Trying to write “perfectly” is the very thing which might inhibit your freedom.
Hi Gina,
What a lovely and sweet contribution.
Thank you.
Early in your piece you say,
“My written words and I became close friends. The words have become a trusted companion. Writing has always reserved space for me without holding judgement on anything I’ve had to say. Though my relationship with trust has always been fragile, I’ve learned trust between me and my written words.”
You move forward into sharing…
“That goes without saying that I’ve failed my trusted companion many times over. I’ve told stories not as they were. Exaggerated some and kept parts of stories completely hidden in others. That’s the struggle I’ve been facing lately. I’ve been tangled in the despair of my failure to my writing that I can’t move past the struggles of our relationship.”
What a fascinating dynamic!
You believe your words hold no judgement toward you, and that there is trust between you and your words.
And…
You believe that you’ve failed your writing so deeply that you can’t move past your failures which have created deep relationship struggles.
Yet, Gina, as you yourself very well understand, the whole point of your writing is that your words do not judge you.
One of the main principles of my original spiritual teaching:
All relationship is symbiotic™.
If you have no fear of your words judging you, why then are you judging your words?
Ah…
There’s the issue.
Are they good enough?
Are they vulnerable enough?
Gina, YES. THEY ARE.
Are you good enough?
Are you vulnerable enough?
Gina, YES. YOU ARE.
Are you expressing words which reflect your true experience, which honor your heart?
Gina, YES. YOU ARE.
Your writing is filled with you. The many parts of you. The many ways in which you express yourself.
It goes without saying that you may always improve your writing. And, your writing will improve the more you write.
Still, what you write is always an expression of you.
As such, your writing is valuable.
It’s vital to resist the dynamic by which you look at your written output and decide it’s not enough. It is enough. It just may be different from what you expect.
And if it is, that’s terrific.
Your writing need not be consistent. Nor, the same as it used to be when you loved it.
As a matter of fact, if it is the same, you’re probably off track.
If you find yourself judging your writing and finding it inadequate, write from exactly this place. Once you free yourself to express this hidden part of yourself, you might just be amazed at what comes out.
You say,
“I live in a delusion that I have to be perfect in order to be valuable.”
Unfortunately, the dynamic of perfectionism reaches far and wide.
Perfectionism serves as a weapon. A weapon to avoid intimacy. A dagger which drives away vulnerability. A dismissal of humanity.
Your imperfect, unique, humanity makes your writing wonderful.
It’s an oxymoron. What I call a koan.
You won’t write because you need your writing to be “perfect”.
Yet, the only writing which will not meet your standards, the only writing which will not fulfill your purpose, is “perfect writing!”.
Gina, you know this!
In the second to last paragraph, you say,
Allowing my heart to be seen in ways that I’m deeply uncomfortable with because the truth is the only thing that will ever set me free.
Beautifully put.
Your final sentence, however, re-establishes the paralysis you have been struggling to free yourself from.
The bumps and awkward sentences will eventually crack and I’ll find my flow again.
Perhaps, the power of your writing lies in the bumps and awkward sentences!
Perhaps, your beauty and your love resides in your own responses to your bumps and awkward sentences.
Perhaps, the fuel for your flow rests in honoring your bumps and awkward sentences, and in Loving them, and working with them to build upon and expand into your vulnerability and places of openness; into what you may have previously felt was your ‘broken-ness’
I look forward to your exploring these bumps and awkward sentences. To your finding places in yourself which they welcome and usher in. To your welcoming them and ushering them in so that you welcome and usher in the unknown wonders which live inside you.
The more you trust what you write, the more you allow what comes out of you to guide you, and the more you honor your expression in the ways you come through you, the more you open into your vulnerability and truth.
Brava, Gina.
Your writing is beautiful.
Your writing is your truth.
Your writing is you.
Your vision and your talent are guiding you exactly where you long to go.
With Love,
Jonathan : )
