As I got into my teen years, things got more complicated.
My family came apart, and I went to live with my grandparents for a few years. It was a blessing that I had been praying for, and a chance to see what other ideas life could hold.
You can read more about this in my book, Prevail.
For now, I want to talk about what that time was like. It was a time of intense turmoil for me, and for the whole country, late in the 1960s. There seemed to be nowhere to go that would be safe from the craziness we all were experiencing.
I was an uprooted person, with no clear idea of who I wanted to be. The chance to reinvent myself was not lost on me, so I created an identity that was something to hide behind, telling nobody what I was really thinking or feeling. A photo of me from that time shows the deep distrust I felt for everything that moved.
Yet I projected a sunny and even silly picture of myself, made the effort to get good grades, and gathered people around me who supported me in different ways. I got involved in "the scene", got in trouble, got on probation. My options became more limited, as I struggled to keep up with all the things that I needed to do. I kept up with my school work, went to church, went out to shows with the local band, breaking the ice on the dance floor to get people moving.
I took a lot of writing classes, and had reading and writing homework every night that was huge. For one class alone I had to write at least five pages a day, read and critique magazines, study the ancient masters of rhetoric, and more, with additional books being assigned to be read and reviewed.
That teacher, who was about to retire, shaped me in ways I didn't understand for decades. She was both loving and ruthless. She read and reviewed every word, and if you presented a false or indefensible premise, she would rip it apart in a phrase or two. I loved and feared her as the towering intellect that she was. To this day, I can feel her words in my heart. I remember how she impressed upon us the power of words, and the responsibility that comes with knowing how to use them. She gave us amazing tools, and warned us of the consequences to our souls if we abused them. She was VERY serious about it! I realize now that she was especially strict with me because she knew that I had a lot of conflict in my heart, and wanted to be sure I got it right. There was no fooling her. She had seen it all.
After high school, I was so fed up with "the system" that I dropped out of society, which was thought to be a good idea by some. The idea appealed to me, to my sense of adventure, to my desire to escape. I hit the road, traveling around to different places in different ways, finding out quickly that the life I had envisioned of a happy bohemian existence wasn't anywhere close to the reality of that.
The hippie dream had ended just before I joined, and the craziness I fell into was far more intense than I was able to cope with at the age of 17. I think back on it, and have to say that I was at least brave, to the point of being foolhardy in many cases. Amazingly, I survived some truly insane situations.
One thing led to another, and I found myself in Big Sur, where I didn't expect to stay long. Wrong again. I have been here for 45 years as of this writing. For a while, I didn't write. Things got too difficult, and it took everything I had to cope with the situations I found myself in.
Then I began to write again, on a different scale, and for far different reasons.
I'll tell you more about how that happened, how it felt, what I did about it, in another post...it's "another story". Want to hear more about the forces I dealt with, and the insights I gained from them?
Read Prevail: Seven Keys to Create a Personal Victory
Yes, I was a bookworm. As a child, I read constantly, and rode my bike for miles to get a fresh stack from the library every week. It was easy for me to memorize things, so I was thrilled when I got a set of encyclopedias, the ones you got from the grocery store for buying things and filling up books of stamps.
I began to memorize it right away. The result of this surprised me. People began to view me as being a problem. I had too much energy, too many questions...I made up stories!
In fifth grade, I had read every book in the children's section, and had to be allowed to go upstairs where the main library was. I was surely the odd one, there. Not allowed to go into the certain section not considered suitable for my age group! I didn't caer about that. I wante dmore pictures of far away places, more facts about language.
Bigger and heavier, the books were far more absorbing, making me think. I wanted that.
I was the one who you could yell right at and I wouldn't even look up, since I didn't hear you. Lost in the world of books, I kept my secrets. I didn't have to tell anyone what I was thinking or feeling. In fact, I didn't even have to feel it myself. I lived through stories, and then through facts. I carried the huge dictionary I had been given to school, and spent my lunch hours studying to win the spelling bee. It wasn't easy, since I had a rival who was as driven as I was. We went head to head every week.
"Mississippi", "Antidisestablishmentarianism"...one false step and it was all over.
It was comforting to dive into the sea of words, look up their origins, put them together, take them apart. They came from other languages that went before, other ways of thinking, other civilizations...time to read some history!
I was the really odd bird who thought that diagramming sentences was fun. Words, what a great world...far from where most of the people lived.
Words became my trusted refuge...It was part of the journey that took me through a truly tormented time, as I found that language gave me a refuge from the harsh events of my daily life. I kept that love alive, even through wrapping it in silence. In short, I earned to clam up!
For me, it was a time when expressing myself could be dangerous. My home life was filled with unpredictable violence and abuse, and there were very good reasons to keep silent. Besides that, there were some bullies in the area, and I was one of their targets. Sometimes just getting to and from school was enough!
I still kept learning everything I could about language. It turned out I was good at learning foreign languages, too, so I got enrolled in the first pilot program for American students to learn Russian during the 1960s. After we moved to a different state, I took some French, then later Spanish, and German. As an adult, I learned to speak Indonesian. Language is the portrait of the soul. Each language is a unique expression of the culture and the people who formed it, who use it.
I have a collection of tiny dictionaries and phrase books that could take me to many countries, with a basic knowledge of how to speak. I could indeed go far, far away (Not likely to get as far as Saturn, though) and still understand and make myself understood.
Yes, fascinating is the word. I hid in it. Now I am coming out to speak and write it. It's time to get the message out.
And I want to help you do that, too.
Call me obsessed, but the picture to the left reminds me so much of what writing is like.
To start out, all the ideas are right there, ready to be expressed, and what I want to say seems very clear. The simple truth is ready to just flow onto the page. elegance, perfection, satisfaction.
And some days, it is. Everything just flows, and I am into the rhythm, and before I know it I have learned something new just by thinking about my topic. Deeper insights come and say their piece.
Or, I have been looking up references, listening to music to get the juices going, and so on. It's all a lovely picture, full of color, texture, and meaning. Getting to the other side seems very simple and easy.
But sometimes, it's not like that at all. There is pressure of some kind, some type of irritation is present and my inspiration is off on a quick vacation. It's like all of a sudden, realizing I am going to have to WALK to the other side of the canyon, not fly.
I call this "the aggravation moment". It's at that point that the thought creeps in, "Why the H word did I think this was a good idea?"
The creative process is full of this kind of stuff. Just when everything seems completely impossible, I get a tap on the shoulder that tells me to keep going. Or, again, it all seems to be lined up just right, and then something happens that changes the whole conversation. The way I thought was good for organizing turns out to be not at all what was needed. My ideas have already been expressed so many times, why would anyone want to hear what I have to say? and so on.
Then come the excuses. Then the lack of enthusiasm becomes toxic. Then guilt sets in. UGH. This is not a pretty picture.
Why am I bringing this up? Because it's real. Getting stuck and having a bad time with your own dream is part of what happens when you make the decision to express yourself. If you think about it, this happens no matter what you are doing in any creative activity.
But you know what? It's worth it!
Being an artist, writer, and creative person is worth doing whatever it takes.
My life is so much better because I took the chance.
When I just go ahead and write anyway, whether or not I like the way I feel, I am taking action on my dreams.
And without taking action, the dreams remain only dreams, with no chance of becoming reality. Here's the thing...I'm not willing to let my dreams fizzle away because I wasn't ready to go through some hard stuff. Every bit of that hard stuff has value, has meaning.
So, if you have a dream, a deep desire to do things that will enrich your world, if you want to express yourself to the fullest, go ahead and step into your dream. Don't just look at it. Breathe it in, become it. Live it.
Take action!
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Creativity, life, love! Let's talk about YOU and your process.
If you have been reading my blog for a while, you have noticed that I like to take a cheery view of things and present ways that you can uplift your state of mind, your emotional well-being, take steps to enhance your creative life.
Maybe you have the impression that I am a goody two shoes, or a Pollyanna sort, who ignores the hard stuff in life. Or, if you have known me for a long time, you surely know that is not the case. You would know that I have a pretty salty attitude sometimes, and why that is so.
Either way, I'm going to change the tone of this blog and see what happens.
I've decided to open up about what it's really been like to live the creative life, from the inside, and in particular, about my journey to becoming a writing coach. It's not all so much fun and games!
The decision to write has been a no-brainer for me. I've always written things down, even when I lived in dire poverty, and tucked them away into notebooks in hopes that someday things would be different. I made collages of images that made me happy, and opened up the books to inspire myself when the outside world wasn't giving me any space to express myself. I felt a sense of identity that I couldn't have in other ways, and it gave the hope that my vision cold be real. I drew pictures, wrote poems, and wrote short essays about the things that I cared about. For a long time, they just sat in the notebooks, biding their time.
Poverty is bad for the soul. It makes people angry and cynical, and it stifles creativity as though it were a luxury. In fact, creativity is the road out of poverty. Taking small steps, one at a time, I began to build new roads into life, out of the isolation that I was experiencing. I began to hope for prosperity and acknowledgement, for a better life.
Nurturing hope when everybody around you is talking doom, behaving in cynical ways, expressing anger, is not easy to do. And it's not a road to popularity, either. So a lot went on in the deep silent spaces, where the eyes of the curious and the voices of the critical couldn't reach. My interior life has been my strength. Now I want to share it with you.
What was it like to hide like that? I felt bad about myself from just about every angle. I bought into stories that didn't serve me, and that held me back from becoming my true self. Let's be honest...it sucked.
And how did that change?
What was it that pushed me out of my comfort zone, caused me to feel that I absolutely HAD to do something different? It's not a story for one blog post. It will take a while to talk about this transformation. The reason I am doing it is that I feel it can add more value to your life than I can by making pretty images for you. There's still a place for pretty images, and I will offer those, too. My hope is that you will value them more by understanding what makes them so important to me, and relate more completely with what they mean for you.
In the coming weeks and months, I will open up about my story in ways that I haven't done before. I hope this will be of value to you, my reader. Thanks for your loyalty and support. It's not going to be easy to do this. It will be worth it, if I can help you to become inspired to step out of whatever limitations you may be experiencing.
Schedule some time to talk with me about writing and what it can do for you.
Here's a view of
New Orleans from the 22nd floor, taken years ago when I was there visiting with my son before he started flight school. It was a great time to visit!
When we arrived, the whole city was mad with joy, as the Saints won over the Vikings in the game that would take them to the Superbowl.
Everywhere, people were dancing in the streets. The entire city was one big party that went on till dawn.
I'm not a football person, but that didn't matter. It wasn't about football as much as it was about life, about overcoming tragedy, about being filled with joy.
The whole atmosphere was magical, and just thinking about it now puts me into wonderful frame of mind. This kind of stuff stays with you!
Now time has moved along, and it's been a bit of time since people walked by on the street, and said, "Hey, don't worry about nothin', baby. You in Big Easy, now." Bless their hearts, they meant it, too. Time can't change the feeling of love that was being shared in those moments.
And I still remember. A feeling like that is worth cultivating and keeping in your heart. The great moments that you have to reflect on in your life can sustain you through a lot of other stuff. What really great times have you known? When you think about them, what kind of feelings come up for you? What do they mean for you?
How can you share those feelings with others, keep them alive, use them to nourish your dreams? I want to help you do this.
Let's tap into your creative powers!
Have a really great day, and remember the good things.
With tiny houses becoming more and more popular, it seems fitting to have a look at the tiniest one I've seen so far. This Lego house was made by my grandson Liam one day when we were playing together.
Doesn't it make you think of how simple life once was? Making a really cool house in just a few minutes, with just the basics...a dream come true. Seeing the little house fills me with happiness as I think of the delights of simple fun.
Now that you are grown up enough to read this, you have a lot more layers of reality to deal with, and life doesn't seem quite as simple as it once did.
Lots to do, to think about, many roles to play, the list goes on and on. And still, after all the doing and getting has been done, what is it that makes life good? It's the simple times of enjoyment when nothing much is going on.
That's the time when your soul cuts loose and you have a feeling of quiet happiness, that nurtures you and your heart. How to simplify your life, so that you have more of those times, may be something you'd really like to explore. One step at a time, you can change the overwhelming feeling of having too many things filling up your life, into a feeling of knowing you can handle what comes up, make time for your creative projects, and just enjoy life more in every way.
Getting organized in new ways that nourish your inner states and feed your creativity is a great process. It frees up your energy and makes the texture of life more open. You can have a flow of energy that feels good and supports you in being able to put more into the things that really matter to you. Do you have a project in writing or the arts that you haven't been able to get going, or keep going?
Find out how to make more time in your life for doing the things you love.
Believe in your dreams, and know that life can still hold moments of simple delight.
Best wishes,
Betty
Here you see how simple getting some help can be.
Stepping up to the challenges of life is a constant path to greater self-knowledge and self-worth. It's all too easy to think you have to "go it alone" or "be the one" in order to make what you do and who you are be and feel worthy.
But it's not true! The real truth is that nobody ever did anything "all by their lonesome", except to BE that lonesome. Anything that is worth doing in life is worth getting help to make it the best you can do.
Creative work is a great example of this. Without someone to appreciate the art, the expression, the message, there is no interaction, no message returning from the Universe. The return of the message circulates the great ideas of humanity, and even the most humble expression has all of that in it, showing a face of the great circulation of energy that is Life itself.
Help and guidance always make life better. The person who listens to you and tells you what they think of what you have said is the one who helps you to see the point of it all, who gives your message greater resonance, by asking you what you meant, by affirming, by disagreeing, perhaps.
When I wrote my book, Prevail, the input that I got from others along the way was invaluable in keeping me on track, focused, and expanding the message. People who read my drafts really helped me to see deeper into the material and encouraged me to put more of myself into the book. Without my editor, I would have missed the point of what I was writing! The tough questions, and the encouraging tone he had, combined to add a dimension I could never have achieved on my own.
Your friends, your readers, your critics...each has a place in your work. Want some feedback about your ideas, strategies to bring your work to light and help you move up to the next step in your life?
Your inspiration is standing right next to you, tapping its foot, waiting for you to get started....I will help you get going, stay on track, refine your creative force.
Let's talk about your message and your creative expression.
The world needs for you to tell us your truth. Who are you, what have you done, what have you learned? What are you so interested in that you could talk about it all day? What do you know that nobody else does? Will you tell me about it?
I'd love to know.
This is the time for the hidden voices of the creative to be heard, the work of our hands to be known. Reach out and grab the handle!
What great pictures, great stories, are lurking within you, waiting to be seen, heard, felt?
Get some support to make your dreams a reality.
I am ready to support you. Please get in touch, and let's make it happen.
Many Blessings,
Betty
