Yesterday I erupted at a writing group. I was a human volcano, irreverently and with only minor warning I blew, spewing word ash all over a whole bunch of people who have no idea who I am. The polite, nicey-nice Julie worries I upset people or I annoyed people or I made people afraid of the creative process.
One of my friends said, “Julie, you did not sound bitchy. Your voice is too beautiful and your presentation too professional for you to come off in a bad way.”
I ignored her words and continue to ignore them nearly a full day later.
The most reasonable me wants to put a sign across these words: DRAMA – ALERT! Only it isn’t drama when it is truthful. Too often we hide behind what is so because we fear we will be labeled drama queens or whatever negative title you may most frequently imagine snaked across your forehead.
Together, let’s take those titles down and get real.
It was a week of personal torment. One of my worst nightmares came true – temporarily – but I am finding the echoes or ripples or aftershocks continue to hammer me several times a day. I notice it also in my daughter, Emma. We are both walking wounded right now, a week into this stage of uncomfortable.
Some of you reading along may end at this point, believing reading about someone else feeling badly or going through a less than favorable time will somehow be a kind of jinx from the universe. Instead of offering up compassion or sitting to listen, you shove away the person and the situation, perpetuating the “feeling bad” for whomever is experiencing misfortune.
This is nothing short of tragic.
Listen. Stay here.
It was a week of personal torment and I am using writing to integrate the pain of those few days of “worst dreams come true” so that those same worst dreams will not become recurring dreams. When we disregard what is true, when we pretend it away or fake it away or neglect it away it doesn’t go away, it goes underground.
The earthquake this pent up pressure will cause is bound to cause pain in much larger waves because you didn’t deal with it while it was still small and manageable.
This pressure is also what causes drama. It is what causes us to run around whimpering, “The sky is falling” when really, the sky is just telling you to put up your umbrella and enjoy the water without being drowned by it.
What is so right now for me is this:
Last week had some moments of pure suckdom.
This week I will continue to process the suckdom through action and the creative process.
I will choose to be neither positional – which for me takes the form of either being in severe denial or with such firm judgment no light can come through.
When I am positional, I refuse to let what happened do its work. I don’t leave space for the depth of work to do its thing: shallow work leads to shallow result which leads to less than satisfactory life change.
My heart hurts now. It will hurt less as I keep moving forward, with love, with my pen, my paintbrush, my voice and my strength.
Platitudes might say, “What’s done is done, look to the sun.” I won’t say that. I will nod in its direction and continue allowing the work of the pain make its constructive rather than destructive progress.
Eliminating culturally approved platitudes in favor of intentional, integrated pain related progress is countercultural. I am embracing what I know is real via my writing and the creative process.
It works. Pure and simple.
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© 2011
Julie Jordan Scott
This is post 1 of 31 in October for the Ultimate Blog Challenge ~
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