Writing on the edge
It is important and even urgent that I share what I am discovering because soon my shape will change, and when that happens what is hard for me now will not freak out my expanded box so I will not be able to share it anymore with all the fear and anger and sadness and joy I am experiencing at high levels now. I can only share about my edge while I am on it.
The value in writing isn’t so much in the text I produce as in what I discover in the process: sitting down in front of a blank page and letting words appear, this is one of the activities which allows me to slip through the cracks of my box to reach my being, knock at its door and let it speak. Every time I sit and write in this way, I surprise myself with what appears on the paper, what comes out of me. I think: Where is this stuff coming from?! Not from my box, or it wouldn’t be surprised.
I write because I am a woman trying to stand up in my life. I write because to form a word with your lips and tongue or think a thing and then dare to write it down so you can never take it back is the most powerful thing I know. I am trying to come alive (..) There are times when it’s only coming to the notebook that I truly do face my own life. — N.Goldberg.
This is a place where Possibility Management meets what I have always been doing: to find ways to meet and express my being, make each day surprising, remind myself that I have a box but I am not this box, that there is a lot to be expressed from my being which I have not discovered yet, and that there is a lot of value in my writing to bring more Clarity and Possibility around me.
I call this free flow writing, or stream of consciousness writing. It works well late at night when the mind is less dominant, or first thing in the morning, like a meditation. I highly recommend writing these “morning pages” as a way to get the creative juices flowing. This is a practice introduced by Julia Cameron in her classic book “the Artist’s Way”.
I write because there’s a tension in my body that dissipates only this way which is like the compression of a membrane between my intellectual body and my energetic body. This tension only releases when by writing I take a stand: to be a source sending shock waves out to freak peoples’ boxes out; starting extra-ordinary conversations; discovering new possibilities I don’t yet see; deepening the vision and context of my community gameworld; birthing next culture.
We all have so much value to share from the experiments we are doing, from what we discover, at all stages of the journey — especially if it’s hard for you to express yourself, especially if your box is telling you that you are not ready, that you still have a long way to go and that your discoveries are not valuable to others. So write! Writing is always available and your bodies and feelings are speaking out, every day.
So when we write and begin with an empty page and a heart unsure, a famine of thoughts, a fear of no feeling — just begin from there, from that electricity. This kind of writing is uncontrolled, is not sure where the outcome is, and it begins in ignorance and darkness. But facing those things, writing from that place, will eventually break us and open us to the world as it is. Out of this tornado of fear will come a genuine writing voice. — N.Golberg
I write because the days pass by like thick clouds with no space between them to see clearly, often with barely a chance to catch them, though I try (though I try!), and putting words on paper creates a space in which the world slows down enough for me to grab it, to sense it (without necessarily making sense of it).
I write because it’s my best tool to change the world: I can change the world with words because our world is mostly made of stories and to practice crafting them and delivering them is to become God, it’s the highest form of power.
I write to meet myself, to find the value in my own path, to press the juices out from my five bodies and by listening to them to be able to nourish them with what they are asking for.
I am unique and my feelings are authentic and powerful. My presence and my voice are needed to give birth to next culture. My life now is anything but pointless or random, the world is not dying but rebirthing; never was there a more exciting time to be alive, the world needs me now, needs us all to be fully alive: human beings committed to doing the work to get our lives back, becoming initiated, feeling, asking dangerous questions, going non-linear.
I write because a dragon lives inside me which hasn’t yet fully nested in my physical body, and has volumes to say about the boxes we live in and the obsolete yet still dominant culture we were raised in and the severed sense of belonging to Gaia and to our bodies — particularly to our energetic and archetypal bodies. I write because breaking through the apathy, self-effacement and confusion I created as survival strategies is hard work — these have got the better of me for years, and now I want my life back. I am giving the dragon a voice!
I write to build bridges between my bodies, between my being and other beings and Gaia. I write because I feel fear to share my self, and struggle with the voices in my head which say “Who cares what you have to say? It’s not valuable, it’s not original”. Since I recognize these are voices in my head, I can do this experiment: I close my eyes and ask — whose voices are those?
I am about 10 years old.. I am bursting with energy, creativity.. then voices of other kids, kids terrified of originality, they see my Being and try to kill it with “Who do you think you are? Noone cares! Stop showing off! You’re just a little boy!” And so for years I listened to the voices and made myself smaller and gave them my center. This is not working for me anymore, so now I take my voice blaster and shoot these useless voices of the past down: bam bam Bam!
I keep my center, my own voice, and I share my gold. I continue writing, creating, letting my five bodies speak, letting my feelings speak, letting the dragon speak. I have so much to say.
Here’s a piece of gold: after writing a while in a cafe I was closing my notebook and getting up to leave, then I felt an impulse to sit back down, and wrote this:
‘There’s more- when I want to leave, that’s when I’ve reached the edge of my comfort zone, where I face the unknown and have the choice- do I move on and busy myself with the next thing, follow the linear plan of the day, or do I sit here uncomfortably and discover what’s in front of me at this edge?
So what’s here? I feel fear of this room with no familiar faces; there’s a tension in my body that doesn’t allow all sounds, words, and feelings to come out; there’s the routine pressure of putting on a good, reasonable show, to act as an adult man is expected to by modern culture; there’s my emotional body that is starving for open-heart conversation, to share authentically and shamelessly, to be held; there’s my archetypal body calling me to take a stand today, not to let another day pass by idling — reminding me Evolution requires commitment, that this extraordinary space I’m building around myself takes work, clarity, truth; and there’s fear of just not having time to do everything I want to do.
Push yourself beyond when you think you are done with what you have to say. Go a little further. Sometimes when you think you are done, it is just the edge of beginning. Probably that’s why we decide we’re done. It’s getting too scary. We are touching down onto something real. It is beyond the point when you think you are done that often something strong comes out. — N.Goldberg.
I’ve realized lately that this thing of “not having time” is a huge blockage for me. What can I discover behind this fear? I keep writing:
“It paralyses me, so I end up doing less or nothing. Anyway I can’t do it all, can’t please them all, so I may as well have fun, relax, let me gremlin have a feeding frenzy — eat, drink, entertain myself. The fear is of failing, never being good enough even if I try, so why try? As a child I got hurt by being rejected and failing when I tried. I’m stronger if I don’t try, rebel, hide. So I was hiding from rejection by parents, teachers, my brother, other kids, groups- but now I’m not hiding from them anymore, I’m hiding from myself, what I’m avoiding is my own path, my own life. Why would I do that? I’ve confused the strategy with the origin of it. So now I can relocate my point of origin from that place of ‘not good enough, danger’ to a new place of Love, acceptance, value, clarity, and high-level fun.
This fear of not having time has many layers and I will explore it further with EHPs, and I feel joy because I’ve already made a big discovery and shift this morning just using a pen.
The power is in my hands.
All quotes from the book “Writing down the bones” by Natalie Goldberg.
