Writing from flow

This has been a big week.  I started a mindful eating program that has me digging deep into my food cravings, and as a result, my other cravings.

The program is designed by a Psychiatrist at Brown, Judson Brewer, and listening to him on a Podcast, he says that he wrote a book in two weeks, while he was on self-guided retreat, deciding that he would only write from a state of flow.

I'm making the same vow, which means that I'm in flow right now.  Finished a productive meditation where I diligently rested my awareness in the center of my chest, where the energy is contracted, hard, like a clenched fist.

I know what it's protecting, layers and layers of disappointment and heartbreak. But I don't have to protect myself anymore. I've long ago locked away any desire I once had for companionship. Or at least that's what I've told myself.

Maybe it will come back, but for the moment my heart is feeling more expansive than it has for a very long time. I'm okay.  I have the courage to open that tender spot to the world. I can offer my heart like an open palm, welcoming anyone who has felt despair.

I can resist that craving for self-hatred

Half-Empty

This week, I'm going to spend some time with my heartbreak. The grief, the lost dreams, failed relationships, projects, deep disappointments, and harsh reckonings that have resulted from circumstances beyond my control, but more often from my delusions, ignorance, wishful thinking and naivete.

I do this because I've decided to let it go, and to change this pattern to the best of my abilities. But first I have to feel it, feel where it comes from, feel who is feeling it. My suffering is going to be transformed into peace. That decision has been made.

I'm doing this in large part because decisions about my book are coming in.  I've received my first pass, and I'm steeling myself for others. Very few people even make it to the level where they have an agent shopping their book around, so whatever happens, I've still made progress. But I still have this sick feeling in my gut. The feeling that tells me that I'm only allowed to go so far in life. The feeling that tells me that success is just not in my cards.

But is that feeling really in my gut?  Why would I have worked this long if it really wasn't probable?

This week I'm going to pay attention to exactly where this feeling is coming from. Is it coming from a place of wisdom?  Or is it coming from a place of fear? Is it coming from a place that is going to help me stop wasting energy on things that won't impact my life, or anyone else's?  Or is it coming from a place that is creating low expectations that are undermining my progresss?

The challenge this week is to feel this feeling out and sense just how reliable it really is. Is heartbreak inevitable in my life? Or will I find that path towards connection?