2015, oh what a year you’ve been. Last year was a difficult year for me for many reasons, and so 2015 was necessarily a recovery year. A healing year, a growing year, a year of broadening mind and narrowing focus. It started off with a bang in New York and slowed down for a period as I focused on volunteering and breathing and just generally getting well. So much love to my husband who supported me through this period, physically, emotionally, financially. I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me this year.
The second half of the year was tightly controlled madness as I started a new job, went back to uni and wrote like a mad thing in whatever time was left. It’s breathtaking to think of the girl I was 12 months ago and how far I’ve come since. Of the fortitude I’ve developed, the sense of peace, and yes, the physical strength. 12 months of yoga and a very physical day job and dude. I have all the muscles. It feels so good to know just what my body can do. To feel functional and not merely cerebral. I’ve spent so much of my life living inside my head, it’s refreshing to embrace the physical world in such a way.
Because this year has been so growth-centred, I can sum it up pretty simply with the five biggest lessons I’ve learned this year:
When you spend your whole life looking for signs, you start to forget what you already know.
I don’t know when I became this person, relying on outside markers to set my path. I’m not talking about superstition — a black bird flew anti-clockwise on the third Thursday of the month — none of that. I’m talking about validation. An encouraging word on the right day to take me a little further. A good mark on an exam. Answers to prayer just when I need them.
These are all good things, but they all come from outside of me. My friends, my husband, my lecturer, some random stranger on a street can’t decide my path for me. They don’t know what I know. Because let me tell you, the world won’t know what you’re made of until you show it how far you’re willing to go.
And friends, from a more spiritual perspective: When God speaks He expects you to listen. It’s not His job to follow you around, reminding you again and again what you already know. Trust what you know. Trust what God/the universe/that little voice inside has told you. How many times do you have to hear something before you start to believe it’s true?
I lost sight of these things this year. I started to forget what I believe in. In looking for validation from external sources, I began to forget what I already know. I don’t need you to tell me I’m meant to be a writer, a philanthropist, an adventurer, a friend. I already know.
Hope is a choice. Faith is a choice. Joy is a choice.
I was looking through some notebooks from three years ago the other day. My notebooks are filled with writing notes but also just general notes on life, the universe and everything. I was looking for a specific note but what I found was that the tone of my journals back then were so… filled with hope. I don’t know when I lost that.
Hope, to me, has always seemed like a limited resource, dolled out in unequal measures. Some people have it, some don’t. You can’t make your bowl bigger. You can’t change your capacity for hope.
This is a lie.
That day, the day I found the notebooks, I decided to hope again. I decided to believe in the future I envision. I decided to trust what I already know. And oh, oh, it’s made all the difference.
Try it. You’ll see.
Your body can tell your heart how to feel and your mind how to think.
In recovering from a truly terrible bout of anxiety, earlier this year I turned to yoga. Exercise has always been calming for me, but I didn’t realise just how powerful it could be. For so long my emotions have controlled my body. For so long I’ve been crippled by stress-induced headaches, insomnia, breathlessness, and other, more serious things. For so long I sought to control my body by controlling my emotions. It never worked.
This year I discovered I could change my emotions by controlling my body. By using my muscles, deepening my breath, stretching long and slow, I can change how I feel. I can find focus again.
Two other things: a fake smile turns real given enough time. And there are some awesome apps out there if you are struggling with anxiety. Pacifica is one I particularly like — the breathing and meditation exercises help me take what I’ve learned in yoga out into the world. It’s with me when I need a reminder to breathe.
Writing the true things sometimes takes longer. Sometimes it takes no time at all.
Basically, it takes the time it takes. Repeat that after me: It takes the time it takes. Love your process. Embrace it. You’re stuck with it; you might as well ;)
There is a brilliance in first drafts that can’t ever be recaptured. Be careful whose voices you let in when you change it.
I was looking through some of my old writing the other day, searching for a particular passage. I love this scene. I’ve always looked on it as one of the favourite things I’ve ever written. But it took awhile to find. I’d written somewhere around six drafts of this particular novel and I had to go all the way back to the first one to find the scene I so loved. I’d made so many changes through all those drafts I’d lost what magic inspired me to write it in the first place.
Revision is so, so necessary. Don’t think I’m dumping on the editing process; I’m not. But first drafts are where the magic is, I really believe that. You don’t get that sense of discovery ever again. I don’t know what the answer is, but I know I’m going to keep my eyes open next time I revisit a draft.
I guess my lessons from 2015 can be summed up as this: Choose magic.
Choose [you are in control] magic [all good and wonderful things].
Chase the good things with everything you have, and when you catch them, hold them as tight as you can.
Choose hope, friends. That’s the best advice I can give you going into 2016.
Love and light to you this Christmas.
Draftcember, by the way, is going FABULOUSLY! This is my reward for reaching 30k: cocktails at our local Cuban restaurant. It was amazing. Onwards! We still have a few days of Draftcember left to go! Filed under: Be The Change, Life, Revision, Writing Life, Writing Progress
