Next, I quickly admonished myself: “You are being silly. It will be fine. Don’t think such things.”
Then, I remembered that being kind to myself means allowing whatever I’m feeling to be felt without squelching it. By allowing the anxiety to be—in a gentle, loving space, the feeling dissipated on its own—almost.
As I explored this fear further, I realized that no one in my writing circle will judge me for not being able to write, or for falling below some preconceived standard I’ve set for myself. I am the one judging.
My next critical thought was that ego was motivating my concern. Why would the other writers even notice what I am up to? They’re thinking about their own writing, not mine.
After all, that’s what preoccupies me—how well my own writing turns out—not how well everyone else has written. It’s a relief, in fact, when a good writer has a bad night. It makes room for me to have a bad night.
Now we are getting at how competitive I am, as I hide behind a compassionate front. I always tell people, we can write from the heart in this circle. It is a safe place. No one is judging our lives or our writing about our lives.
Except I must be, or I wouldn’t have felt that fear tonight about not measuring up.
No matter how hard I try to excise that little girl who needed to prove herself in order to be loved, she is still inside me. I usually try to bind and gag her—to push her back into the furthest corners of my awareness.
Who wants to hang out with that scared little uptight perfectionist?
Not me.
But every time I think I’ve strangled her to death and am finally free, she hits me with a jolt of pure recognition. She is me. I’m never going to be free of her.
Maybe it’s time to give her a hug and show her how to laugh.
*weekly writing circle run by Zee Zahava in Ithaca, NY
