicine I tried didn't help me. With the second medicine I saw slow improvement. I remember fretting about this with the professional treating me. What if the medicine wasn't really working and it was just the placebo effect? How would we know? The professional looked me in the eye and asked, "Does it matter?"

It only took me a moment to recall how bad things had been the month before when I could barely take care of my own needs, let alone those of an infant while working full time. Thanks to the medicine--whether true science and a balancing of my brain chemicals or mind-over-matter placebo effect--I was healing and life was once again manageable. No, it didn't matter. It didn't matter how or why I was healing. What mattered was the healing itself.

Does prayer work because God hears me and answers my prayers? Does it work because the act of praying helps calm my mind so that I can think more clearly? Does my willingness to pray coincide with a deep desire to change and is it the desire, rather than the prayers, fueling my progress?  None of the above? Some? All?

Does it matter? 

No. It doesn't matter to me. I'm beyond needing to know why, how, or if prayer works. All I need to know is that it works for some really awesome people in my life and I trust it will work for me, too. If, in the end, it's only a placebo effect, that's fine with me.

Pin spot spotlight against dark background by Leon Brooks

Of course, I don't believe it's "only" a placebo effect, but that's a post for another day. . .

Progress report

The good:

• I've written consistently this week (an article for the church newsletter, in my journal before bed, and my posts here) 
• Last night and this morning I included myself and my writing in my prayers
• Researched a bit more for my novel
• Walked once yesterday and twice today
• Today is day 5 of no refined sugar

The bad:

• Didn't write one word in my novel

The ugly:

What is this thing?!?
Free Images Collection

Sorry about that. I couldn't help myself. Here's a cute picture to take with you.

The cute:

Sleepy Kittens. All together now: Awwwwwww!

Sabotage

If you're of a certain age, I'm sure the title of this post has you singing the Beastie Boys right now while picturing a scene from their kickin' 70s-cop-show-homage video. If you've never had the pleasure, please click this link: Sabotage. (You're welcome.) 

But now to the real saboteur, my brain. I won't bore you with the details, particularly since the focus of this blog is neither food, nor exercise, nor weight loss. Let's just say that sometime between second and third grade I chunked up and my weight has been an issue ever since. In the past ten years, the only thing that has helped me stay at a healthy weight has been avoiding all refined carbohydrates. When I try to eat them in moderation (or not), whether exercising (or not), I get fat, mostly because the moderation never lasts long and I overeat them. Since the holidays, I've been eating them with abandon and not exercising. Surprise, surprise, I'm at my top weight. Again.

Sigh.

Once again I am going through the torturous process of breaking sugar's hold on me and my brain is.not.helping.   Instead of sending me supportive messages like, "You hate being this large! Please do not eat that!" it is sending me messages like, "See that leftover Easter candy? It will taste soooo good. It will send away all of the sad feelings about shootings and death and the bad news about your relative with cancer. Eeeeeaaaat it. Doooooo it."

Jellybeans by Steve Karg

Stupid brain.

I am happy to say that I did not succumb to the temptation Friday, yesterday, or (so far) today--no thanks to my brain.

People in my life with strong spiritual sides remind me to pray for help with this. They say if I keep my connection with God strong, it will be easier to eat the foods my body needs and to shun those it doesn't.  As I mentioned a few days ago, it is very easy to pray for those with real needs (the injured police officers, Chief Maloney's family, my ill family member). It's much harder to remember to ask for help for myself.

Do I think God really cares about what I eat? Well. . .not exactly. I do think God wants me to be the best person I can be and to use my talents to the best of my ability. When I'm obese and achy and tired and lack stamina, my usefulness in this world is limited. When I pray about my food issues, it's not about expecting God to send a lightening bolt from the sky--POW!--to knock the cupcake from my hand. Instead, it's about centering myself, spiritually, and viewing myself as the miracle I am (because we're all miracles, right? Even if we, as humans, are very good at messing up ourselves, we are born with potential and the fact that we're alive and interacting on this 3rd planet from the sun is pretty darn amazing).

Let's say you had a Ming vase, or a 1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa. Would you leave the vase on a table in your child's playroom where, at best it would be smeared with peanut butter and jelly and at worse knocked to the floor and shattered? Would you leave the Ferrari parked in front of your house in Northeast, USA, for the elements to assail and where any rocks kicked up by passing cars would ding and scratch the body?  Why do we place our own bodies (and the talents we posses) below objects? Why do we take better care of such things as antique vases and classic cars--expensive, yes, but surly not as priceless as our lives?

No Johnny! Don't touch th---
I'll go get the broom.

When I pray, I open myself to God's reminder that I am as worthy of care as a Ming vase or classic Ferrari. When I'm reminded of this, it's much easier to tell my sabotaging brain to shut it. I can walk away from the package of cookies, brew a cup of decaf coffee, and come here to blog. (True story.)

Sadness: update

I hoped to write a longer message today, but, alas, not having my spouse home to run interference with the children makes for frustrating writing times. I did, however, want to post an update about some of the tragedies I mentioned yesterday.

Sadly, the 9 year old died in the hospital. There hasn't been any more information about the circumstances of his shooting.

As for the Greenland event, the results from today's autopsy show that the perpetrator, Cullen Mutrie, murdered his ex girlfriend, Brittany Tibbetts and then committed suicide.

These news updates coincided with the large gun show in town today. I had a moment of musing, imagining standing near the entrance and begging people to never use their weapons in anger and to always keep them locked up safely. Driving past the arena, it seemed ironic (an Alanis Morissette way) to see so many gun enthusiasts crowding the parking lot so soon after Cullen Mutrie's rampage. 

Sometimes I pray when I do not know what else to do. Some might challenge me and ask why I need to do anything. After all, I did not know the victims personally. For whatever reason, doing nothing never feels like an option to me. Does that show a lack of acceptance about how the world works? Perhaps. I'm not good at compartmentalizing and locking away the bad, shaking off the sadness so I can move forward with my life. The bad feelings hang on when I (try to) ignore them.

So I pray.

PUSHing through sadness

A confession: I spent the last hour playing around on Facebook instead of writing this post. Bejeweled Blitz, Solitaire Blitz, Hidden Chronicles, Slingo. . .my heart is heavy and words feel too hard to pull together tonight.

It's one of those days when the world seems particularly bad. The news is full of many bad things today, and many of them happened here in my small state. The biggest news is the death (murder) of Greenland, NH Chief of Police Michael Maloney. Five police officers shot last night (with Officer Maloney receiving lethal injuries). The suspect, Cullen Mutrie, his ex-girlfriend, Brittany Tibbetts, are dead--murder/suicide? Double suicide? It was a horrific act of violence that has shaken the state.

A few hours north of Greenfield in Dalton, another shooting on the same day. Christopher Smith shot two men (one of whom survived) and them killed himself.

Then, this morning, a 9 year old child is shot in the head in Hollis, NH. Thankfully, this child is alive and will hopefully recovery fully. No word yet on how this shooting happened.

Beyond the New Hampshire borders, the news isn't much brighter: in OH, a man shoot his estranged wife and two daughters (in the middle of a Cracker Barrel restaurant). The wife and one daughter are dead. The man was killed by police when he failed to surrender. In AK, two Coast Guard members were murdered.

With the possible exception of the child in Hollis, none of these shootings (murders) were accidental. It's enough to make me want to crawl under the covers and never come out.

But.

There's always good to balance the bad. Today I enjoyed the bright sun. I had fun picking out supplies for my garden. My children (and spouse) had fun setting up our new tent in the backyard. I walked the dogs and cuddled with one of the cats. Enjoyment tinged with sadness, and even a bit of guilt. Why was I enjoying the lovely spring day while Michael Maloney's family cried and grieved? He was 8 days away from retirement. Once again, the world reminds me that nothing is certain. Life (or death) will not wait for me to write the books and stories churning in my mind. 

It would have been very easy to skip writing this post. I made myself close Facebook, but I did not leave my desk or turn off the computer. I didn't even close my eyes or clasp my hands. I did, however, say, "Please God. Help me do this" under my breath. Do I believe that God stopped doing all that God does in order to fill me with willingness? No, not quite. Honestly, I don't think that God answers individual prayers in that way (at least not on a regular basis).

I'll save my thoughts about how praying works for another post, perhaps tomorrow or the day after. Right now, it's enough that I've written this much. It's enough that I'm alive and grateful, listening to my husband read to our two children as they drift to sleep.

Rest in peace, Chief Michael Maloney.

Copyright free images 

Perfectionism

I shared on Monday how I've trained myself to push through my perfectionism and "just" write. After years of scoffing at the writing process (during my youth and young adulthood), I now embrace it and love it. For those of you who think you are not familiar with the writing process, it goes a little something like this:

1. Prewrite
2. Write
3. Rewrite

Prewriting is the brain-storming, researching phase when you're allowed to do fun things like brainstorming, freewriting and creating, flow charts, outlines, and mind maps, like this: 

The good times of mind maps. And bacon.

The writing phase is when you write your first draft. For many years, I thought anyone worth his or her salt as a writer should write a perfect first draft, with no need for full revision. During this stage in my writing life, I thought of the rewriting stage as simple editing--fixing typos, and spelling mistakes, perhaps rewriting a sentence or two for clarity.

Now I understand this final stage to include full revision--almost a starting over, at times, when I re vision my piece and see it through new eyes. Sometimes this re-seeing involves a new draft approached in a different way (a story told from the third-person point of view, instead of first, for example). Only after the piece of writing has evolved is it ready for editing.

At this point, if you're still awake, you're either saying, "I think some teacher somewhere talked about that before," or "Get to the point, Erica." The point is that blogging in general, and this blog in particular, is much different than other kinds of writing I've done in the past. In order to post every day and to push through my fear, there's not a lot of long-term revision (re visioning) going on. It's like I'm back in high school, submitting edited rough drafts. I suspect anyone following this blog (and so far I have one reader. I think I can handle one) will see it develop and gel as . I'll slowly, in the first weeks, lay out my ideas about prayer and writing while I (privately) practice praying.

I'm learning that it's going to take time to develop the habit of "selfish" prayer. I'm quite used to praying for others--Your friend lost his child? You've got my prayers. Tornadoes in Texas? Prayers. Mother's health failing? Prayers. Mother's cousin's granddaughter broke her arm? (You get the picture.) But praying for myself?  And not about something "real" like the time a migraine gave me stroke-like symptoms and scared the pants off my husband and me. . .this is just. . .stuff. Silly stuff.  I need to remind myself that this is more than "stuff." This is my attempt to live life fully and to put my God-given talents to work.

This is only my fourth post and already I'm second-guessing my order of ideas and how I've introduced my thoughts. Unfortunately, there's no way to do this blog thing perfectly. I just need to do it. My imperfect, haphazardly-ordered posts will mirror my on-again-off again prayer practice. (An admission: other than the half-joking prayer I included in yesterday's post, I've not turned to God again to ask for help with my fears.)

How about I preview this, post it, and then pray? Sure, I'll pray for the ill and the injured and hurting among us (I would have done that, anyway), but I promise to keep with this experiment of PUSH by praying for myself.

Prayer mind map: Two topics of this post joined in thought-bubble harmony

So why blog about it?

Yesterday I posted about fears and my revelation that I could pray for help with them. What does my desire to practice "PUSHing" (Praying Until Something Happens) have to do with publishing a blog? Isn't prayer a personal, quiet thing? Why would I want to share this "experiment" with the world?  There are a few reasons I'm doing this publicly:

• I see this blog akin to trapping a claustrophobic ophidiophobe in a closet full of snakes. Face your fears! Terrified to share writing you care about with the world? Go ahead and do it on a regular basis in your blog.
• For a couple of years now, I've considered blogging about spirituality and religion. I'm interested in where different (even disparate) religions, philosophies, and moral codes intersect. I've wanted to have a conversation about what it means to believe in God while living in our current society.
• I want to spread awareness about prayer and spirituality. As I said in my first post, I'm concerned that many people, in rejecting organized religion, reject their spiritual sides. Why does it have to be all-or-nothing?

The physical sensations I wrote about in yesterday's post are back today. My heart, with its heavy beats, demands attention and distracts from my ideas. I pause my typing to attempt to rub out the creepy-crawly sensation in my arms, hands, and fingers (I think this must be what Restless Leg Syndrome feels like, only in your legs and feet instead of your arms and hands). I was doing fine when I wrote the first paragraph, but somewhere during the bullet list I realized that once I publish my post anyone could happen upon it and read it. To borrow from Scooby Doo's Shaggy: "Yowsers!"

Please, God, give me the courage to click the "Publish Post button." (But don't feel you have to help anyone find this here blog, floatin' about in cyberspace. . .these words are happy to be ignored.)

Why am I doing this?

Look at the date of my first post.

Now look at the date of this post.  I've been so nervous about putting my ideas out there, for anyone to read, that it took a month for me to write and publish this second post.

'Nuff said.

Seriously, though, I've had quite a few internal demons hold me back in my life, particularly as a writer: perfectionism; lack of focus; fear of failure; fear of success. . .

I've known since elementary school that I wanted to be a writer. My graduate degree is in fiction writing and literature; my professional resume includes a technical writing stint; my volunteer work often puts my writing talents to use. I've put off my dream of being a committed writer, first so that I could work in the corporate world and earn an income (helpful for paying off grad school loans and becoming a home owner), then so I could focus on being home with my children. My youngest is in half-day kindergarten and I'm feeling more and more of a pull to write. I also have some friends and family who have dealt with life-altering events and I'm more aware than ever that each day is a gift. I cannot keep putting off my writing (or, rather, I can keep delaying, but there's no guarantee that I have unlimited years waiting).

In the past 10 years, I've learned to "just do it," to face the blank page (er, screen) and type. This helps me push through my perfectionism and lack of focus; however, I'm finding that my "just do it" approach is no match for my fears. As I commit to living a life as a full-time writer--of giving my writing the time and energy it deserves--the fears paralyze me. The paralysis begins at my diaphram. Deep breaths feel impossible and I'm aware of my heart's beating. Vibrations from my heart's beats travel over my shoulders, down my arms, and settle into my hands as they hover in starting position over the keyboard.  My fingers feel restless, nearly "creepy-crawly" and I must pull them away from the keyboard, hug them to my chest, and clasps them, allowing my entwined fingers to massage each other. It's phsycially uncomfortable to sit and feel the physical manifestation of my fear.

Over the years, I've had contact with people working different 12-step programs and one of the sayings mentioned that stayed with me was "PUSH--Pray Until Something Happens." In the past couple of months, I've found myself thinking, "What if? What if I wrote just a page or two a day? What if?" Sitting in fear, failing to push through it, the PUSH slogan came to me. Could prayer help me push through my fear-induced writer's block? What if I prayed about my fear, every day? What then?

With this blog, I hope to chronicle my progress (or not) in writing and praying. I also hope to address bigger issues, such as spirituality and how it fits (or doesn't) with a modern life in a Democratic and free-market society.