The Write Place at the Right Time
A Notebook, a Pen and an Ant
Yesterday my soul-friend Jeanie and I had a big conversation about what she does,
and what I do, and how we can help each other in our side gigs.
Or not.
But either way, we will still love each other as amazing friends.
Jeanie is a life coach, and yes, really amazing. For real.
She calls it like she sees it. No B.S.
So yesterday she took me through a meditation called TURPA.
I’ll let her tell you about it sometime, if she wants to.
Anyway, the meditation helped me imaginatively put my past in the past, put roots beneath my feet, placed sentinel angels to support me on both sides, and now new growth is forming in front of me.
It was amazing.
But then, Jeanie is like that.
For real.
This morning on FB Messenger Jeanie sent me a link to a song. She was dancing around her kitchen singing and wanted to share.
“My Soul is Welcome Here”… https://youtu.be/l0lvm9MtblE
Me: “Somehow you knew I needed this.”
Jeanie: “Isn’t that great?”
I turned it up and listened over and over again while I cleared out old emails. It made me feel peppy.
For a while. Until it eventually it didn’t. Suddenly it was all too loud.
I turned off the music and hopped back over to Messenger.
Jeanie was still there.
I whined.
About my schedule for the next weeks. Stuff I promised to do, but blah blah blah.
There can be such a thing as too much focus on healing stuff.
I just want to get on with living life again, being creative and feeling free.”
“Ah yes, Grasshopper,” says Jeanie.
“Think about what you just said. I agree that we can get so wrapped up in all these healing modalities that we forget to live our own lives. Go back and read what you just said about get on with living life again, being creative and feeling free. And ask yourself, ‘If not now, when?”
Me: “Now. But WHAT? One trainer says to choose an expression – like if you want to create something, think first about what you want other to feel when they see your creation.”
Jeanie: “I disagree. That is creating with an eye to the audience. Not authentic. We are not in charge of what other people feel when they see what we have done. I sincerely think that is a cop out. The only thing that is important is how we feel.”
Me: “But if we only focus on what WE feel – then are our efforts wasted because we do not touch other’s hearts? Life is to be shared.”
Jeanie: “We are not in charge if somebody else feels touched. When we are in touch with our own feelings, then and only then do we have something to share.”
Me: “What if the feeling is… confusion… frozen… deer in the headlights? That is not free and joyful.”
Jeanie: “There is a guy who has written a book about breaking free from the self-help addiction. At first, it sounds really good, but when you look deeper, he has a whole series of videos and workshops and books all about… yep, you guessed it… Self Help.”
Jeanie: “Your feelings of confusion, frozen deer in the headlights, etc. come from when you are trying to project something onto somebody else. That’s inauthentic.”
“Just stop and ask yourself honestly, ‘How does this make me feel?’ and if it makes you feel good, do more of that. If it makes you feel afraid, stuck, frozen, unsure, then don’t’ do it. Honestly, I am to the point when I consider doing something, I check in with myself and if I do not get a resounding ‘hell yes’ then I don’t’ do it. It never fails.”
Me: “I wonder if Ii have lost the ability to get a hell yes.”
Jeanie: “You have just gotten out of the habit. For some reason, you have not allowed yourself that privilege recently. And that comes with thinking you must create with an eye to the audience, such as what’s in Vogue right now? What are people buying? What will people think?”
Me: ”True. I shut myself down in the last few years with all the economic changes we’ve been through.
I used to value myself only on what other people think of me. Maybe I am still doing that.”
Jeanie: “I’m picking up that this latest healing thing you are doing is not bringing you a lot of joy. I don’t sense any freedom coming from this.”
Me: “It felt wonderfully comforting at first. I needed it. It has helped immensely with my personal connection to Source.”
Jeanie: “Pay attention. Those statements are all related to the past.”
Me: “Yes. But who am I NOW?”
Jeanie: “OMG… seriously do I have to come up there and beat your skinny butt?”
Me: “Hahaha. I sure love you.”
Jeanie: “You are an amazing creative being. But don’t take my word for it… you know it’s true.”
Me: “But what in Heaven’s name am I to be creating now? The old stuff doesn’t work. My businesses closed. Our real estate crashed. Trying to sell anything to anybody is not my forte’.”
Jeanie: “It’s not about trying to sell something. It’s becoming seriously magnetic to others who need your help.”
Me:“Ok. Lovely ego of mine – old habits die hard. I’m needing a change of focus and just don’t know which way to turn.”
Jeanie: “Do you remember I asked you to keep an Evidence Journal? I really believe that this overwhelm around continual study around healing is evidence of the shift you’ve already made. It’s what I call ‘proof of land’. After the flood, Noah sent out a couple of ravens and they never came back. Then he sent out a dove which came back with an olive branch in its mouth. Noah couldn’t see land, but he knew it was proof of land.”
“Your realization today is proof of land. The old ways of being no longer work, including the self-sabotaging hateful voice that tries to keep sitting you in a corner. I’m serious Jo Lyn. What brings you the greatest amount of joy? Writing? Being outside? Singing?”
Me: “Writing.”
Jeanie: “I knew it. So now you have permission to write.
Me: “When I was a young mother, I would wake up with whole novels in my head – characters, plot, setting, the works. But I didn’t have time to write them down. Now, that doesn’t happen any more.”
Jeanie: “Okay. My sweet man will be home for lunch in 3 minutes. Here’s your quick assignment.”
“Take three objects out of your house and sit them in front of you and write a quick story around them. They can be anything… a box of raisins, and old mug, a plant… doesn’t matter. Send me a picture of the objects and the short story you write about it. It’s called a story generator. Ready Set Go! …And have fun doing it!”
A Story Generator
3 objects
Raisins. Mug. Plant.
Quick story.
Hmmm…
I looked around. What is in my house? I imagine going into my kitchen. I don’t spend much time there anymore. What do I do? What is in my house that is meaningful to me, that could inspire a story?
I see my computer keyboard. My cell phone. The computer mouse. A pen.
An ant crawling along the edge of the scraggly old spiral notebook I’ve been scribbling in.
One of these things is not like the others.
The ant doesn’t belong here.
Raisins. Mug. Plant.
My mind starts to whirr….
Then comes to a stop.
Dear Heavenly Father.
Please help me do this ONE thing.
Help me do this ONE thing…
That I can do… just for me…
…in the next hour.
The thought flashed through my mind that I never take time to really listen to my own heart.
I’m focused on all this healing stuff, with webinars and social media and email.
I’ve created busyness in place of business.
I stop.
It’s all a lot of noise.
A lot of buzz.
I’m alone in this house most of the day until my own sweetheart comes home…
but I don’t give myself the luxury of doing the one thing I enjoy doing.
I don’t give myself permission to write, just for me, just for fun.
I’m still trying to obey that misconceived directive from childhood, that I am not allowed to play until the work is done. My father used to say I couldn’t play until the work was done.
It took me years to realize that to him, work had to be hard to be valuable, and that work is never done.
So in my poor little pea-picking brain, I believe that I am not allowed to do what I enjoy.
Until now.
Jeanie just gave me permission.
And she doesn’t take no for an answer.
I clicked the X to close the internet browser.
Suddenly there was silence.
Silence so thick that it throbbed.
I looked down at the mess on my desk…
the spiral notebook and pen…
a tiny black ant crawled along it’s edge.
The ant was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Too insignificant to survive in this environment.
He was trying really hard to walk the edge in a world that was not designed for him.
Trying to fit in with the paper and pen.
So sorry…
So sorry you are not the right place at the right time.
So sorry you don’t know who you really are.
So sorry you don’t know that you have permission now to know yourself, and to be free.
So sorry the stories no longer come easily…
But really, you are.
You are in the write place…
At the right time.
Right now.
Thank you, Jeanie!!
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