Choice, Change, and Conflict

In the midst of all the changes in the world, we are invited to make some new choices—collectively and individually. Unexpected changes bring us face to face with unexpected choices—to let go of certain assumptions and plans, to reframe cultural beliefs and “norms,” to examine what really matters, and why.

Making choices and making changes are inherently anxiety provoking, and rarely occur without some degree of conflict. In the world at large we’re witnessing a lot of conflict, but many of us are dealing with it at a personal level too. We are each in our ways dealing with anxiety, worry, pain, and fear related to experiences or observations of inner and outer conflict. These are natural human responses to anticipating change and choice.

I think about choice, change, and conflict a lot because they are so much a part of the writing life and telling stories, even in small or subtle ways. Just think: without that bit of inner conflict that arises when we want to write a book but haven’t done it yet, we wouldn’t choose to change our habits to get up early or stay up late to fit our writing in. And if we didn’t throw conflict in our characters’ paths by forcing them to make choices that lead to personal evolution through change, our stories wouldn’t get very far.

As messy as conflict can be, I respect its energy to pressure us to choose and thereby provoke change. And I also respect—or better yet, trust—our human ability to adapt to changing circumstances as well as our ability choose and forge new paths. It’s not easy to change. Not for us or for our story characters. We resist it as much as we long for it. We fear what we may lose, and we don’t trust we can successfully create what we long for, so we often stay stuck.

In the book I’m writing, I tell writers that their story situations “…must be compelling enough to overcome the inertia of being human. The truth is, we’d all rather not change because change is uncomfortable, inconvenient, anxiety-provoking, and often leads to real or imagined loss or even death, as well as changes to beliefs and personal world order. Of course, deep down, we do want to change. We, and our characters, just need the right set of circumstances and enough motivation to do it.”

We seem to be living through such circumstances now, but it’s still hard to know exactly what to do. As our identities and belief systems are being challenged, we are called to examine our mental and moral natures, which are capable of change, but require will, determination, and trust in a vision for a new way of being. I don’t have any answers for rallying that will, focusing that determination, or expanding that trust, except to embrace the clumsy, vulnerable messiness that the choice to change entails—and to have the courage to face the inner and outer conflicts.

Another passage in the book, which is about story characters but also applies to ourselves, seems to fit here: “Change is inherently conflictual whether it occurs on the inside or outside, but without it, we would not grow. We are wired to change. We are wired to evolve. We are wired to heal. And life—in the real version or the story version—provides us with invitation after invitation to rise to those challenges.” Collectively and individually, let’s accept these invitations…and rise.

The Most Important Ten Minutes of Your Day

Are you writing? It’s hard to start, isn’t it? We make such a fuss about starting, especially on those things most important to us. The things with stakes attached. And who doesn’t attach pretty high stakes to chosen dreams? Such as writing.

The expectations we have of ourselves and our work can make starting difficult, but here’s a little known secret: it’s only the first ten minutes that feel hard.

Have you ever noticed that when you start to exercise, things feel pretty rough? For about ten minutes. Then your heart rate is up and energy is coursing through your muscles. What about going to an event where you really don’t know anyone? The first ten minutes—brutal. Then you’re either in a groove or making an educated exit. That project at work that you don’t want to do but it really needs to get done? Give it about ten minutes. You’ll be able to take one more step toward completion.

It takes about ten minutes to transition from one state of mind to another or from one activity to another. Humans are naturally resistant to change (even while we also crave it). Every change comes with a period of discomfort, even small changes that occur in a day. Since we are physiologically wired to avoid pain (discomfort) we often experience resistance as we approach these thresholds of change. And the greater the stakes we’ve associated with the chosen activity (what if I don’t lose five pounds exercising this way? what if I don’t finish the novel I’ve set out to write?) the greater the potential resistance and the harder it can seem to start. My advice? Give it ten minutes.

Encourage yourself to endure ten minutes of discomfort in honor of your chosen dreams. Promise yourself a reward if that helps (though I sometimes find that to be a mental abstraction that doesn’t quite work for me). The greatest rewards start flowing at the fifteen minute mark anyway. Your muscles flex, the words fly across the page, and you’re doing what you said you’d do, which begins to cultivate self trust and self respect, two character attributes necessary for self-motivated work.

There’s a saying bandied about that goes, “No pain, no gain.” I’m not a big proponent of struggle or suffering, but all creators face inner resistance from time to time, and unless we find ways to move through it, our dreams hang out on the horizon and never really get a chance to come into clear focus. So take ten minutes and wade through that inner resistance. They could end up being the most important ten minutes of your day.

Writing and Creative Depression

Depression may seem like a dark topic during the summer, but I’ve noticed it can arise anytime of year, regardless of the circumstances. Sometimes it’s good to take a peek at the dark stuff when we have a lot of access to the light.

At times, dark moods seem to have a magnetic attraction for writers. We hang out in our own minds a lot and our imaginations can run wild and wreak havoc. When the wildness serves us well, for example, by fueling a compulsion to get a whole story down in one fell swoop, the energy can be exhilarating, but when creative energy gets misused, say, by internally hurling harsh judgments at ourselves for not accomplishing a particular goal, or just generally unleashing a slew of “not good enough” arrows our way, the wild energy can be debilitating or even paralyzing. This can lead to feelings of depression.

A lot has been said and written about depression, and I’m by no means throwing my hat in that ring. Rather, I’m speaking about a kind of recurring or persistent, self-defeating depression that tends to afflict many writers and other creative people. (It’s also different from moods brought on by situational grief, loss, or stress.) It’s the kind of depression that your mind says you have no legitimate right to feel, not really, and yet, there it is. You feel it. You can’t really explain it. (In fact, trying to often makes it worse.)

Such creative depression sneaks up on many writers and, in some cases, leads to weeks, months, or years of writer’s block. My friend and mentor, Eric Maisel tracks this type of depression back to a crisis of meaning, and he writes about it elegantly and insightfully in his book The Van Gogh Blues, which I highly recommend to all creative people.

When we care about something deeply, depression has a tendency to link to it. If we care about love and partnership but haven’t yet met someone to share life with, depression can link to all things related to love and partners. If we care about creative success but haven’t yet achieved it in the ways we’ve been aiming for, depression can cling to everything related to creativity. If we care about health and vitality but find ourselves struggling with physical limitations or pain, whether chronic or temporary, depression can drive us to despair, which augments the initial suffering.

The very word “depression” tells us something is being held down. It’s often our well being and resilience, as well as the deep connection to what we care about. We’re at the mercy of a shadow blocking out the light. But shadows don’t exist without light, and so if we can rediscover the ray of hopeful light that emanated from our first innocent care—and we might find some heartbreak there, the crack that let’s the dark in—we can begin to tap into a healing power. That deep care, what we love, is the source of our light.

Reconnecting to the healing power of what we love and care about may take some hunting in the dark. It might not be pretty. Disappointment, dissatisfaction, regret, and bottomless longing can all be part of a writer’s life, and these states lay fertile soil for depression to take root. (Plus there’s plenty going on in the world to add compost to that soil.)

But under it all lies something compelling that once called us forward: the sweet joy of connecting authentically with another person; the wild abandon experienced in the act of making art; the sense of empowerment felt while dancing, running, or cart-wheeling through life. We may not be able to recreate the exact circumstances as that first innocent care, but we must try to tap into the source of whatever inspired us in the first place and reclaim it as part of who we are now. Because we contain all the selves we have already been and they feed the outer edges of the self we are still in the process of becoming, and that should never be held down.

When creative depression hits, dig deep into the roots of what you care about until you find the light. Summer is a time of blooming, warmth, and light; it leads to autumn’s harvest, which then provides nourishment through winter until spring returns. If depression has snuck its way into the margins of your summer, be kind to yourself, reach out and talk to a friend, or write into the places that feel dark or scary, but if depression persists, don’t hesitate to talk to a doctor or therapist.

Enjoy the rest of your summer!

The Uncertainty of Writing

Lately I’ve been dipping into Pema Chodron’s book Comfortable with Uncertainty (Shambhala, 2002). I’m at an uncertain point in my life and needing reminders to breathe deeply, face my fears, and accept that everything is impermanent. I’m reminded that all of this is good advice for the writing life as well. After all, what’s more uncertain than the writer’s life?

When we open up to writing, we, perhaps unwittingly, open up to uncertainty. We cannot predict where the act of writing will take us. Deeper into ourselves? Into new worlds? Into untapped tombs of passion, tenderness, or rage that find a way onto the page?

It takes courage to face the blank page, to explore new areas of our own minds and hearts, and then to put words down without knowing where they’ll lead. It takes courage to face uncertainty. In the process of developing courage, I’ve been exploring these three approaches:

~ Practice accepting that writing, like life, rises from the uncertain places in ourselves as much as the certain ones. We may not know where our writing is leading us, and that’s fine. It’s part of embracing the mystery of being engaged in creativity, of having the courage to breathe and live.

~ Consider handing off some of your uncertainty to your characters. All humans feel uncertain at some point or other, and so readers will be able to identify with the uncertainty of your characters. Vicariously experiencing a character’s uncertainty, and how they handle it, can help us (and readers) gain a new perspective.

~ Place your need for certainty in areas where you have a fair bit of control. If you set aside time to write daily, even if it’s only 10 minutes or 30 minutes, you are in control of this agreement with yourself. There is too much about writing that is beyond a writer’s control. When we have expectations about particular outcomes, or anticipate who might like our work down the road, or carry around other unfulfilled hopes, we end up creating a lot of unnecessary uncertainty because we’re looking for it in places where it doesn’t exist.

Cultivating the courage to deal with uncertainty, in writing and in life, doesn’t make it go away, but it does make us more resilient creators of life and words.