The Sublime Passage

Today was a good day. I went to my writing group, which I mentioned a few posts ago. I said that I might talk about it and since today it felt even  more powerful than usual, I guess I will.

I first attended this group over a year and a half ago at the recommendation of a dear friend.   I’d never done anything like this. I hadn’t done much writing outside of school and work, so it was a little nerve wracking. The idea of writing stuff and then reading it to other people, strangers no less, was terrifying.  What would I write about? I couldn’t imagine that I had anything interesting or important to say. I realized very quickly that in fact I had something to say and it was important. Not important because it was necessarily going to solve humanity’s problems, but because it was my truth.

Up to that point I’d always considered myself to be a pretty self-expressive person. I always viewed myself as someone who spoke her mind.  It was only when I started writing that I understood how suppressed my voice had been. So suppressed that I didn’t even know it.  Even when I did express myself, I did so through the filter of my expectations of myself and the expectations I believed others had of me. Deep down inside I was terrified to say what I truly thought or felt or believed.  I was convinced that if I did so I’d somehow be letting others down by not meeting their supposed or real expectations of me. I was afraid of people thinking I was stupid. Afraid of being judged and rejected.  It was as if I’d been holding my breath for as long as I could remember. Â

The greatest gift of this writing group has been reconnecting with a voice – my voice – which I didn’t even know I’d lost, so buried was it.  Each time I write, I feel more and more of my voice coming out and it feels so good to just say whats on my mind and in my heart. And each time, when I read what I’ve written,  I look around expecting people to be shocked, horrified, disappointed, or uncomfortable. No one ever is. Not only are they not shocked, but most of the time what I see on the faces around me is recognition of some shared experience. Understanding.  The looks seems to say “I know exactly what you mean. I’ve been there. I’ve felt that. You’re not alone. Its not just you. Me too!”Â

This is what I love about books and writing in general I suppose. The real truth, which is that we really are the same.  The stories might be different. The locations, the languages, the nationalities, the gender. Whatever. But the humanity is the same. The same themes run through every book I’ve ever read.  Love, hope, joy, pain, fear.  I believe its the Course in Miracles which says “There is only one of us here”.  When I go to writing group, it seems so clear to me that this is true.  We are one.  We feel pain the same way. Long for love and peace the same way.  We want what’s best for ourselves and our families.  Our fear and neurosis can get in the way of that and cause us to do ugly things, but I believe with all my heart that underneath it all, our basic desires and motivations are the same.

There is only one of us here.

Here is something that I wrote in today’s group which sort of sums up my feelings.  (You should know that I am an obsessive self-editor. I’ve been known to spend an hour editing a one paragraph e-mail. I am proud to say that in spite of a burning desire to “fix” this piece, it is completely unedited. Just as I wrote it.)

Here We Are

Here we all are. Strangers, yet not. Different, yet not.  Odd how it feels something like coming home here. Odd how it seems this place is one where it actually seems possible that I can speak my truth and speak it out loud.   When my pen drops down onto paper in this place, my emotions seem to flood out of me and pour onto the page.   Sometimes inky, murky black. Sometimes pink and flowery. Sometimes a swirl of colors all mixed in together, so I can’t even tell where one begins and another ends.  I realize that this mess of emotional colors is me.  Is what I’m thinking and feeling. I often walk away feeling a little tired. I never realized how much energy it can take to speak your heart.  When I am here I find myself writing and saying things which astonish me. They come up, like long held burps of feeling that can no longer be contained.  They rise from my belly and push forth into existence. Perphaps more shocking than their fierce insistence of being released it that there are no gasps of horror when I speak these thoughts into being. The earth does not shudder, the hearers do not recoil. In fact all that happens is that I feel a sense of relief. A lightness. I realize that I held my tongue for so long because someone – and I’m not sure who – told me that it wasn’t OK to say what I really thought. Really felt.  Really believed. And I, obedient as I am, I held my silence until it could be held no more. Until my eyes began to bulge, my stomach distend and my chest tighten with the awful strain of holding it all in. It couldn’t last. Implode or speak. These were my only options. And now, I feel the blessed freedom of speaking my heart.