The other day, I spoke to a wonderful, kind and gifted woman who lives all the way across the country from me. Despite the miles between us, she still managed to kick my ass. (In a good way!) It’s always an honour to speak with Donna, the incredible “Mountain Medium.”
The fact that the universe works in mysterious ways is no shock to me. Donna and I met by chance, in Toronto as contestants on the set of Canada’s Smartest Person. (Just being on that show was a surreal experience…I really am grateful!) Anyway, Donna was on the show, and they were touting her as a professional medium. Of course I was fascinated, and we got to talking. Donna and I seem to have a fair bit in common, and so we’ve kept in touch.
Recently, I had a few questions on my mind, and she very kindly agreed to lay out some cards for me. (Although she did warn me that her readings were more about what her clients NEEDED to hear versus what they WANTED to hear. Fair enough.)
I wanted to ask her some very sort of “square” questions about planning for the future. It’s important life-stuff to be sure, but right away Donna and her cards saw right through me. She knew that I hadn’t written a creative word in months, and that my creative side was damn near ready to explode. She saw my urge to write as pent up and unfulfilled; kept eternally at bay by the commitments of work, family, housework, and fitness. I am a writer who doesn’t write. Donna and her cards took about two seconds to get to my root. She was adamant about my deep inner need to write RIGHT NOW.
The trouble is, lately, it just hasn’t been a part of my days. “I have no time” I explained aloud to Donna, and perhaps, more so to myself. I heard how it sounded as I said it, too. Like an excuse. A committed writer would make the time. What the heck was wrong with me? Why was everything coming between me and this thing that I supposedly love?
Somehow Donna and I got to the root of that as well: unrelenting perfectionism. I feel like if I write something, it must be at a very high standard, and that it must serve a purpose. Like, if writing was my day job, of COURSE I would do it, but it’s NOT my job right now. Beyond my lack of having any professional reason to write, on a personal level, I also feel like I “should” be writing a novel. Therefore, ANYTHING outside of novel-related ideas is likely to be pushed aside. Oh, and on the novel-writing front, I don’t really have all that many ideas! That’s a steady stream of little ideas coming in, and because I don’t think any of them are really any good, a big fat nothing going out. So yeah…my writing right now is at a total standstill.
Writing doesn’t even have all that much to do with the questions I wanted to ask Donna. She just caught me out; my soul is sad, and I have to remember what happens when I neglect my creative side. If something inside of me is screaming that I need to write, then something about my current life must change.
And here we are. I’m writing y’all something. It’s not up to some crazy-high standard, nor does it serve a huge purpose. It’s not even what I’d been planning to write next on this blog. (Then again, my grand plans are why I write ALMOST NOTHING.)
I suppose this post is just a reminder that you really really need to do what you’re meant to do. You also need to be kind enough to yourself to not judge every attempt you make at it incredibly harshly. If you don’t follow your heart, your favourite sensitive souls will call you out, and you just might get cosmically bitchslapped. 🙂
Hopefully I’ll see you around these parts more often.
Critical Happiness 