The Power to Act

Writing the ‘Bright Spot’ blog was both difficult and illuminating. Like other moments of growth, growth came when I finally realized that, once again, I was struggling. You would think that it would be easy to see, name and claim the moments of struggle, but that’s not my experience. Working hard and pushing through to the goal are bred into our Western strive/drive culture of achievement; struggle has become synonymous with breathing and life. Besides, struggle is counterproductive; it provides the illusion of progress but is a waste of my energies. More importantly, I began to understand the internal struggle between my head and my heart for dominance in my writing. Rather than my head, a salmon swimming upstream to spawn and die, I choose to live the life of my heart, on an inner tube being carried by life down the Brazos River. The life of my heart does have currents, and learning to identify them and ride them is part of creating a centered and powerful life.

The word struggle is code  for the fact that my heart has been overpowered by my thinking mind. When I was in my 40s, I began counting the times in a day I used the word ‘struggle’; I couldn’t go for 20 minutes without hearing that horrid word spill out of my mouth or echo in the caverns of my mind. By my mid-50s, I learned to cultivate the ability of self observation, and used it to catch myself in the process of ‘struggling.’ Like a Tae Kwon Do Master catching a fly in mid-air, I heard the words before they came out of my mouth, and replaced the word with one less onerous. Now that word rarely comes to mind, and when it does, I’m amused at its resilience and persistence. When I do use the word ‘struggle,’ it’s because it is the only word I can use; it’s the right word for the situation. While the word itself does not rear its ugly head, now another layer of the onion of struggle has made its way to the light of day, and I’m glad for the rays of light and illumination.

The last time I caught myself in the act of struggling was when I was ‘trying’ to create “The Power to Act” group coaching program. After six months of developing the programs, amassing the databases, doing marketing and delivering the product, I was stuck in first gear. Progress was negligible. Students who took it liked it and some looked forward to the next class, but it was a daily grind. Sunday morning, with coffee in hand, I settled into a comfy chair to read the Sunday New York Times when I saw an article about Louise Hay and her life. She wrote Heal Your Body, which created the link between the emotional and physical symptoms of illness. She talked about how surprised she was by her popularity and success. How one step led to another, to another, and to another; there was no struggle, no pushing and forcing! In a moment of recognition, my tears flowed, and I realized I was in a struggle once again. That day I closed the program and took down the web site. I felt immediate relief. I had no idea how I would use all the information that I’ve learned over the years, but I did know that when it was to be, it would flow.

Creating the ‘Bright Spots’ blog was another of those learning experiences; and it was different. Today’s struggle is more subtle; the pig is wearing hot pink lipstick, but it’s still a pig. The swine appears to rob me of my new found heart when I write. In January when I wrote, ‘How do you know when you know?’ I experienced the same internal tension that I felt while writing “Bright Spots,” but I couldn’t connect the dots. My dear husband gently pointed out that he thought I was getting a little cerebral; he was right. Versions one and two had the dubious distinction of being both heady and heavy. How do you write about “bright spots” without being bright or light? Now that had my attention! Where does bright and light live? Certainly not in the recesses of my mind! When I went back to re-read the draft for the third time, I was surprised at how my mind and my writing focused on the heavy times in my life: my father losing his job, my own inability to see the world as half full. The ‘pearl beyond price’ was when I realized that I was recounting my life as it was in my 20s, not how it is today. With my heart now engaged, I can re-look at what is true in the moment, and I can see the lightness of my mother and her impact on my life.

While creating the “Bright Spots” blog, like the dawn of a new day,  how my head naturally struggles and my heart opens up the possibility of lightness and flow. The struggle that emerged was not with what I was to do out in the world but between my head and my heart. When I write, I relax my thinking mind. Like the blood that the heart pumps, I let my words and thoughts flow through me; what am I experiencing, what is life serving me and what does my heart feel about it all? When I attempt to share something I’ve read or a concept I’ve learned, I lose sight of my heart, and my thinking silently takes over the driver’s seat. And the struggle begins. This would be fine if I could recognize that I’ve shifted drivers, but therein lies the problem. I think everything is okay if I just work a little harder at it; then I’ll be able to say it in a way that you can relate to it! I push ahead as if my heart were driving when in reality my head has me working hard trying to plane the edges of a square peg so that I can slip it into a round hole.

How do I know that I’m struggling when I’m writing? My struggle shows up in writing that reflects the cramped and lofty library of my mind, with musty books and manuscripts scattered all around me. It’s not a place for the light or the lovers of life; its better suited for the lovelorn and locked in. When my body is tense and I’m anxious, when I awake long before dawn and sleep eludes me, when I’m wrestling and my usual good nature gets snappy and I feel out of sorts. I know that it is not something that I can tackle because when my soul wants to be heard; there is no turning a deaf ear to her. She is relentless. When my old thinking has squeezed joy and happiness out of my life, she fights hard to get my attention. Like a person drowning, she kicks and yells for help, and it’s my job to respond to her calls.

I’m not naïve enough to say that the struggle is over, but I do want to celebrate that I’ve discovered a new way that struggling masquerades in my life. Now it’s a lot easier to recognize when the struggle between my head and my heart emerges. The face of struggle in my writing wears a seductive red lip stick of explanation and scarlet nail polish of worldly ideas and concepts. Her four-inch-high scarlet heels reach for perfection and are cloaked in a heavy woven shawl of importance. That is the image of my “struggle,” and I’m adding her to my top ten most dangerous fugitives. For your benefit, I’ll post her picture in every post office across the land. If you see struggle, approach with caution; she is armed and should be considered tedious, exhausting and uninspiring!

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