try whatever. play. see where it takes you.

i'm having an experience of the law of inertia. it takes a lot to get the action started. i need to do rewrites on the manuscript. i see resistance, fear, frustration, i'm way over my head, this is too much to handle, what am i thinking, the world doesn't need another novel, blah blah blah, popping up like whack-a-mole.

i confide in hwubby. he says, god is with you, i love you, you are great, keep breathing deep into your belly, feel your feet planted into the floor, the chair supporting you, then, this is important, set the timer to a session of 20 to 40 min, dive in, then get up for a 5 min pause, go out into the garden every so often.

so here i am in the beginning of the first session, sipping tea (yum cha), asking my inner self, where should i begin? open a new doc? or make a copy of the first chapter and use the 'tracking changes' feature? response comes quickly. try 'tracking changes'. try whatever. play. see where it takes you.

right away i realize i don't trust myself. in the words of my editor, lacking confidence. it's part and parcel of the old tendency of unworthiness, afraid of making mistakes, fear of getting lost.

enough of this. i've gotta move on. get out of my head and into the body. i know what to do. i'm not starting from a blank slate. i've already got plenty of good stuff. i am a wonderful writer. i'm building on what i have. dig in, suk wah.

let the fears go. go. go.

another teacher dream. teaching dream.

i am assigned a position to directly serve the teacher's mission. day after day i set out on time. yet i have great difficulty just to get there.

at one point i see my teacher passing by while i am doing some preparation. i say, good morning. she says back, good morning. she's wearing a red tailored jacket and black legging and high heels. very clean and chic.

at another point i find myself underneath her chair. i can hear her voice but i can't find my way out from under the chair. actually it is kind of nice under there. i look into the bottom of the chair. it's like looking through the bedcover when i am totally under it. lights are filtering through the yellow parts of the fabric. the other parts are red.

hwubby says, you are working through another phase in your book, you say you are working towards the book you want to write, so it sounds like the dream has to do with the fears coming up in this process.

this morning's meditation has a lot to do with sensing pockets of wordless, irrational fears looming in and coming up. what are they about? fear of getting lost. fear of not up to it. but they are not gripping, nor paralyzing. i just have to keep letting them go and be gentle with myself at the same time.

fear of getting lost, another leftover tendency

second time in two weeks i have a dream that is all about the fear of getting lost. in a gist they go like this. i have planned out to dots and tees how to get to a certain place by a certain time. now the deadline is just around the corner. i am about to get on the plane or enter a building. i pull out what is supposed to be the plane ticket only to see a sheet of blank paper. i don't know what to do. or i walk through the entrance and see an entirely different layout of rooms and hallways and i don't know where to go. i dig out a cell phone, shout into it frantically and discover that the battery is gone. it's dead as can be.

the specifics of the dreams quickly fade when i awake. only the heart pounding remains. gaspy breaths. that familiar sensation of being gripped in horror. i realize this leftover tendency is no longer in the driver seat of my life. i am no longer the child who had to fend for herself and her little sister, as well as her mother. i have the inner self.