It’s another live “Ask Me Anything” call! This one is the second half of a live call I held on May 7, 2015. As usual, I covered a variety of topics. [Read more…]
Last week I sloughed off my normal life and immersed myself in an intensive workshop at BATS Improv.
We spent three and a half days playing games, sharing true stories, making stories up, and learning to do all of it as effortlessly as possible.
(As always, I was there wearing my student hat, and also madly taking notes wearing my teacher hat, collecting ideas for my next playshop!)
On Sunday, during a discussion about how to handle potentially sticky interactions with audience members, the teachers, Rebecca and William, shared a story that happened years ago, when the two of them were performing in an improv show called This Is Your Life, in which they brought a volunteer up from the audience to (you guessed it) interview about her life.
Rebecca found out that the volunteer interviewee was a mother of two, and after the woman had shared quite a bit about her daughter, Rebecca asked her about her son. There was a pause, and tears welled up in the woman’s eyes.
“My son died six months ago,” she croaked out.
The audience let out a sympathetic gasp, followed by a very loud silence. Womp. The energy in the theater dropped with a thud.
For an improviser onstage, this is rather a nightmare scenario. In the pressure of the spotlight, one might be tempted to somehow brush it all under a rug, move on, maybe (egad) even make a joke out of it. Thankfully, Rebecca did nothing of the sort.
Instead, she reached for a box of tissues sitting on the table nearby, pulled a tissue out for herself, then handed one to the woman. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “Do you want to talk about him?”
“No, I don’t,” said the woman. Then she proceeded to talk about nothing but her son for the next twenty minutes. (Isn’t that so often how it happens?)
A horribly uncomfortable moment was transformed into a beautiful one, and it didn’t stop there. The volunteer interviewee came back to every BATS show that week, and even after moving to another state with her husband, she still attends BATS shows whenever she’s in San Francisco.
What Rebecca and William only learned later, though, was that this uncomfortable moment onstage gave the woman her life back.
It turns out that she was an artist, but had been unable to paint since the death of her son. Rebecca’s question during that improv show was the catalyst that finally allowed this woman to start processing her grief, and enabled her to get back to painting.
Art gave this woman her art back.
It’s serendipitous that I heard Rebecca’s story last week, because I recently received two emails in the span of four days, each addressing the issue of how loss and grief affect our ability to create. With the permission of the sendees, today’s Question Time post today is inspired by their notes.
Dear Ms. Dinwiddie,
I have read your website with great enjoyment. I hope it is alright to ask a question and I do understand if you are unable or unwilling to answer.
You have mentioned that you have had large blocks of time, in years, when you haven’t been able to create. May I please ask what you did that enabled you to go back to creating?
I have read your blog from May 3, 2013, “How to Get Out of a Creative Rut” and I think what I’m after is what happened before that to enable you to start again. Self-permission? Self-acceptance? What happened to allow you to let go and start again?
I have been a bit lost and unable to sustain any creative idea since my remaining parent passed away four years ago. I am 54 years old.
Thanks so much for your time and an excellent website.
Kind regards,
Linda
Dear Melissa,
My biggest challenge is picking myself up and starting over again. I facilitate journal groups for women, but after my father died three years ago I felt the wind fall from the sails. I am 71 years young, but it is clear as I rise from this self-imposed fog of grief and loss that I am finally ready to move on.
But how (one step at a time?) and to where? Ah, that’s bigger question.
The key word here may be sustain. I find that my creative energy goes in spurts and stops, has a difficult time digging in to focus.
Best,
Susan
Dear Linda and Susan,
First, let me say how sorry I am for your losses. It is not at all surprising that you’ve felt lost and unable to focus. Grief does that.
My own lengthy periods of creative paralysis were not initiated by grieving a death, so I can’t speak to your loss from an equivalent experience of my own. What I do know about grief, though, is that each of us has our own process and timeline. Processing a loss cannot be rushed.
That said, Rebecca’s story lends strength to the theory that telling your story, letting it out, is key to clearing the blockage that grief can put on our lives. I’m a big believer in the power of sounding boards, whether in the form of a therapist, a trusted friend, or a theater audience! I hope you each have a set of empathetic ears you can turn to — this may be the biggest healer of all.
Meanwhile, since both of you have expressed a desire and a sense of readiness to get back to creating, it sounds like you’ve moved past the frozen numbness of the early stages of grief. Noticing the desire is an important step! In fact, it’s the first half of my Golden Formula — self-awareness + self-compassion = the key to everything good — hooray for self-awareness!
The second half of the Golden Formula, the self-compassion piece, is equally important here. You have the awareness that you want to start creating again, and the feelings that go along with wanting something and not having it yet: perhaps frustration, sadness, longing. If you’re like me, you might even feel some anger and disgust at yourself for not getting on with it already.
This is where you get to practice mindful self-compassion: notice all those feelings, even the bad ones, and remind yourself that feelings like these do not mean there’s something wrong with you; they mean you’re human.
Our tendency is so often to react to bad feelings with more of the same: “I’m so frustrated with myself. And now I’m disgusted with myself for being frustrated with myself! BAD MELISSA! BAD! What the hooey is wrong with you?? You’ll never amount to anything!”
You’ve probably already experienced how unhelpful and counter-productive this is, so why not try the opposite tactic?
Dr. Kristin Neff, author of Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind, offers this mantra for anytime you notice yourself feeling badly about anything:
This is a moment of suffering.
Suffering is part of life.
May I be kind to myself in this moment.
May I give myself the compassion I need.
With this approach, the ranty monologue above can transform into a kind of dialogue:
“I’m so frustrated with myself.”
“Oh, sweetheart, I know you’re frustrated. This is a moment of suffering, dear one.”
“But I’m just disgusted with myself!”
“Yes, my beloved, I feel how painful that is. I’m going to wrap you in my arms and hold you. You deserve nothing but kindness and love.”
With each day that passes, I become more and more convinced that self-awareness and self-compassion truly are the key to everything.
Meanwhile, let’s talk about sustaining focus.
I hear you both that you want to be able to sustain your creative ideas and focus for longer than you currently feel able. Again, the Golden Formula comes in handy here.
You can use your self-awareness to ask: What are you feeling when you find it hard to focus? Where do you feel it — your gut? Your heart? Your head? Your toes? What impedes your focus? What helps it?
Then, whatever your answers are, how can you be kind and compassionate to yourself? It may be that short periods of focus are simply part of your healing process, so can you allow yourself to heal, while noticing what helps you sustain your focus for longer?
Linda asks what happened that enabled me to start again after being so blocked up, and yes, self-permission and self-acceptance were a big part of it. After all, nothing is possible if we don’t give ourselves permission. And unless we allow our creative efforts to be what they are — even if we don’t like what we create — our tender creative spirits will stay locked up in an attempt to keep us safe.
Now I’ll ask you whether you’ve been denying yourself permission.
It’s not at all unusual for a survivor to deny herself the good life within her grasp. “How can I possibly allow myself to be joyful,” the thinking goes, “when others are suffering, or gone?”
This impulse comes from a good-hearted place, but it’s misguided and unhelpful. Piling your suffering on top of the already existing suffering doesn’t cancel it out; it only creates more suffering. The way to counteract the pain of suffering is to shine your light as brightly as you can, to show yourself and others the goodness that’s possible.
As I’ve written elsewhere, in my years on the planet I have come to the following conclusion:
Creating more suffering in the world by stifling my own joy does not make the world a better place. (Click to tweet this.)
Even though you may not be saving starving children on the other side of the planet, pursuing happiness in a way that doesn’t hurt anyone else is making one tiny part of the world better. (That part being YOU!)
And making one tiny part of the world better creates ripples that affect a much bigger part of the world.
Giving yourself permission to let go and start again could even inspire others to do the same — we just never know how what we do will touch people.
As for how, and to where, this is the question every one of us asks, whether we’re mourning or not. In some way, we are all starting again, whether it’s taking tentative steps toward creating after a long hiatus, or pulling out the 300th new canvas in as many days, or editing that screenplay you now realize isn’t done after all.
Until we learn to fly, one step at a time is all we can ever take. It never seems like it will get us anywhere, but surprisingly, it’s the only thing that ever does.
I think it is the fate of virtually all creatives to be always dissatisfied, whether with the size or intensity of our efforts or the resulting product, but it is this “queer divine dissatisfaction,” as Martha Graham put it so eloquently, “a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”
You are alive. Keep marching, step by tiny step, and the path will reveal itself.
I’m cheering you on.
PS — Pssst! Know someone who might benefit from seeing this today? Pass it on!
I’ve struggled with how to start this post. I’ve tried out at least eight or ten different openings, but nothing’s working, and I keep bursting into tears.
So. I’ll just come right out and say it. Yesterday morning, my three-year old beloved monkey of a cat, Louis, suddenly died.
[Time out to cry a bit.]
The night before, my friend Michele had brought over dinner from Whole Foods. There was girl talk. There was laughter. There was flirting with Nika, the fluffy girl kitty (aka the Evil Queen, because she’s such a %$@&ing bully to Louis. Plus the fact that she pees on the bed).
Michele asked where Louis, my other kitty was. Most certainly upstairs, I said. Shy, that one.
But when Michele went to leave, there he was, half-way down the stairs, looking out between the bars. Charmed by his handsome face, Michele stepped over to introduce herself. And much to my delight, instead of escaping to a safe distance at the top of the stairs, Louis investigated her finger, and proceeded to spend the next ten minutes flirting outrageously.
He rubbed his cheek against her finger. He plopped over on the step. He rolled onto his back and looked at her upside down while batting with soft paws at her finger. In short, he pulled out all the stops on his “Louis the monkey-cat” routine.
He had us all in the palm of his little paw.
A few minutes later Michele said goodbye, I went to bed, and although my knee is still pretty messed up, all was well in the world.
I had just woken up, when I heard a loud THUMP, as if something heavy had fallen from a great height. When I left my bedroom, there was my beloved Louis, lying dead on the floor, apparently from a seizure or a hidden heart condition.
Louis, oh Louis. How could you go? I was expecting you to co-star in my videoblogs for at least another decade. I planned a series of “X minutes in the life of Louis the Cat” videos. (Plus, vengeful spirit that I am, I lived each day in anticipation of a time, years hence, when you might grow some balls and the Evil Queen, old and arthritic by then, might finally get her comeuppance.)
Why do the good ones always seem to get taken much too soon?
[Time out for another crying jag.]
Louis, I miss you.
Here, then, is my little memorial to you, dear Mr. Boo, my monkey-kitty. Even though you sometimes annoyed the hell out of me, I miss you and I want you back, goddamnit. I love you, sweet kitty, and I always will.
Three years ago today (exactly), my neighbor, Brendan, sent around an email with a photo of a kitten he was fostering:
Hello.
If you know of anyone looking for a male orange tabby kitten, let me know, I’ve got one at my house, one picture is attached. 😉
This little guy was howling in the bushes at work last week, but a really nice guy named Ivor from a place called Fat Cat Rescue met me there on Saturday, and caught him in about 10 minutes.
…
He sat on my lap for two hours last night purring, he’s pretty tame, so I think he was dumped in our business park, seems too civilized to be feral. I haven’t heard him meow once since we caught him, which is kind of weird, and he uses the litter box too.
As it happens, I was actually considering getting a second cat, and if I were to get another kitty, I knew I wanted an orange male tabby (since they tend to be such awesome guys).
Now the Universe was handing me an orange male tabby for the taking, if I wanted him. How could I turn down such an offer from the Universe?
But I was conflicted. My other cat, Nika, was hypo-allergenic (a Siberian, the result of a relationship with an allergic boyfriend), and now I was single again. Adding a “regular” cat to the menagerie would effectively defeat the purpose of having a hypo-allergenic kitty – in one fell swoop effectively eliminating all cat-allergic men from my dating pool.
What’s a girl to do?
I replied to Brendan’s email:
I don’t know if I can adopt him, but I want to meet him!!!
Ha. Famous last words.
Louis, you hissed at me from your corner in the cat carrier in Brendan’s bathroom, but within a minute or two your hisses were accompanied by a background of loud purring. And a few minutes later you were rubbing against my hand. Then out of the carrier, and it wasn’t long before you were climbing up into my lap!
It was meant to be, Louis. You and me, redheaded soul spirits. Here are some of my memories of you:
Because Nika was such a %$*&ing bully, you spent most of your time in my studio with me, while the Evil Queen owned the downstairs. You were my studio friend, my familiar. The windowsill was your favorite perch, though you also wore me down in the battle over the drafting table, and co-starred in a number of my videoblogs either napping or bathing or roaming around on its surface.
I shrieked at you on a number of occasions when you ran across some artwork I was creating for a client, but somehow you thankfully managed never to damage anything.
I miss you coming to visit me at my computer, looking up at me with your big, loving eyes. Words cannot express how much I loved feeling your little body leaning against my calf, your tail twining up my knee.
On the other hand, you also took small chunks of flesh out of my thighs when you leaped into my lap and didn’t quite make it all the way… And you drove me crazy walking to and fro in front of my monitor when you wanted to be fed. Nutty kitty.
No longer will you climb onto the back of my computer chair and lick my hair.
No more will I worry about tripping over you on the stairs. (You never moved, you crazy beast! You’d just lie there, tail directly in the path of my foot, looking up at me. Not a day passed when I didn’t almost smoosh you on the way up or down the steps. You weren’t the sharpest tool in the shed sometimes.)
I miss you being in my way, Louis. What I would give to have you blocking my steps on the stairs again.
You made funny clicking sounds at birds in the tree outside. You had the funniest way of shaking your head that I’ve never seen in another cat. In the mornings, when I’d finally emerge to your piteous cries of “feed me,” you’d turn tail and run just like a character in a cartoon, leaving part of your body behind for a moment.
Of all the cats I’ve ever had, you also had the most expressive voice, and cracked me up on a daily basis.
I have way too few photos and videos of you, but I’m glad I’ve got this one, which captures your monkey spirit, and your one-of-a-kind voice:
In the past few weeks you were even getting some cojones, making inroads into Nika’s territory, even teasing her on occasion. Sometimes she even backed down! (I always cheered for your team.) I had hopes that maybe you’d tilt the hierarchy in your direction and give the Evil Queen a taste of her own medicine. But maybe you were too sweet for that.
I wonder if I could have saved you if I’d gotten outside my bedroom faster. I like to think you went too quickly for that, quickly and without pain. I like to think you didn’t suffer. I like to think you knew how much I loved you.
Louis, I miss you. I’ve been pretty nonfunctional for the past couple of days, and I feel like I can barely string a sentence together. Sorry if this memorial isn’t up to snuff. I know you’ll forgive me though; you never required anything of me but love, and two meals a day.
Rest in peace little buddy.
