1.1 Every write needs a tribe

Who is my tribe?

Liken to me, that want to lead their life according to their spiritual beliefs; acknowledge and trust the divine presence within themselves; they want to demonstrate their divine presence by fulfilling their purpose; and be willing to grow in knowledge, in trust, in acceptance and compassion that multiculturalism is consistently challenging us to appreciate and realize that we all a part of the Divine; and finally that Love is the answer to life.

My tribe explores leading their life through various means of self-inquiry. Knowing that their values and worldview might be vastly different than others, yet there are people who need their widsom and are looking for them to live their purpose. So they can inspire and encourage others to live out of their divine selves. Each and every one of us has an Inner Luminosity™ that we need to have confidence in, so it will shine brightly.

However, sometime people are stuck not sure of their next step, can not see the qualities that shine within them, which demonstrates their divine selves or they are afraid of live’s lessons and don’t even know why.

What I have found is that they don’t know what belongs in their life, they don’t know how wonderfully unique they are or what they have to share with the rest of us and once they can see themselves clearly the universe conspires to help them. But first they must be willing to experience the uncertainty and self-inquiry that moves them forward.

I trust that my tribe will resonant with my words and art, as I have felt my storytelling, writing and art will help them to see themselves more clearly and then in turn help shine their own Inner Luminosity to the world.

This is my piece for Module I, lesson 1.3. And I KNOW this is not brilliant. I wrote it in my notebook and resisted the urge to edit as I typed it in. I did add the last paragraph at the end as I was typing, but that’s it.

Lesson 1-3 exercise: Writing for myself

I wrote earlier about procrastination and getting distracted, and these are two big issues that I need to get over but it’s not so easy. A big part of it is fear and negativity – if I sit down to write, I am not making money, and I should be doing something very specific toward making money, since I am out of work right now, just doing freelance and temp assignments.

My blog does not feel like a waste of time quite as much, because it is linked to my website and I may, potentially, get clients. But what about Twitter and Facebook – is spending time there productive? Are any of these things more or less productive than sitting down to write fiction, or an essay potentially for publication I could also be interviewing people and researching a legitimate news feature or article – I know how to do this, I have done this, and can do this (that is my realist voice) but … I can’t do this, it’s been too long, I’m too old, I must suck because I haven’t been able to hold a job as a writer for very long, and if I actually called someone up to interview them, they’d never want to talk to me. They’d never want to talk to me, or they would talk to me but an editor would laugh at my proposal – tell me it’s been done a hundred times before. When I write these words down, they seem ridiculous and paranoid, but this is the default I go into.

Yet – I’m always getting ideas. We were on vacation and flew home into JFK airport on Friday night. We called our usual car service and a rather talkative driver on his very first night came to pick us up. He talked the whole trip back to Bayside about buying his cab and starting over. He’d been homeless for a while. He’d ended a 15-year relationship. My husband texted me: “He’s angry.” But he didn’t seem angry to me. He seemed sad, lonely, and yet hopeful he would make it in this new endeavor working for a car service.

I wanted to interview him. This would be a good story for my blog, a portrait of someone struggling. I let my husband assessment of the driver sway me away: He was “just” crazy. But maybe not. I could find him by asking around. We use that car service a lot; it’s nearby in Bayside.

But will I? Already I’m telling myself no, I won’t. What is the solution? I get ideas all the time; don’t follow through. Art projects. Stories. Ideas for classes I could teach as a local college adult enrichment course. (And I do think I could do that – I just haven’t submitted a proposal because I fear rejection.)
Primary thing is focus. What’s my focus – I have one paying job to do and one favor I’ve promised a friend. The paying job should get at least two hours tonight, the favor one – two if I can swing it. So that’s it. I post this assignment and I go on to the next important thing.

I don’t think I’m going to overcome my fear overnight but I think one thing I need to stop doing and can stop doing is speculating about things I could do and obsessing about how those are crazy ideas. I am going to focus on what I know I can do, and do it. Right now it’s in front of me. I have a deadline.

I break it down into mini-deadlines. I get those met. I reward myself by working on a speculative project. Maybe that’s not much of a reward. But it gets me excited. If I don’t feel guilty because I haven’t finished other work, I can get more excited about it.