Why I AM Writing the Book That I Don’t Want to Write
May 16, 2010
Nope, it’s not what you think. It’s not for the usual reasons. I’m not trying to make more money, get more business or be on Oprah – although my blog fan Brian thinks I should!
I am writing the book that I don’t want to write because I must. Yep that’s right I have no choice. I have to do it.
What no choice you say?
Doesn’t that go against everything you believe about choice, free will and the use of language to create your reality Annie?
Not in this case.
The lack of choice is this – there are some things we want to do because they feel good to us, a natural step in our growth. But there are other things that we need to do but that are out of our comfort zone.
These things that don’t feel comfortable are often for a greater purpose than we know. We need to grow, not just for ourselves but for the evolution of humankind as well.
That’s why I’m writing this book.
When we do not grow according to this uncomfortable urging, we stay stuck and stuck is not what I want. I want to grow and I imagine you do too.
So why I am writing this book is because it’s a must-do urging of my soul, not a wanna-do urging from the easier side of life. I want to grow so I’m willing to leap through hurdles to do it.
And this has been a HU
GE hurdle! Like an elephant in my bedroom It’s been haunting at night. I have tried to ignore it but it won’t go away.
Imagine a tusk-bearing elephant trumpeting loudly in your ear while you try to sleep.
Not so easy right?
That’s how these stories have been speaking to me – LOUDLY. But loud is good. If it wasn’t loud I would keep trying to ignore it. You know those things that just won’t go away?
It’s an urging from the depths of the soul and I am heeding the call (hear bugle call here).
In June I’m going off to Arizona to write my book in only 8 days. Why waste time after something’s been haunting you for years right? Right.
Eight days and the baby will be birthed and I will be free of the torture. Just kidding, but it is torture in the sense that I have a muse who is haunting me. She has chosen me for this book and once they choose you, they won’t let you off the hook.
So who is this not-so-amusing muse that is haunting me? Well she’s a kind of Love Goddess. I know that sounds silly but I actually have a voice in my head who talks to me about the screwed up state of love on this planet and what she wants me to do about it.
Me who has considered myself a total failure in this regard! It’s kind of like flunking math – now you want me to teach it??
But according to her, that’s exactly why I have to write this book – because of my experiences that have seemed more like Chinese water torture than love, SHE feels that I have gained some wisdom.
Anyway, she feels that something is seriously screwed up down here on Planet Earth in the realm of love and relationships and she wants me to do something about it.
What an irony right?
Hardy, har, har. It’s a great cosmic joke (start laughing now).
Yes I am going o write a book about an area of life that I have totally failed in!
Or have I??
According to my Chief personal consultant who keeps me on track he says, “We all need experience to create wisdom. A great Captain learns on the seas of outrageous fortune – never from sitting all day in a small, safe harbor. You are meant to live large and prosper – to suck the marrow from your huge, wild experiences – then share the resulting wisdom.”
Beautiful!
And my niece Devon who was the catalyst for my getting started told me, “Annie you need to write these stories. We need them. We need your wisdom in this area so we know we’re not alone.”
So here I go folks, leaping off the edge of comfort and into the raw and real zone. I hope you’ll come along for the ride.
Your gifts don’t always come from what’s comfortable for you. Today, take a leap with me and find the zone that is beyond what feels easy, good or comfortable. Why? Because we want to change the world.
And if we get on Oprah then we’ll share together.
The Storyteller Tells Her Stories
February 20, 2010
It’s time to take a leap. Every now and then in your life, more often then I’d like, it’s time to take a deeper plunge, a bigger risk and really go for the gold. So I am going to be writing and telling my own very personal and sometimes painful stories for the very first time.
Whew! Breathe.
It’s not easy! I make it look and seem easy for other people, that’s my gift. But damn it is really hard to do for myself. Luckily I have found just the right team as it honestly takes a team to pull these stories out of me. They don’t want to come out on their own.
These stories are like little long-fingered underwater creatures who are gripping onto the rocks so they don’t have to let go. Eeeeeek!
Why is it so scary to tell personal stories? Very personal stories.
Gosh, I could give you a long list of the reasons that it’s so scary. It seems silly to say but it actually feels life threatening to a part of us. Telling our stories is a way out of the box that we have lived in. We are bound by the emotions, the memories and the meanings of our past stories and thus like the famous Pandora’s box, we must liberate them.
Fortunately as I said, I have just the right team – I have my wonderful reliable weekly writing buddy whom I meet weekly at the local Barnes and Noble coffee shop so we can write together. We’ve been doing this for some months now.
In case you’d want to know my reason for meeting there – it’s because they have sunshine streaming in the windows (I need to feel warm), great Earl Grey tea (I need to have good tea) and a bag of delicious potato chips doesn’t hurt.
Basically it’s a good way to bribe myself to keep on going doing something that is hard!
Then I have my fabulous listening buddy who is helping me tell the stories orally. Written stories and orally told stories are two very different animals and so I know from my own story guiding of others, that the deeper, more painful and often more powerful stories need to be ‘listened out of you.’
My story Maestro listens to me very carefully. He is impeccable in his listening, which is what I really need. He does not trod on my heart nor make those kinds of comments afterwards that make you wish you’d never told your story. He wears a white velvet glove of purity that makes the telling easy.
To be impeccable in your listening you have to be out of your out of your own way – be really silent and really present.
But here is the best part of all. He also makes me laugh while I’m crying! Yesterday was a perfect example.
Yesterday as I was telling a difficult story (and blowing my nose through the telling), I suddenly heard an indescribable noise, a kind of ‘crkkkkrrrrrr‘ sound. Hmm, what was that???
He didn’t say anything about it and I heard him make an ‘uh huh‘ sound like he was listening, so I just carried on.
A minute later I couldn’t hear him, so I asked, “Are you there Chief?” (that’s one of my nicknames for him). Then there was the sound of scramble, scramble, scramble and then he says, “Yes I’m here. I just kicked the microphone over.” Perfect timing!
It was perfect timing. I started laughing so loudly that my crying and snorting turned into guffawing. It was a priceless moment.
Perfect for the storyteller to be paused mid-sob for a moment of sheer humor. My impeccable listener, who was working so hard to be there for me knocked over his microphone and was trying to retrieve it without interrupting.
I am still laughing just picturing him trying to rebound without disrupting my story. What a riot!
These are the precious moments of storytelling. In that moment I realized that it’s not just the telling of the story that is important, but every thing beautiful that surrounds it – the bonding that happens between two humans as they listen and share and the moments of pure delight when real life magic happens and humor appears out of nowhere.
This is the true magic of storytelling.
I am pr
oud, honored, scared and delighted to be telling my own raw and real stories. The deep ones, the raw ones, the ones that matter. If I can’t lead the way on then I’m not worth my metal.
Gotta leap, gotta take a dive.
Thanks to all my partners for supporting me. It takes a community to tell a story. I’d still be on the ledge without you. Thanks as well to all of my blog readers for caring about stories and storytelling. You make all the difference.
Stay tuned for more of the raw and real, the places we dive deep together and make life more fulfilling from taking risks.
Yours in diving into the heart of the matter and laughing about it all the way,
Annie
Why We Need to Dare to Tell Stories Raw & Real
January 12, 2010
I have several new clients lately that are all seeking to get to the heart of something beautiful raw and real inside of themselves – to be able to tell their stories in an open, honest and vulnerable format.
So you might wonder – why is it so hard?
It honestly is. They are not just making it up. It seems ludicrous in one sense that you actually have to go to someone to help them tell your story. Why can’t you just blurt it out?
What is so hard about it anyway?
But here’s the thing – it actually is hard. These folks coming to me to tell their stories are coming because they are brave human beings. They feel the call deep down inside and they just know that they have to articulate, express or share something with the world and that they need some help, structure or support to do that.
These folks are the smart ones who instinctively know that it is nearly impossible to tell these stories on your own. It is because people in our world don’t really want to hear the truth. If you don’t believe me just try this experiment…
Next time you are somewhere and someone you barely know asks you how you are. Stop. Pause. Look them in the eye and tell them the honest to god, real and vulnerable truth.
“Well now that you asked, actually I’m having a few money problems, my back is a bit aching from too much yoga, my boyfriend just left me and my dog is sick….and….and….and….”
Don’t bother to finish because the sentence because they are are already gone. If they haven’t walked physically away, trust me they’ve gone away inside.
A few months ago when I was going through a difficult time, I actually experienced this. Someone inquired about how I was doing and though I’m not a person that just spills out my personal life to everyone, I started to honestly tell her the truth. I thought she really wanted to know. But as soon as I started, I saw her physically backing up so I stopped.
People aren’t prepared to know the painful truth! Ouch. It brings up the pain in them. So when you craft a story of your own, first you need to get it out raw and real. You need someone to listen to you carefully, not to judge and definitely not to back away no matter what you say.
The message that I need to send people when I listen is - “I’m here, I’m not going anywhere and I won’t back away no matter how hard it gets.” You can do it too.
That is really powerful. Imagine just how life changing that one message can be – I’m here, I’m not going away.
If you remember or read my Raw and Real stories, there was one in which my friend Leslie came running towards me and body hugged me. That was just the message I needed – a big real hug that said, “I’m not going away.”
So that is why people don’t dare to tell their stories raw and real – because they fear that no one will be there when then are done, that everyone will go away because the painful truth is too awful. It’s not.
Today send this message to everyone in your life – I’m here, I’m not going away and I will listen no matter how hard it gets. Story-telling is life changing for this reason. It’s not about entertainment, it’s the deepest form of life change there is.
When we change our stories, we change the world.
Today dare to tell yours raw and real and encourage others to tell theirs too. You’ll notice how much closer you feel, how much more love and vitality is in your life.
Today don’t back away from pain but go right to the juicy heart of what’s real.
Yours in sharing stories that make a difference in the world,
Annie
Raw & Real Stories: Letting Them Out of the Box
October 2, 2009
If you think it’s easy to tell your own stories raw & real, let me assure you that it’s not. There are many reasons why we don’t want to tell the truth. One is because people don’t really want to hear it. When you tell the truth, sometimes people can’t handle it, or they shut down, or go away, or judge you.
That hurts and it doesn’t make you want to open up and tell your story. But even though I’m personally aware that this is the risk in telling them, I feel compelled to do so anyway.
I feel compelled because underneath of my fear, I know that there is beauty and gold in these stories. They are nothing to be embarrassed of or ashamed about, though the world would have us believe that way.
While that is true and it’s logical that we shouldn’t feel embarrassed or ashamed about our stories, the truth is that we often do. We feel embarrassed because they are our own personal stories, not someone elses. They are our very own personal Pandora’s box which must be opened to reveal the truth.
But why would you want to do this? We need to tell these stories because the rawest, most vulnerable stories hold the most life energy. By the way if you read the myth of Pandora, here is what you find out:
According to the myth, Pandora had been given a large jar and instruction by Zeus to keep it closed, but she had also been given the gift of curiosity and ultimately opened it. When she opened it, all of the evils, ills, diseases, and burdensome labor that mankind had not known previously, escaped from the jar, but it is said, that at the very bottom of her box, there lay hope.
Isn’t that amazing? Open the box to all the evils of the world and there at the bottom lies hope. This is why we must tell our stories, the stories we least want to tell. The mystics say that inside of everything of darkness, there are sparks of light just waiting to be released. Inside is Light that can be shared with the world.
Imagine what happens when we don’t tell these stories. What happens when we don’t have the courage to share that which has been most dark and painful to us? We are literally hiding the light. Light that could be made available to everyone.
So that means that if I want to share with the world, I must break through my own fear, trepidation and emabarrassment and dare to release the light that is inside of these stories. I must liberate the life force that is just waiting to be released into the world.
Thank God Pandora opened that box. What if she had listened to the voices of fear and kept it closed? Yes it unleashed all manner of evil into the world , but we obviously needed to learn how to deal with that. We need to unleash the power of story in our lives and dare to trust the Hope that wants to come out into the world.
Today dare to tell your story and be sure to listen for the stories of others. Make them feel comfortable to tell their real stories. You never know what Light you can bring into the world.
Yours in story, Annie
My Story Raw & Real – We Can’t Avoid Life
September 11, 2009
So here’s the lesson coming in loud and clear – We can’t avoid life!
It’s easy to hide, it’s easy to stay in our shell and it’s easy to make other people the source of our problems, but they are not. I’m saying this because part of my old shell has just been cracked open and it was really painful.
It always is, but that doesn’t mean anything is wrong. That is the part that is hardest to understand about these moments.
People have asked me a few times, “Did you see it coming?” It meaning the end of my relationship. That’s an interesting question. Hmm, did I see IT coming? Possibly. But how do you really know what is coming? That’s the hard part.
The hard part was that I was actually trying to avoid this exact pain. I was trying to avoid the pain of getting connected to someone again and then have them leave. I was trying to avoid that because I’ve experienced it many times before and I have some idea that I shouldn’t experience it again.
Note that I say ‘idea’ that I shouldn’t experience it. This means that we really don’t understand life at all. How do I know what I’m meant to experience? I don’t. So did I see it coming? Yes I’ve always seen it coming. But the real question is – Was I meant to avoid it? Was I meant to step out of the way? Or is this exactly what life was meant to bring me? Exactly this and nothing different.
I was cracked open and now what do you see? You see an open egg. That’s exactly the point. Life wanted to open me, but because we are wired to avoid pain, we don’t open easily or willingly, so life needs to crack us open.
Mother nature herself is creator and destroyer. But here’s the beauty – I am alive. And now what you see inside of me is raw and real, just like the soft inside of the egg. I am alive and doing really well. I wouldn’t change a thing about what happened. I needed to learn something and experience something. My prayer every day is that I learn whatever it is and then I take it out to help others.
I have dedicated an entire week to writing these stories raw and real. I hope you’ll stay with me on the journey and I hope that they touch and inspire you. Please feel free to comment on the blog.
Yours in story,
Annie
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