This is Me Finding My Way

Welcomed to a psychological experiment.  

The control subject? Me.  

First, the backstory.

As a child I was painfully shy and highly sensitive.  Though others might not describe me as shy these days, there is a huge part of me that is still that 4-year-old Torri crying and digging her heels in the ground as her mom lugs her off to preschool.

Foot dragging is still alive and well in me, and it has been right in my face throughout the making of this website, now going on five years.

I just have never felt ready to “put myself out there” as it relates to what this website is all about which is my two great passions: soul work + creativity. I have spent a considerable amount of energy in my life doing the opposite: hiding and/or hating parts of myself away.

I have written countless journal entries dedicated to all the reasons why I think I am not ready:

• I haven't done enough inner work to fix my "patterns" yet.  

• First I must teach myself to get into the magical flow state before I can churn out anything that doesn’t sound like I am trying too hard-or, even worse yet: trite.

• I need a new pair of funky glasses and then redo my head shots first.

• Who do I think I am to believe I have something novel or special to share?  (What, Torri? So be extraordinary or keep your mouth shut?)

• I need to learn more to become an expert in the things I write about. (But Torri, what constitutes expertise, therefore, who and what deserves a platform?)

• What if I'm not grounded enough to handle the criticism that I'm sure to get?  An even bigger challenge would be that I can’t be trusted with praise.  Historically, my ego goes off the rails when someone says anything that sounds remotely close to “hey, you have something special.”  Peoples’ perceptions of me, good or bad, have always been a slippery slope.

  
  

My resistance to finishing this website has had a lot to do with all the writing involved in its making.  And I have often questioned whether this "putting myself out there" thing is really for me.

But there is a voice in me that won’t be still about it.  I just keep hearing:  “Torri, do this challenging thing...just try it and see what happens." 

Here's the problem, though. To quote the famous writer Dorothy Parker:

"I hate writing. I love having written."

When I write, it feels like ocean waves are crashing over my desk, and I’m tasked with the impossible feat of breaking the waves into pieces and pinning them down to the wood's surface.  I meet the panic and overwhelm that sets in with mental and physical rigidity. It feels like the complete opposite of what I am for creatively: flow and freedom.

Why do I want to write then?  

It has to do with magic.

I have never liked magic personally.  I see it as a riddle that is never answered.  I get annoyed not knowing the steps involved in creating the illusion.  

Writing is that kind of experience for me:  to be able to write stuff that really captures my experience feels out of reach to me, because I don’t know how to pull that damn rabbit out of the hat.  I don’t know the steps to bring my personal experience into form with words.

Don't get me wrong, I've had occasions when I was able to channel a personal experience into a creative writing piece that I felt excited about.  When it happened, it felt like I pulled off my own magic trick and it was truly cathartic.  And then the next time I sit down to write, it is like I am at ground zero, and it all feels impossible again.   It is an unbearably unpleasant experience.

Again, why the heck would I wanna?

My reason for wanting to do this is that I want to figure out how my personal magic works.  I think we all have the potential for it.  I used to think you either come out a fully formed artist/writer, or you're just not one.  I'm late to the game knowing how important it is use experimentation to find one's own creative processes.  In my opinion, that is EVERYTHING, guys.

That leads to the aforementioned psychological experiment.

Recently I had this thought:  if my pattern has always been to hide parts of myself, including my most passionate parts, THEN...

What could happen in my life if I do the opposite?

So the tenets of experiment are:

Step 1: Use inner work and experimentation to continue the uncovering of my personal creative process.

Step 2: Continue experimenting with soul art.  Sit my butt down in the chair and write using my blog as a working space.

Step 3: Show more parts of myself.  Take risks and stop hiding. Share my experience through my art and writing.  

Step 4:  Monitor the results.  What, if anything evolves personally and creatively in me?

In these blogs, I will be tackling soul stuff, while addressing foot dragging and other blocks to self-expression, through my own form of exposure therapy*.  To heck with my own foot dragging, I am just doing the thing and feeling the feelings along the way.  

I hope you'll hang out here with me. Even better, consider joining me on this mission to experiment and do things opposite your modus operandi. What do you have to lose?

Tallyho.

*Exposure therapy: a psychological treatment that safely and gradually exposes individuals to objects, situations or activities that she/he fears.