June is a month of gratitude and grief for me… it is my birth month, the month my first grandson was born, the 4th anniversaries of my legacy book Get Off the Shelf, and my Friday’s Food for Thought … it is also the month we lost our son. Grief and gratitude all wrapped up in bundles of laughter and tears, joy and sorrow, wrapping paper and writing.
Some days my writing flows like a river, easy and effortless as though divinely guided. On other days, it is hard to see through my leaky eyes to find the keyboard let alone a particular key. Then there are the days it’s just me, a blinking cursor, and a bag of peanut butter mini cups whispering sweet nothings from the kitchen counter. To tell the truth, sometimes I think peanut butter cups have better ideas. 😊
Here’s the truth this writer eventually learned along the way: writing is like life in a microcosm. It is messy. It is beauty-filled. It’s full of half-formed thoughts and late-night musings spaced between sleep and emotional snack breaks but hey, it’s all sacred, right? It is all in the flow of this marvelous thing we call life.
I started this writing journey, seriously, in about 2014 when I was working with Lynn Andrews in her program Writing Spirit, the School. If I was going to mentor people writing themselves through a process of finding their creative spirit, I better know what the heck that meant, and I started writing.
My pen, or more often my keyboard, didn’t care if I was eloquent or brash. The page didn’t judge my spelling. What mattered most of the time was that I just showed up, you know, like in life… we just need to show up for the magic and mystery to amaze us.
Some of my best life lessons came not from my perfect paragraphs, but from the ones that fell to pieces. The ones where I rewrote the same sentence fifteen times taught me about Patience (one of my good enemies). The journal pages that turned into raving rants showed me how to listen to my own voice, without my good enemy, Judgment. Those moments when I had absolutely nothing to say but wrote anyway, taught me that magic often hides just beyond Resistance (one of my loudest good enemies.)
Writing taught me to live bravely when I was told I wasn’t a writer and fell into the clutches of Doubt and Creative Block. Both good enemies that I had to engage to write on (even though it was many, many months before I picked up another pen.)
I think we can all face the “blank page” the same way we face big decisions, broken hearts, or uncertain futures… one word, one breath, one peanut butter cup at a time.
Lesson learned. I don’t have to know where the story ends to start telling it, I just have to begin with a scribble of truth. I will have to scratch out the lies I told myself writing, let my heart leak a little ink while my eyes leak a few tears, and I will laugh when it feels ridiculous and reach for a mini peanut butter cup when the words won’t come. That sweet break, sometimes, is the sacred pause I didn’t know I needed.
I will keep on writin’ on because with every paragraph, I’m not just crafting another story, I am remembering who I am, remembering me, authentically.
That is the beauty of writing, of living. It gives you a space to be everything all at once. I can be wise and wobbly, fierce and funny, sacred and slightly scattered and even scared. That feels like the perfect metaphor for being human.
So today, why don’t you pick up a pen and grab a fresh page or even the back of an envelope or a napkin at dinner, and write. Write like your soul is nudging you to, like the world needs your truth, all the messy bits along with the beautiful. You may just be leaving breadcrumbs for your future self to find your way back home, back to your authentic self.
I look back at what I have written this past decade and realize that all the pages, notepads, envelopes, sticky tabs and napkins weren’t just stories. They were me becoming. They were me engaged in a sacred dance with my creative spirit, my creative soul.
And here I am, excited about the little book just released, Introducing the Gifts of Our Good Enemies, and the books on the way Befriending My Good Enemies and A Daily Walk With Wisdom. I’m excited to celebrate myself, my books, my grandson, and my son.
Join me for a jubilant June, messy and beautiful all in one.
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You can grab the newest short read Introducing The Gifts of Our Good Enemies, Reframing the Challenges and Frustrations We All Encounter wherever you get your Kindle books. There is a link to a freebie: Identifying Your Good Enemies in the E-Book, to help you gain awareness of the good enemies in your life.
I’d love to hear about any experiences you have with your good enemies as I write the almost complete book of Befriending Your Good Enemies (new ones keep raising their hands to be included). Just today Time Killer introduced himself to me as if I didn’t already have a relationship with him, he just wanted to be sure I didn’t forget him in the book.
Who are some of your good enemies? Please reply in the comments.
Write on my friends, write on!
Please enjoy my Free “Meditation for Centering” MP3
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Vicki Dobbs is a bold and adventurous warrior walking a path of heart to manifest spirituality in everyday lives. She opens existential gateways for individuals to face their challenges and embrace these tests as the great teachers that they are.
Her goal is to see everyone walk in beauty and balance every day of their lives empowered by the voice of their own authentic truth.
Through Wisdom Evolution and Sacred Wisdom Workshops, Vicki creates opportunities for others to make deep personal changes through experiential classes, ceremony, sacred art and story. She endeavors to inspire others to create their lives intentionally. Vicki is an Inspirator of everyday awareness, an Instigator of spontaneous stories and a Connoisseur of Creativity. Gratitude and grace sprinkled with humility and humor are the medicine she brings to the world.
As an Elder, Teacher and Entrepreneur, Spiritual Coach, Ordained Minister and Crafter of Sacred Art and Tools, Vicki perceives life’s journey as an ever-upward spiraling ascension of the human spirit leading her to wisdom, wholeness and authenticity.
Her experience includes being trained in the Harner Method of Shamanic Counseling and the Pachakuti Mesa Tradition of Cross Cultural Shamanism. She is a Graduate Teacher and Mentor with the Lynn Andrews Center For Sacred Arts and Training and has been the Administrator and Writers Guide for Writing Spirit, the School.
Vicki is also an Artist of the Spirit Certified Spiritual and Energetic Life Coach, a Graduate Mentor in the AoS program and a founding member of HeatherAsh Amara’s Warrior Goddess Leadership Team and Facilitator of the Warrior Heart Practice.
Connect with Vicki here on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vickildobbsauthor