7. Stuck - Gut vs. Logic
I am part of a group that meets weekly to discuss as we read and work through Julia Cameron’s book, “The Artist’s Way.” We are halfway through the 12-week program. During week 4, Julia suggests we partake in a week of “Reading Deprivation.” This means we are not allowed to consume content for one week. I was immediately enraged upon learning about this suggestion. I am an avid consumer of all things - podcasts, books, audiobooks, newsletters, television…You name it, I consume it! I felt personally victimized by this unbearable exercise. The idea is solid. If you stop constantly filling your brain with other people’s ideas, you will start to form your own. But I just became resentful.
Cameron says, “sooner or later, if you are not reading, you will run out of work and be forced to play.” This was not my experience. I felt that if I wasn’t consuming, I should be producing. Every time I wanted to numb out on a podcast, I felt like I should be writing. This made me feel lazy because I didn’t want to be writing!
It was painfully clear how unwilling I am to sit with my own thoughts. “For most blocked creatives, reading is an addiction. We gobble the words of others rather than digest our own thoughts and feelings, rather than cook up something of our own.” OOF.
In my novel and memoir writing class last night, our instructor kept saying “Show, don’t tell.” BUT HOW?
“Show, don't tell is a technique used in various kinds of texts to allow the reader to experience the story through actions, words, subtext, thoughts, senses, and feelings rather than through the author's exposition, summarization, and description”
I am a good storyteller but I am NOT a good scene builder. I realized this in week 3 when we worked on setting. This is when I stopped sharing because everyone was better at making up bogus stories based on pictures she gave us. I don’t want to make up stories based on pictures of sheep in the Scottish Highlands. I want help getting my creative juices flowing with my memoir. I guess the way I write is simplistic? Last week, she asked us what kind of characters we are drawn to and I said “acerbic, (especially of a comment or style of speaking) sharp and forthright.” But I have never said that word out loud. How do you pronounce it? Ass-ser-bic? Aye-ser-bic? Clearly, I am too stupid to use that word. But I have never been an “over writer.” I like to imagine that I write like Weike Wang (author of “Chemistry” and “Joan Is Okay”).
WW: “The style that speaks to me is generally a little bit sparser. Lean. I don’t like a lot of fat — as you can probably tell from this novel — in my prose, so I really cut away at everything until I get the organization that I want.”
But that is probably wishful thinking. This rant post feels rife with fat.
Another writing prompt was of an empty bench. We are asked to decide who is sitting on it, move the story forward through conversation.
Move the story forward…How can I move my life forward when I feel so unbelievably stuck? The background of my phone is another quote from “The Artist’s Way.” “Examine your payoffs in remaining stuck.” I know it’s all fear, it’s all ego. But how do I let it all go?
How do you balance intuition and logic? My husband and I are classic left brains (I always want to say the rigid, logical brain is the right brain but it’s the left brain). We both work in Excel spreadsheets and thrive off making lists. When we were deciding where to live, we obviously made a spreadsheet with pros and cons. As I said in my first newsletter, “I have trouble listening to my gut, which means I have trouble trusting myself.”
Last week, I asked my acupuncturist if she always knew she wanted to be a healer. She said no and gifted me “Autobiography of a Yogi” and said this book contained all of the answers. I am only 3 chapters in but so far…NO ANSWERS LADY. So yesterday, I asked her again but followed up with “If you didn’t always know you wanted to be a healer, how did you become one?” She said at the time she had narrowed it down to three paths: therapist, acupuncturist, and one other job that she can’t even remember now. She wrote out the cost of each program and the length of time that each would take. Apparently, her friends could tell which one she was most passionate about just based on the way she spoke.
She said all the things I already know. “Keep praying for guidance. Do the footwork day to day.” Next, she said she had to throw her list away and listen for a sign from her institution. This is where I get suspicious. She said there is already a plan for everyone. You just have to set your ego aside and listen. This sounds very airy-fairy (term stolen from Julia Cameron).
“If this still sounds airy fairy to you, ask yourself bluntly what next step you are evading. What dream are you discounting as impossible given your resources? What payoff are you getting for remaining stuck at this point in your expansion?”
I feel attacked! Can’t you just let me live, Julia!?
I don’t even feel like I have narrowed down my list of possibilities to just 3. I have a long list of “interests” but I’m not even sure if I’m truly interested in some of them or if I just think I should be (like investing). I am so paralyzed by the idea of committing to one and getting it “wrong,” that instead I do nothing.
I majored in "Political Economy" at Berkeley. I did this for a variety of reasons. I tell recruiters that I chose this major because it combined two of my interests: politics and economics. Which is partly true. But does anyone really have a strong interest in economics? I suppose some people do but I don't.
I knew that a business degree is the best degree you can get on paper - well I guess aside from engineering. I did not then and I still don't know what engineers do - so how was I supposed to decide to be one if I still don't know what one is? Berkeley has a very good business program for undergrads and grad students. But you have to apply to get into the business school and it's competitive. And I didn't want to try hard in college. I had tried hard in high school in order to get into college and I was tired of trying to get straight A's. I didn't feel like making college into a continuation of high school. So I automatically ruled business out.
After business there is econ. But just straight econ seemed terrible. In high school, I took Government & Econ my senior year. It was one class taught by one teacher but it's essentially two subjects - with one half of the year focusing on each topic. I did not enjoy this class one bit. I refused to speak in class. The only reason I managed to get any participation points was because my teacher already knew me (he was married to my freshman biology teacher who organized a trip to the Galapagos Islands after my sophomore year and both he and his wife were chaperones on this trip) and he let me come in after class and give him my opinion just one on one to him instead of raising my hand in class and having to - god forbid - public speak. All this to say that I did not have a natural gift or strong love for economics.
So I liked the idea of Political Economy because it was respectable enough because it had the word "econ" in it but it wasn't just straight up boring ass econ.
I took a class for undeclared freshmen during my first semester of college. Each week, we explored a different major and by the end of class, we had to pick three that sounded most interesting. Here is what I wrote on November 28, 2010: “Self Reflection - Pinpointing My Interests - The three majors that I found to be most fascinating and related to my interests were Media Studies (formerly Mass Communications), Sociology and Public Health.” When I told my mom that I would like to major in sociology she said “nope, try again.” She would not pay for me to get a degree in something floofy (and yet my brother was a POLI SCI MAJOR but yeah fine whatever mom). So political economy it was! I see now a little bit more about why I have trouble following my passions and tend to force myself to be "practical" - I had no choice!
Since I did not major in business, I was not a hot commodity coming out of college. I was too nervous to go to job fairs. I just applied to jobs haphazardly on Cal's career website.
Until yesterday, I would beat myself up about not majoring in business. If I had majored in business, I would have gotten a job in investment banking, then two years later I could have switched to private equity, then I would be rich and fulfilled!
Another member of my Artist’s Way group sent me a link to a Youtube channel of a woman from the Bay Area who went to USC and recently quit her job in tech. In her video “I no longer aspire to have a career,” she discusses how majoring in business is essentially majoring in work. She wishes she had been able to take classes not oriented toward business outputs, like philosophy, where she could expand her mind in a non-entrepreneurial way. Hearing this was a huge relief to me because I did take a good amount of political theory classes that were super interesting and a never took a single Excel class. I felt like a huge failure at my first job for not knowing Excel and cried during an interview at a hedge fund where I had to do a live Excel test. Now I am sufficient at Excel and it has brought me 0 joy or fulfillment.
The Youtuber also mentions that HBO’s show, “Industry” is a satire and this is new information to me. I worked for an investment bank (in equity research not ibanking) and lived in that world. I also typed so much that my hands cramped up into claws, I had a panic attack, and had to stop working for months - what a fun time it was! I always thought it was because I am soft. I can’t actually cut it in the corporate world. I spoke on the phone with a Death Doula last week and expressed that I am now realizing that “this isn’t right doesn’t mean you are wrong.” At least, I conceptually know that working for a bank was not right for me, but it’s still hard not to feel defective somehow.
This is how I feel now. I must be defective for quitting my job. None of my friends or peers are quitting. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I make it work?
Back to Julia:
“Some of you may be thinking that this sounds like the magic-wand chapter: I pray and presto! Sometimes, that is how it will feel. More often, what we are talking about seems to be a conscious partnership in which we work along slowly and gradually, clearing away the wreckage of our negative patterning, clarifying the vision of what it is we want, learning to accept small pieces of that vision from whatever source and then, one day, presto! The vision seems to suddenly be in place. In other words, pray to catch the bus, then run as fast as you can.
For this to happen, first of all, we must believe that we are allowed to catch the bus. We come to recognize that God is unlimited in supply and that everyone has equal access. This begins to clear up guilt about having or getting too much. Since everyone can draw on the universal supply, we deprive no one with our abundance. If we learn to think of receiving God’s good as being an act of worship—cooperating with God’s plan to manifest goodness in our lives—we can begin to let go of having to sabotage ourselves.”
I don’t believe that I am allowed to catch the bus. I have lived in a scarcity mindset for so long, it feels impossible to let go and believe in the concept of abundance.
I started actual EMDR on Monday - or rather we began bilateral stimulation. Aka I followed my therapist’s finger with my eyes as she moved it back and forth. I told her it looked slightly like a Hail Hitler salute and we had to start over. She had me picture a “calm, safe state.” This was by my grandparent’s house in Carmel, sitting on a rock, looking across the bay at Point Lobos. Listening to the repetition of the waves soothes me. The smells are nostalgic. The breeze on my face is soothing.
The next exercise was similar but I think more beneficial. She asked me to think about a quality that I want to have more of in my life. Abundance. What image represents abundance to me? My first cop-out is once again, the ocean. So I went with stars. Lying on the ground in the forest, at night, staring at the vastness of the universe spread out above me. There are infinite stars. The universe is not a zero-sum game. We can all have a star! There is an unlimited supply. I don’t need to try to control it, wrest the most I possibly can. I can trust that I am allowed to catch the bus. I can stop sabotaging myself. My abundance deprives no one. The abundance of others doesn’t deprive me of anything. It feels very hard to balance this belief in a capitalist society.
I just subscribed to Sarah Faith Gottesdiener’s newsletter, “Moonbeaming.” The title is “How I Transformed My Relationship To Abundance.” She says, “We must define abundance for ourselves, outside the capitalist model of accumulation, materialism, competition, urgency, and hoarding.” Preach.
“What I’ve learned, is that true abundance—which is security, confidence, pleasure, and congruency—is activating to shame, and so you will experience a lot of judgment and projections from other people when you grow, expand, and become more secure.”
But what if you are a precious little flower that is not strong enough to withstand the judgment of others? I guess I need to keep growing and expanding…
I learned a new word while watching “Dave” last night. “Effulgent: shining brightly; radiant (of a person or their expression) emanating joy or goodness.” Instead of priding myself on being acerbic, I will try to focus on being effulgent and expansive. Show, don’t tell. Right brain, not left brain. Trust, not fear. Abundance, not scarcity. Gottesdiener continues:
“Scarcity is part of abundance. We can’t ignore it, or avoid it. Sensations of scarcity will not ever go away, particularly if you’ve been raised with money trauma, have a history of under-earning and overworking, are marginalized, have acutely experienced the effects of colonialism, have experienced theft, betrayals around your gifts, etc., etc...
Abundance isn’t about the erasure or eradication of scarcity, it’s about being able to make space for it and transform it.”