Self-Help.
Episode 65.
This is Episode 65. I have been writing for a long time- much longer than 65 weekly blog/newsletters. I am grateful for this space to write. I am grateful for your eyes as funnels to process my words, and your brain and heart available to connect with my stories.
This past winter, I set out to compile my writing into a book. A book?? I really didn't want to write a book, I just wanted to have a book title. I have had about 100 book titles floating around my brain, knocking against various emotional, mental, and physical manifestations of all that I have sifted out onto pages over years.
Words. So many words.
Words allow me to hash out my thoughts. Words connect and bridge and formulate and meld. Words are the cars upon the tracks of a roller coaster. Words are the peak of each wave, crashing upon the shore. Words are juice. Words are inspiration. Words are passion. Words have been my craft, my profession, my teaching, my sculpting.
Words. So many words.
I took a pause in my book, because I was hesitating in pressing forward in the self-help realm, adding just one more stack of chapters to an over-flooded genre.
Last week, my mom sent me a Boston Globe newspaper clipping with the below quote, speaking to self-help as a genuine and authentic depiction of experience, which inspired me, once more, to resume and rekindle my book. I will use my next SHIFT, #66, to trace some words that will encompass my deep dive into assembling the chapters of my book.
"In the months I have been working through self-help books for this column, I've learned the ones that work best for me don't offer up action items or simple to-dos. They're ones that illuminate something I've felt too uneasy to say. They drive away the urge to frame these feelings as problems only I have. Am I happy? Am I doing this right? Maybe not. But maybe none of us are. And maybe that's OK." -Christina Tucker, Columnist for Boston Globe, Elle, Vogue, NBC News, & NPR Podcaster
In reading Christina's position on self help, I reflect on similar musings I have had on the topic... self-help...more than the therapizing of "help", but an account of a genuine journey and muck-filled path... a messy and real testament to corroborate our very humanness...unpacking our backpacks of all the heaviness we have lugged, deciding to hold hands and be connected, trusting to unravel the dormant traumas and reveal our naked selves, knowing that with all our holes, we are whole.
"Self Help."
Is there stigma to "needing help"? Is there a sense of ego in focusing on "self"? Is there a hint of narcissism in assuming our own story "matters"? I can give my opinion on all these questions, but then I am playing right into the stigma, the egotistic narcissist labels. Some of us are drawn to this self-help genre, while even more of us probably avoid it like the plague. Perhaps we re-define "self help", or attribute an alternate label to the term. Perhaps connecting in a genuine and authentic human experience-share is more useful as we unpack our stories, our traumas, our anxieties, our fears; as we journey to grow and develop and thrive in this world as humans; as we long to belong, to connect, to partner.
I heard Neil Gaiman say that sharing your story is a generous gift. So here I am, putting some words out there... words that have already taken shape as stories... sharing... connecting... words... more than self-help...
...to be continued...
Jessica
“You can live a whole life time never being awake.”
― Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior
“Action always happens in the present, because it is an expression of the body, which can only exist in the here and now. But the mind is like a phantom that lives only in the past or future. It's only power over you is to draw your attention our of the present.”
― Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior
"Everything you'll ever need to know is within you; the secrets of the universe are imprinted on the cells of your body."
― Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior
Do it all with Love. Nothing is promised. But everything is workable.
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