When I wrote myself into a thriving life

Dear Witchy Writer,

Almost twenty years ago, I ended up in a career that was killing my soul. This was unfortunate, because from the outside looking in, it was the “right” career. I was making a good salary. I was doing a respectable thing that other people understood when I talked about it at a party, and I had promotions coming my way.

I wanted that job to work for me, because it was the first thing I had done in my life where my family and friends both understood what I was doing and respected it.

After about 8 years, however, I sat in my dull gray cubicle, barely able to lift my hands to the keyboard, because I was so burnt out and also so bored. It was getting bad, too. I started taking too many days off work because of how physically sick I was. And I had a crushing depression, not helped by the long, dark, cold New England winter.

I was down in the bottoms of my emotional life, and I didn’t know what to do. Until one day I picked up Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. I stayed in bed all day reading about Mole and the spring and adventures and beauty, and I felt that Wind in the Willows captured perfectly the way I wanted to feel in my life. I wanted to be on a beautiful adventure, free from drudgery.

Later that day, I called my best friend, and an idea came to me, sparked by the beautiful feelings from my reading session. I remembered how every once in a while she would talk about The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, which is a guided journey to help you recover your creative life. We decided to do it together. And here’s the thing, we actually did it. Unlike many other erstwhile promises I had made to be more creative and to write, this one stuck.

As part of The Artist’s Way curriculum, you’re supposed to do an Artist Date once a week. This is a 2 hour event you do to have fun and nourish yourself in some creative way. You can go out to a museum, go for a walk in the woods, actually write or create, whatever you want, as long as you’re not taking care of anyone or anything else during that time.

I decided my artist date would be to sit outside on my back porch every week and write. The seasons were shifting into spring, and I lived in the woods. So, each week, I would bundle up, put a chair on my tiny porch, and watch the snow slowly recede from the forest floor, while holding pen and paper. And slowly, very slowly, words started flowing on the page. Little paragraphs, a three sentence poem, a tiny journal entry, anything.

And just as slowly, spring emerged in the woods. Crocuses bloomed, song birds returned, and my soul began to heal.

Looking back, I see the practice of looking at the woods and writing as one of the great turning points of my life.

It was not long after that my husband and I moved to California, where he could pursue opportunities in his technology career and I could experience warmth and sun for most of the year. And not much longer after that, I took Martha Beck’s Life Coach Training, and a whole new career and creative path opened for me.

Now it’s over ten years later, and I am so glad for those days on the porch, slowly writing myself into the life I really wanted.

The world of writing can get so mixed up with hustle culture and capitalism. It’s easy to think we should write quickly and get published. And to think the only valuable writing is the writing that gets approved of by other people and that might make money for us.

But those words I wrote back then were some of the most potent and magical words I’ve written. And no one will ever see them or publish them, and yet my heart soars when I think about them.

Remember, you get to value your own creative life, and it’s ok and maybe even wonderful when your creative life is solely for your own heart.

xo,

Emma