Part One: A novel? Really?
Hi, all. Before I get into my actual post, I just want to say that, during this very unpredictable time, I send you much love, and wish for each of you to be safe and healthy and peaceful. I wish for you to feel connected to your friends and neighbors and loved ones through your hearts, despite the physical distances that may separate you. We will get through this on the strength of our love and affection for each other. Take good care.
One benefit of self-isolating is that I have unlimited free time! So, today I’m going to start telling you the story of how I came to launch this blog. What’s most unexpected for me in this story is that I had to spend nearly 3 years writing a novel before I realized that it wasn’t a novel I needed to be writing at all, but a blog. “Don’t Let the Coronavirus Drive Us Apart” didn’t make it onto the page until after I’d written nearly 400 pages of fiction. That’s one heck of a first draft, especially when you end up setting aside the whole thing and starting an entirely new and unrelated project.
I started working on the novel back in the spring of 2017. I had recently stepped back from some very time- and energy-intensive volunteering in a group devoted to healing on the spiritual path. At this point, I had also retired from teaching Russian, and from the translating work I’d done for a number of years. On this sunny April day, I was talking over coffee with a close friend. In the course of our chat, she said to me, “Now that you have more time for yourself, you should start writing again.”
At first, her suggestion seemed to have come out of nowhere. But then I realized that it hadn’t: The very same thought had occurred to me in recent weeks. I’d even toyed for a brief moment with the idea of writing an historical novel. Maybe my friend had picked up on my own desire to write, and reflected it back to me? This would not have surprised me, because she is not only very intuitive, but also knows me well. She’s read pretty much everything I’ve written over the years, and she knows that I have always enjoyed writing, whether or not the piece in question gets published. So, the confluence of her encouragement and my own quiet thoughts intrigued me. I told her I would give the idea serious consideration. She knew what I meant by this: I would consult my inner self about it.
What do I mean when I say “my inner self”, and what does it mean to “consult” it?
First, a bit about what I think my inner self is not. It is not the same as my “gut feelings”. People talk a lot about gut feelings. I do believe they exist, and that we all have them. I think of my gut feelings as the voice of all the worries, fears, trauma responses, anger, and other emotions (whether pleasant or unpleasant) that have accumulated inside me.
Then there’s what I think of as my inner self. Some people call this their soul, or their higher self. I see my inner self as the part of my consciousness that is free of all those worries, etc., that fuel my gut feelings.
Over the years, I’ve come to believe that both my inner self and my gut feelings can communicate with me. In fact, they are constantly competing for my attention. And they have different communication styles. My gut feelings are always screaming at the top of their lungs. Sometimes they call out a warning. “Run! Run! Run!” Other times, it’s, “Oh my gosh! This is a sign from the Universe! You should TOTALLY do this!” All this yelling means that I easily pick up on messages from my gut feelings.
My inner self, though – it speaks softly. It never shouts. It will sometimes share a thought in the moments of silence when my gut feelings have paused to take a big breath before issuing their next edict. But my inner self offers its wisdom so quietly that I may not notice that it’s spoken up, or may not heed it, even when I do hear it.
For decades, precisely because I generally only ever heard my gut feelings loud and clear, I blindly accepted them as the best source of guidance about how to make my way through life. This was problematic, though, because – as I’ve learned, the hard way – our gut feelings can be very unreliable judges of whether an action we’re contemplating is actually a good idea. For example, if we’ve experienced trauma – as so, so many of us have – our gut feelings might hoist a red fear-flag even when we’re not really in a dangerous situation. Or, they might start waving a big, bold flag of elation or enthusiasm about taking some step that makes no good sense at all. No matter what our gut feelings are suggesting we do, if we listen to them without taking the time to also consult our inner self, their advice can easily lead us down a path we’ll regret later on. I see this consultation as crucial, because I’ve also come to realize, that my inner self can see the world and my life with clarity. That means it can help me make choices that will benefit me down the line.
In recent years, through lots of practice, I’ve come to understand how my inner self communicates with me and shares what it knows. I’ve found that I’m most likely to pick up on what my inner self is trying to say to me when I’m in a calm and quiet spot – meditating, for example, or simply sitting still on my own for a while. At these times, for whatever reason, my gut feelings are less intrusive (maybe they occasionally just take a break?), and that’s when I’m able to hear my inner self’s voice. Then I can mentally pose questions to it about how to proceed in regard to a given matter. When I do that, a word or two – rarely a whole phrase or sentence – will usually come to mind. Or I’ll have a wordless feeling about the best course of action. I take this as my inner self’s response. After several years of using this method of inquiry, I’ve learned that life plays out in a way that feels positive to me when I do heed what my inner self suggests to me. Based on this experience, I’ve come to see my inner self as the very best source of ideas, insight, and guidance about how to move through life.
So, by the time my friend encouraged me to begin writing again, I’d gotten pretty good at accessing my inner self’s quiet voice beneath the loud gut feelings, and at discerning and trusting what it was telling me. That doesn’t mean, however, that I absolutely always heed its voice. If I’m not actively seeking out advice, or if a message I happen to hear doesn’t totally appeal to me, I might disregard it. Only when my friend encouraged me to start writing again did I admit to myself that I had, in fact, been hearing soft messages coming from inside, about writing a novel. I’d just been ignoring them, mostly because they were suggesting I write an historical novel. “Nope,” I told myself. “Way too much work.” But now, since my friend’s words actually dovetailed with what I, myself, had heard, I decided to sit down and consciously consult my inner self about this idea.
What happened then, when I got calm and quiet, was that the prospect of writing a novel actually felt very good to me. It felt right – but not with the intensity of fireworks or a sense of jumping up and down with joy. Rather, I experienced a soft, tranquil feeling in my body, a peaceful, relaxed sensation, and a happiness in my heart. Over the years, I’ve learned, through trial and error, that these sensations indicate that my inner self is giving me an affirmative answer to my question. So, I concluded that yes, writing an historical novel would be a good idea. A few hours later, an idea for a plot came to mind! This felt like a good sign, too, a sign from my inner self.
Over the next week or so, I explored the plot idea, did a bit of preliminary research, and, finally, decided to move forward. As I began working on the novel in earnest, I also had the strong feeling that I should keep the project to myself as I wrote, and that I shouldn’t share the novel with anyone until I had completely finished it. It seemed to me that approaching the writing this way would allow me to practice discerning what I felt was right to write, guided only by my inner self, without being influenced by others’ views. As I saw it, I had the chance here to break some ingrained behavior patterns that had worked against me in the past.
In my next post, I’ll explain why I so easily accepted that this guidance was coming from my inner self, and not from my gut feelings.
Sue Downing 