I’m trying to keep the faith. Despite my “choose happiness” pep-rally blog yesterday, well sometimes it’s just hard. If I have to recite a mantra to convince myself to BELIEVE, BELIEVE, BELIEVE that there will be light at the end of the tunnel then that’s what I have to do. I look for graces everywhere; signs I’m on the right path and not insane to write a play. I’ve never done this before. I’ve only known bits and bytes, and talking about “processes”, “methodologies” and “testing” (in every possible flavor.)
I think this is probably the gift of suffering, though I’m not really suffering. It’s a metamorphosis, and I’m transitioning to a different me. I’ve been split in my mentality between the professional IT dudette. I’ve got to commit to the dream now.
“The darkest hour of the night is just before dawn.” – Thomas Fuller
As part of keeping the faith I booked all my hard earned vacation days to do some writing. It’s part of my commitment to finish the play. I’m fearful that nothing will come out, or nothing worthwhile. (See there’s the critic already raising its ugly head… “You can’t do it. You don’t know how.”) People at work ask, “Are you doing anything on your vacation?”, “Are you going anywhere?”, “What are you going to do?” I answer simply with “I have something I have to finish and I’ve got to take time to do it.”
I haven’t been writing rigorously, meaning, I don’t sit down daily and write the play. I’ve just been doing a lot of marinating and let insights bubble up, and look for common themes that leads me to the underlying theme of the story. Maybe marinating is okay, and part of the process. But I’m compelled to think that I need to strike a balance between “just marinating” and actually putting down tracks.
I had one of the situations put up for a reading last week, and that fired me up to go further. One step at a time, one day at a time… maybe I should look up the 12 step program and see if there’s anything there of use to me. What is my addiction? Negative thoughts? I took this list from aa.org website and replaced alcohol with Negative Thoughts
THE TWELVE STEPS OF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
1. We admitted we were powerless over negative thoughts—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to negative thinkers, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Sure. There are some things on this list I can use to empower me for finishing the play, and I’ll start with #11. I believe this idea of writing a play is not random, and that I’m being led to this path, and there are people and circumstances opening up to me that will help me. But I need to be open to these opportunities. So go write!
Thank you.
