Big Dreams, Baby Steps
Yesterday I completed my cutting and pasting of all my blog posts so far into a printable, editable word document. It’s 254 pages single-spaced, which of course is more pages than anyone wants to read or should be asked to read. Wait, I need to delete that stuff after the comma and put the period after the word, “single-spaced.” It’s 254 pages single-spaced. Breathe in, breathe out. That’s a fact, neither good nor bad, just truth.
When I get close to taking action on what I really want, Evie, that evil inner critic voice, gets hyped up, like hyper-speed hummingbird speed. And the criticism, the push to override my true desire, comes so fast it’s like a constant fire hose stream of negative thoughts pushing against me.
But if I notice it, if I notice it I can simply approach the source – my brain – and turn the spigot off. Oh right, there’s some self-doubt and criticism, no thanks. Moving on.
It turns itself back on, this firehose of negative brain-race, brain-spin, and excuses to justify not doing what I want to do, and it all makes great sense. So what I have to do when it turns on again is notice it, and turn it off again, and keep going.
But slowly, slowly, slowly. Otherwise I’m just walking into that firehose of mental crap and wondering why it’s so dang hard and cold and wet and heavy to simply put one foot in front of the other in the direction of my big dreams, my big life, my me-ness.
“What the eff?” I might say to myself, “I’ve proofread tens of thousands of pages for other people over the years, why do I want to pass out the second I look at my own stuff?” That’s more Evie chatter, more unhelpful negative crap telling me to quit, to make a frittata, to buy more black leggings, to get a sectional, to get even blonder, if that were possible.
It’s hard to look at my stuff because it is. And so what? I’ve done hard stuff before, way harder stuff than reading. I can keep going, but I’m not gonna do it with that firehose working against me. I’m gonna wise up, load up on some more positive inner cheerleaders.
Calling Kind Auntie voice! Here’s kind auntie voice: “Darling one, it’s okay. You are doing the best you can, for you, right now. Why don’t you try to read ten pages, or five, then have a nice cool glass of fizzy water with lemon, and then maybe five pages more and call it a day?”
Ok, so now the next step is read five pages, not “edit my book.” I can do that. I’m gonna keep it small. I’m gonna keep going.