Expressing your thoughts and experiences can bring you to a place of judgement and lead you to doubt yourself. That’s why it’s so hard to start writing in the first place, and if you’re lucky enough to make it to the publishing stage, then you have the continued struggle of sustaining your work. During this whole process, I jumped in the deep end and had to fight to stay afloat. It was so out of my comfort zone that I was always second-guessing my every step, to the point where I didn’t know who I was anymore. I lost myself to this book.
Experiencing the constant struggle of lost identity.
“Wow, I’m right back to where I started from”. That was my first thought when I found myself in this situation. But then I stopped, waited, and took some time out until my energy level was centred. That’s when I really started to work; I found myself in a deep reflective meditation which revealed a lot. It showed me how much I am limited by the way I think the world is perceived. I started to ask, "am I putting myself in a position where I am not capable of achievement?" I felt unworthy, like I wasn’t good enough to be an author.
I thought, “I don't know anything about books, I could count the number of books I've read on one hand!”
The pain of feeling like I was setting myself up for failure was so intense that I started to question my identity. I began to think to myself, “This isn’t the right path for me; I don’t know what I’m doing. How long am I going to endure this pain? Just give up, and you can rebuild from there”. I lost count of how many times I wandered into that same thought pattern. So you can imagine how strong that message to GIVE UP was coming across.
But I never gave up, because when the almost overwhelming urge to quit was exposed, there was always a sign presented to me in that dark moment to steer me towards a place of not surrendering. It was often only small, but it always had a great impact on me and led me to continue. After a while, I started to escape that head space by doing things I enjoyed: catching up with friends, going for a walk, playing with the kids. It took a lot of effort at the start, and I really had to force myself to do these things. Then, I started to think about how much you can influence yourself without even realising it. I began to question whether, instead of being in a space of believing I was overreaching my capabilities, was I actually restricting my own ability to achieve? Then I realised that my current way of thinking was creating limitations. Once I acknowledged that vital piece of information, I started to change. I learnt to enjoy the writing process and to embrace my imperfections. I reflected on how far I had come and how much I had learnt during the process, and I began to laugh with myself again.
That’s when the magic started to emerge. We all have this inner ability within us; we know how to use it, and we are all destined for greater things in our life journey. Our greatest challenges are the ones we impose on ourselves.
Lisa Pavlic
