On Passion and the Creative Life

"Are you fascinating?"

The question, posed to me today by a young brown-haired woman in a white lab coat, left me momentarily speechless before I realized that I had misheard her. The actual question, in preparation for a blood draw, was: "Are you fasting?"

"No," I replied to the fasting question. The question I thought I'd heard, though, has stayed with me.

Blame it in part on the fact that I have been reading the books of pioneering creativity coach Eric Maisel: most recently, his book called Coaching the Artist Within.  He writes extensively about the importance of passion in the life of an artist. (In fairness, he also writes extensively about the importance of goals, self-discipline, and developing ways to make art regularly despite the real and numerous demands of everyday life. But I digress).

In my last post, I wrote about taking the steps and making the space for creativity and art to happen. These are the practical parts, and when I don't apply them to my life, nothing much happens. Especially finished pieces.

But the passion part of art-making is, as Maisel puts it, the gas the drives the creative process. I have to know what I love, what things compel me emotionally and intellectually. This is true for technical, craft-oriented things (i.e. I love the way that poem just engaged me with all of my senses, or, I love the way that short story ended so ambiguously, and now I can't stop thinking about the questions that it raised, or, I love how nuanced that character is). It's also true for the subjects and themes that captivate me, and for the things that captivate me in my everyday life.

Maisel writes, "People are trained to avoid displays of passion and even feeling passionate. They settle for a life that fails to nourish them, one that feels safe rather than wild and out-sized".

Today I am looking more deeply at the presence and/or absence of passion in various parts of my life, including my creative writing.

Am I fascinating?

I don't know. But if my creative life isn't fascinating, at least to me, then I certainly need to make it so.

Going Out on the Artist's Limb

My recent blog posts have drawn from my single mother self and my therapist self, but less on my creative writer self. Maybe that's an instance of blog imitating life. Because, let's face it, kids need a lot from us, and newly-launched therapy practices need a lot in the way of time, thought, and energy, too. But if I ignore my creative work/play for too long, I suffer. My relationships suffer. And certainly my writing itself suffers. Simply put, my writing, too, needs me to show up for it.

This month, I renewed my commitment to my creative life by taking part in a 28 poems in 28 days writing challenge, and by revising and submitting an essay about my daughter's emergency c-section birth. There have been, of course, risks inherent in these steps. I have written and exposed some bad poems (along with some halfway decent ones!). I have let others hold me accountable for whether I write something daily regardless of how I feel on any given day (the kind of commitment that seems almost absurdly easy when you make it, but on some days feels near impossible to meet). And I have shared an essay about a pretty personal experience with a team of editors who may or may not get it, like it, or want to publish it. This is the kind of daily practice, the putting yourself out on a limb, that makes up the artist's life. Which, as much as motherhood and practicing therapy, is what I want.
Wanting is often a whole lot easier than the doing, though. That's why concrete goals and action steps are important.  As is encouraging one another along the way.

If you are doing something now, or resolving to do something soon, to make space for your artist self and give it a chance to shine, I would love to hear about it. There's plenty of room out here on the limb, and even in this wintertime, the view can be pretty terrific.

The Importance of Speaking Your Truth

Everywhere you turn, there are books, quotes, and blog posts about the importance of gratitude. An ever-growing variety of gratitude journals give people a reminder and a place to practice gratitude daily, and more and more people are teaming up to share their daily gratitude lists by text, email, or Facebook.

Obviously, gratitude can be a huge asset. Without a doubt, the conscious and intentional practice of gratitude can offer important benefits, including improved mood, increased capacity for positive thinking, and spiritual growth. If there is a downside to our increasing emphasis on gratitude, though, I believe it is in the potential for people to interpret it as a message that it is unacceptable to talk about what's difficult. That when we are struggling, it means we are just insufficiently grateful.

Yesterday, I read this blog post https://vanessamartir.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/im-a-single-mother-and-this-shit-is-hard. It's about the sometimes overwhelming-feeling challenge of being a single mother, and the pressure on single mothers to keep our mouth shut about how hard it can be. The author clearly adores her daughter and clearly feels grateful to be her daughter's mother. Yet, she wrote about the stuff that many of us feel we are expected to keep silent about. When I read it, I felt validated, understood, and less alone. I also felt empowered to share a little more about my own struggle with single parenting.

As a therapist, I have seen clients make profound positive changes in their lives. Many have shared with me extensively about the joys and gifts in their lives. But rarely an awareness of these positives been the impetus for them to start therapy, or any other endeavor which is geared toward improving one's life. Instead, it is the willingness to acknowledge a struggle, a challenge, an unacceptable level of suffering, that convinces them to address their difficulties meaningfully. But we do not arrive in that place by ignoring the signs that there is a real problem we ought to address.

Recognizing and speaking our truth can connect us to others who "get" us, pinpoint the facets of a problem so we can begin to work toward its solution, and spark social change. So, yes, let's take inventory of the positive along with the negative. Let's remember to appreciate the good in our lives and to share our appreciation. Generally speaking, that's good for us, for our relationships, and for our communities. But let's remember, too, the value of speaking our truth and really listening when other people do so.

Our struggles, our truths, are part of our humanity. As with our blessings, they deserve our attention.

Heart Gallery

It began, I admit, as one of those pretty unpleasant single mom experiences. My daughter and I went out to do some necessary pre-winter storm shopping, and the store had run out of two items I needed, and the snow was already starting to fall, and my daughter wanted a twenty-dollar pink blanket with a hood that would make her look like a cat. I said no. My daughter was devastated and made this abundantly clear, and I, in turn erupted. Which is to say, I lectured her all the way home. (And alas, the getting home took twice as long as usual to begin with, because of the snow.) I told her, among other things, that I was now going to do my shopping solo whenever possible.

My daughter, who must have felt that she had now had devastation heaped upon devastation (being already pink cat blanket-less) announced as we trudged inside, "When I grow up to be a teenager, I'm moving far away from you! How would you like that?"  She ran upstairs, her door shutting with a bang.

Downstairs, my heart sank. She was mad and hurt. I was mad and hurt. And now we would be snowed in together in our small home for at least a day, with tomorrow's school cancellation/snow day having already been announced. This was not going to be fun.

But soon we were sorting through a pile of her school papers and artwork together, the icy atmosphere between us already significantly thawed, and we started talking about which of her art projects were our favorites, which led to the idea of converting our stairway walls into an impromptu art gallery. As we worked on it together, the earlier tension evaporated. Now she was singing, helping me hang things, chattering away.

I can't take all the credit for this, of course. My daughter has a huge heart, cares about people's feelings and getting along, and will often be the first to offer a concilliatory hug after a disagreement.

But if I did something right, I think it was in shifting my focus from the things about my daughter which I had just found exasperating, to something I really enjoy and admire about her--in this instance, her artistic tendencies. We all want and need to know that our loved ones see us and value things about us.

Today, we'll be snowed in together, but our new wall gallery will cheer us. It will remind me of the many things I love about her, and it will remind her, I hope, that even in the face of bad weather and disagreements, that she is loved.

Staying the Course: When Depression Persists

This happened. I was just writing a lengthy blog post on persevering when depression persists, or returns, or ramps up again after treatment or lifestyle changes seemed to be starting to fight it. It went on longer than it should have (who wants to read something lengthy about depression when depressed?), and listed 5 suggestions for how to keep on keeping on.

I was literally typing the last sentence when I hit some key or some combination of keys, and watched my words vanish. Poof! Gone.

And I thought, Wow, this is actually a lot like it feels when depression tries to pull you under again, after you've been doing well for a while. So, after staring numbly and blinking at the screen for a few minutes, I decided to write a different kind of post after all. Maybe in the future, you will get your 5 tips. Or maybe the 5 tips don't matter much anyhow, considering the fact that there are tips to be found everywhere about getting through depression. I'm not sure that mine have anything new or special to bring to the online conversation.

What I want to say instead is this. For many of us, trying to manage and recover from depression is an ultra-marathon as opposed to a short race. Stamina and endurance are incredibly important. And what goes into that, to pare it down to its least common denominator, is a combination of two things: a) depression managing or fighting action steps (including coping skills, making and pursuing short and long-term goals, and staying socially connected even when you feel like isolating) and b) self-care/self-compassion. The first is what motors us through when the quicksand of depression would keep us stuck, and the second is what lets us re-fuel, heal emotionally, and keep on going.

I will make the analogy of a recent winter morning at the Lemere household. The temperature was 8 below zero on a school and work day, and I didn't want to get out from under my covers, let alone face the outdoors. But I knew that staying in hibernation would have unwanted consequences, so I reminded myself of my family and personal goals, focused on positive things I was looking forward to about the day, and congratulated myself for getting up and getting going when I didn't feel like it. These action steps were similar to the kind that help us move forward while depression tries to pull us back.

The bitter cold, however (like a recurrence of depression) was a fact, and was not going to feel good. So I bundled up extra, donning the hat, gloves, and scarf I usually feel to rushed to put on in the morning, and fixed myself an extra-tall coffee to take with me. These are small things, and may sound like no brainers, but they made a big difference in the winter air seeming mildly uncomfortable as opposed to unbearable.

The depression equivalent, for me, might be talking to a close friend, engaging in a creative activity, or reading something that moves me. But it isn't just the self-care that I practice, it's the attitude toward myself and my situation that I try to assume. The kinds of things I try to say to myself.

With the recent bitter cold, I practiced telling myself, "It's freezing, of course you'd rather stay home--good for you for getting going out anyway--let's see if we can add to the comfort factor any here." And often, "Spring will come. It will not stay like this forever."

With depression, I practice telling myself, "This is hard, but you can do it." "What can help you today?"

And often, "Spring will come. It will not stay like this forever."

Love Note to theTherapists in the Trenches (and to Anyone Else Facing Adversity)

Today I attended an interesting and inspiring training by South Deerfield therapist Jackie Humphries, LICSW, about trauma stewardship.  For those unfamiliar with the term, it was coined by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky, who wrote the book Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Yourself While Caring for Others. Aimed at an audience of therapists, the approach is about grounding yourself in strategies which will help you to be and feel effective even while working to help clients through very painful, traumatic experiences (and therefore hearing an awful lot sometimes about some of the uglier, more difficult parts of life).

I confess, I was initially a bit skeptical about whether I'd learn anything useful from the training. Having sat through many presentations about therapist burnout, vicarious traumatization, and compassion fatigue, I have heard the work of therapy described in ways that would make nobody in their right mind want to do it (client or therapist!), and heard veteran therapists as a group described as if we are primarily impaired professionals, our psyches damaged from our work in the trenches.

So what was refreshing about the trauma stewardship concept is that it presents therapy as worthwhile and therapists as capable of helping clients through trauma without sacrificing our emotional well-being in the process.  It asserts that "suffering can be transformed into meaningful growth and healing when a quality of presence is cultivated and maintained even in the face of great suffering" (Lipsky, 2009).  Lipsky explains trauma stewardship as "the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care".

During today's presentation, I was reminded of why I am a therapist, why I believe in therapy, and how it can be part of a healing, transformative process that positively impacts both therapist and client. So for all of you therapists and clients out there (and the many of us who've been both!), keep up the good fight. The demons we face, individually and collectively, are less daunting when we face them together.

Snow Storms, Hope, and Resilience

We're having snow lately. Not the pristine, delicate, lacey kind. I'm talking about the piling-up, slopping, driver-endangering, school-closing, electricity-threatening kind. Is my enthusiasm for February showing?

Yes, I know, I live in New England, so what do I expect? But I will say in my own defense that I come by my winter-averse feelings honestly.

When I first became a single mother, my daughter was a baby, and doubting myself in my new single parent role was a way of life. During those initial years, I had some less than enjoyable experiences of wintertime. I remember the time our car slid down a steep and icy driveway into a busy street because my brakes were rendered useless. I also remember our car breaking down on the side of the road as I tried to drive my daughter to her childcare provider's in a snow storm so I could get to the place of employment that constituted our family's only source of income. And the freak ice storm that struck when she was a toddler, leaving us without electricity in our basement apartment for almost a week.

Now, some years later, I still feel my stomach drop when a winter storm is in the forecast. I'm still prone to loneliness, sadness, and feeling overwhelmed when winter elements are bearing down. But. Having survived those terrible experiences during our early years as a single mother family, I know that can get through these times. That's what lived experience has taught me.

Often, my therapy clients are facing their own kind of brutal winters. Addiction, depression, post-trauma symptoms. Intellectually, they know that these are survivable, but they don't know how they can do it personally. They don't have the lived experience yet. So, especially in the beginning, one of the most important things I can do is hold on to hope for them, knowing that in time, they will find their footholds and be able to hold hope for themselves. 

This is not just important in the realm of therapy. Throughout my life, there have been times when people have held on to hope for me when I have lost sight of it, and times when I have been the holder of hope for those I love. In the process, I have learned much about my own strength, but also that turning to one another for strength and hope is not just helpful, but desirable. It's part of what connects us to our humanity and to one another.

Here's to the promise of spring, and the personal and collective strength that gets us there.