Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Past, Present...Future | The Emotion Connection

When this blog started in 2006, I was feeling the sting of my last single friend getting engaged, my most recently married friend becoming a mother and my very, very best friend coming out of the closet.

I felt shitty - confusion, anger, self-loathing and had just learned about blogging. I thought at the very least, I can channel some of that into a blog.

I was on the right train, but got off at the wrong stop. Just after all that happened, I bought my first e-book called "Blogging to the Bank" by Rob Benwell and I thought, oh-ho-ho-ho, make some money channeling onto a blog, talk about win-win-win.


I read the e-book and in theory it all sounded just peachy keen and doable.

In practice, well the archives tell that story very well.

So what happened?

Why couldn't I get a simple blog going? Simple, yeah and simple ain't easy.

Fear happened. Confrontation happened. For the love of all that is logical, analytical and common sensical in the world, emotions came up instead.

Delusions of grandeur showed up - What if this product doesn't help everyone?
Shame stood up beside ridicule and asked - What if we get laughed at? What if friends and family find this and see our deepest darkest secrets?
Fear of success AND failure pipped in - What if it doesn't work, what if it does (see shame and ridicule)?
Finally esteem and worthiness questioned - What if were just too stoopid to do this?

Wait, that last one cut deep, what if I am just to stoopid and not good enough and will always be single and will die an old dried up bitter black woman with 10 cats and 20 dogs who are emaciated and ill-cared for and, and....and...

That's when I realized, writing, in and of itself would make me face all that stuff, plus the other stuff hiding under the first stuff.

I didn't think I could face any of it and I definitely couldn't share it.

So I didn't share it.

I did start writing though, in journals. Next, I wrote morning pages, which became late night, after work, man that pisses me off pages.

I scribbled on scrap paper while I was driving.

I composed in my head and then immediately forgot what I composed when I went to write it down. So I found an old mini-cassette recorder (hey don't laugh.)

I realized I was running from something, no someone, from myself or at least half of myself, possibly my best half.

I was running from 'emotion' like it was "The Creature from the Black Lagoon".

I wasn't really running, suppressing, yes, avoiding, yes, ignoring and pretending, yes and yes.

All that came up when I decided to write a niche blog on finding a soulmate. Go figure.

No way I'm sharing, no freakin way. It was too new, too raw, too real and to use that to make money - ick, yuck, tft, tft, tft.

That was then.

Now, my present reality tells me it's time to find some strength in sharing and to acknowledge publicly that I have real, complex, confusing emotions. That I don't even know what some of them are called yet. And it doesn't matter.

Balance, that's where I'm aiming.

Ready. Fire. Action - Get Blogging To The Bank by clicking the image below.

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