THE MEMOIR NOTES # 10: Your Higher Power Is Already Holding Your Book
No matter how much you did or didn't get done this year.
Dear Ones,
A love letter starting spilling out through my morning pages last week.
I was sipping coffee and trying to wake up while writing my pages ( um, every morning) when suddenly my writing began turning into a love note to myself. My Higher Power, whom I call Amma ( Great Mother) started coming through.
I realized that this love note was not meant just for me. It was meant to be shared with you. I copy and pasted and deleted my name and left a blank for you to insert yours as you read it.
For the past month or so, I have been pouring over my old journals looking for themes and highlighting notes. It’s been quite an emotional ride. I have scheduled time for these journal reviews and when completed, a plan to begin to pull together all the stories I have already written to write the book. The book I thought would be mostly written by now. I am learning that writing memoir is a unique emotional process different than writing other kinds of books. Every book has birthing pains, but memoir, oh sister, you are revisiting your life. This is personal.
I’ve also learned that many of us need to write “the book before the book.” Maybe the book you want to share is indeed a memoir, but even if it not, often a memoir is what wants to come through first. There is healing work to be done before you write the book you think you want to write.
We all have a story. So many of us want to heal our story. I have worked with lots of you over the past two years through my Creative Catalyst Circle, then Project 444 , and currently individually through Creative-Spiritual Soul Sessions/coaching. I know you need to hear this encouragement as much as I do. You too are on a mission to heal your past and create a different story for your future, for yourself, for your lineage. It’s all in service to love and healing and hope.
This is for you, honey. You can do this. It’s already done.
xo Mary
Dearest ________, ( you!)
You can do this next big thing. You can. Everything in your life is supporting you to write your book. You’ve never been more ready, more prepared, more able to do this work than you are RIGHT NOW.
This is really a love story, honey. You know that, right?
The pain and fear is covering up all the love underneath. As you remember and write and feel what you need to feel, you are uncovering the love waiting to be revealed. The compassion, the forgiveness, the understanding is already there. You are finding your way to it and through it in this process.
In fact, the story is fully written and already there, waiting in your near future. You are holding it in your hands, more amazed by it than by anything you have ever co-created, other than your children. You feel wordlessly proud of your persistence, your courage, your tenacity, your truth telling. You hold a book of words. Each word a pebble in the path that leads you home. Each one precious and hard won. Each and every memory fought for, relinquished to, invited in and made space for, welcomed even when sometimes feared.
Your book. Your book of stories. Your book of healing. Your book of recovery. Your book of hope. Your book that honors your life and the roads you've walked and the storms you've faced and the people who helped you along the way. And those who made it harder. You big story that honors it all. Because it all mattered. It all led you to who you are today with a story to tell.
As you flip through the pages of your book, you cry in deep gratitude. You hold your book to your chest and weep for the journey. Your heart overflows with appreciation and love for the guidance of Spirit that led you to this process and through it, step by step, and who held you through it all, when no one else in the entire world truly understood what you were doing and what was being transformed within you, but I did. I always knew. I held you through every breath, every word, every returned memory, every joy of understanding, every moment of surprising compassion and revelation, every stumble and recovery, every stall, every moment of doubt and confusion, every moment of overwhelm as you worked toward what felt like an enormous task - reviewing your life. No one could do this work for you. It was yours to do and I was with you.
I never left you. I waited when you procrastinated and ran from the work and when you wanted to give up. I nudged you back in ways you could only recognize in retrospect. I pointed you towards teachers and guides and cheerleaders. But ultimately, I reminded you that it was You and Me all the way, kid.
As you sit at your desk in November of 2023, astounded that you haven't finished the book ( or project) and you are actually kind of shocked at what felt like so little progress in a year, you had no idea what was ahead for you, did you, sweetheart? You re-committed to the work, you created a plan to move forward. Again. Looking back, you remind yourself that not all the healing came through the actual writing but through other experiences in your life that your commitment to writing and healing brought forward. Not all the work has been done with the pen and paper or laptop, but it has continued in large and small ways. You were writing your life. Life was writing you.
As you begin to look back on this year and look ahead to the next, you know you will find surprises and revelations and you realize that you have no idea what the year ahead will bring, and you are peace with not knowing. If the past few years are any reflection of things to come, you'll have no idea what’s ahead. ( Spoiler alert - you never really did and you never really will. You just know that now.) And so, you had no idea whether you would ever REALLY get this book into physical form, completed and loved and cherished by you. The way ahead felt confusing, but you heard yourself say aloud, “I am lost no longer. I am no longer confused.” When you heard yourself say those words, some part of you knew how far you'd come and you recognized it as truth. So, even though you sometimes might still feel confused, you know that deep down you are not. It’s an old pattern of feeling. With your book you will have the proof that you can make it through. As if you needed further proof, you really don't, honey. But you do need this book. For reasons you cannot articulate now. It will be made crystal clear very soon. It's for you, and the little one inside you whom you champion, but its not only just for you.
So you did it, sweetie. You did it with my help and guidance. You are very clear that you couldn't have done it any other way than this way. I’ve been guiding and gently pressing you forward for longer than you realized. I only want your complete healing and for you to know how deeply you are loved. You had to do exactly what you did - look back, revisit, write and heal these stories to be able to reveal the love that was waiting. I AM love so I know exactly what I am doing, The inner wisdom part of you also knows and we worked together to heal you now, and to heal all the you’s you have carried inside for so long.
Your book. Your work. Your way through.
It is full of heart, healing, compassion, forgiveness, humor, joy, wisdom, insight, delicacy and strength. It is a testament to Love and the possibility of generational healing. It is a passionate, relatable, relentless effort to not settle for being a walking wounded person but to be a walking waking person who is healing, and on one level, already healed. You have healed your inability to hold and know and share your story which means the power it once held to restrain you has been transmuted into a power to release you.
You now can face and feel whatever comes your way. Does it mean you will not feel pain any longer? No. Life continues. But now you are awake, alive to the present and no longer living a half life in the past. You might - and will - still revisit some of these past spaces, they are not gone. Your past is your past and your story will always be your experience. However, the process of walking through your past and doing the work, has freed you to walk into your current life with more clarity, spaciousness, flexibility, wisdom and hope. You know who you are now. For half of your life you did not. Your identity is rooted in Love and not the identity of the pain of the past.
So as you take your steps forward now, ______, hold this vision close to your heart, just as you will hold your book against your chest soon. A totem, an anchor, a testament to this healing work. It’s closer than you think. It is being born. It is real. While it is not the end to all your life’s work, nor even the most important contribution you will make, it matters immensely and it will have ripple effects you cannot even imagine in your lineage and to those who will read it. The ripples spread across the universe, ________, and not just here on Earth. You touch the lives of your ancestors and bring them relief. Your words shift the way the world spins. The Universe is shimmering.
I love you,
Amma
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3 THINGS WORTH SHARING:
About your writing practice. We’re not good enough to not practice.
“Spiritual maturity means we have to embrace the hard stuff. And it means we have to do it inside of ourselves.” - Tara Brach Full video here.
Looking forward to viewing American Symphony on Netflix, beginning Nov. 29.
Lastly, I am loving the onset of winter, and yet…
A portion of our paid subscriptions this month goes to: Pathways Hospice
November is National Hospice and Palliative Care Month. Since 1978, Pathways has been providing care and support for Northern Colorado patients regardless of financial circumstances.
My beloved spiritual director has recently entered hospice. Please add your prayers to mine for an easeful transition for Judith. Thank you.
I hope you’ll keep in touch and share a comment below. If you are more comfortable responding privately, simply reply to this email. Either way, I’ll get back to you. Thank you for reading!
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