SHIFTING YOUR REALITY

Why do you blog? Let me change that question... why did you start blogging? Sometimes we can start for one reason, but continue for a different one.


I started blogging, aka writing, because I needed to write again. I needed to do something productive, and I needed someone other than me to read it. In fact, in my mind, I had this picture of my blog working out sorta like the movie FIELD OF DREAMS. If I write it, they will come, was my mentality when I opened my account. I was all enthusiasm, sure that I was going to set the blogging world on fire with my mad writing skills. I look back at that and laugh now. Not with sarcasm, but a full belly laugh. It's funny, right? Because if you're reading this, you know how hard it is to build a loyal readership. Well, I guess it took Kevin Costner some time in the movie, too. He had to build a baseball field, etc. It's not just flipping a switch.

The thing I didn't anticipate was how much enjoyment I would get from reading other people's blogs. I didn't see that coming. In fact, if I have limited time and have to choose between writing my own and reading my subscriptions.... it's a tough call. Sometimes I will choose to read what you guys are writing, unless I have something that I really want to get down on paper, because I LEARN so much.

Here is the kick in the teeth: if you know something to be true, but you don't utilize that truth and make it your own, it does you no good. Now, doesn't that just suck lemons? One of my favorite bloggers, Phoenix, wrote an excellent post about not allowing negative people, events, etc. to suck her energy anymore. This may or may not be a new concept for you. It's truth is undeniable. Negativity sucks our energy. Our spirit. Eventually that may mean our good health. As long as we keep that door open, it keeps sucking. It comes at us as people and things. If you don't know what I am talking about, think about whatever steals your joy. That is the culprit. What has you stomping around and cursing and wanting to throw things? There it is. Anyway, I read that post and it did a flashsideways with my current book (yeah, that was a LOST reference ~ couldn't help it).

If you have never read Richard Bach's books you're missing out. Period. Being on vacation made it hard for me to work on my own novel, but did enable me to read more of RUNNING FROM SAFETY by Richard Bach. Even though I could have gulped it; I savor his books like a fine wine. Therefore, I am still not quite halfway finished. That does move my actual finish date up from Thanksgiving to Halloween:-) I am digressing....

So how does this wonderful book and Phoenix's blog flashsideways? Well, she figured out that getting angry and allowing negativity to suck your energy steals your joy. In the chapter I had just finished Richard was talking with his wife about how pointless it was to get angry. She reminded him that she had seen him angry plenty of times. He then sets about explaining that it's because in that instant he forgets that it's just a game. He gets caught up in that he might lose this or that, or is afraid of something being taken away, that he becomes angry. However, once he remembers that it is a game (his perception is restored), then the anger becomes just a mood of the game, and it fades immediately.

If you're scratching your head right now, that's okay. I tried to explain something rather complicated in a few sentences that he knew required a book. The thing that both of these people have in common is that they are taking their reality and shifting it. People change their reality all of the time. I know that is true. I have read it on here. People are shaking their boxes and changing their lives. They are cutting out the negative and only letting in the positive and it is changing their game. Me: I keep pulling the pain card with my migraines in my game, and I am really tired of that. I am ready to change games. Like I said, if you know something to be true, but you don't utilize it and make it your own, then it does you no good.

LOST AND RUNNING FROM SAFETY

Well, this is going to be a little bit different. I say that like it's unusual... I am still writing my book. My muse is coming and going, but not gone. I picked up a Richard Bach novel on Monday that I read a long time ago and started it again. I would have preferred to read ILLUSIONS again, but it is stowed somewhere in a box or crate in my storage unit, amidst hundreds of other books, and I have no idea where to even begin looking for it. However, my mother has a copy of RUNNING FROM SAFETY right here at the house. I gave it to her a long time ago. I decided that it wouldn't interfere with my own writing process, so it went with me to my doctor's appointment on Monday.

Honestly, I didn't make it very far into the book. I kept getting stopped by actual doctor stuff, other interruptions, and my need to ponder something I read. Here are a few quotes from the book that stopped me in my tracks:

We have a saying: "An excess of heart, a shortage of brain." The way he said the words, his proverb was sad truth.
~~~
Shepherd nodded. "In 1944, when I told you that time was not the wall for me that it was for you. You promised that in fifty years you'd write a book to take back, just for the boy you were, everything you know. What to look out for, how to be happy, knowledge to save your life, things you wish you'd known when you were him."

"No. Really?" The wind-streamers ruffled in a thermal cresting the mountaintop. "What a sweet idea."

Shepherd cleared his throat. "It's fifty years later, Richard." He shifted, uncomfortable in his seat. "He's waiting back there, the boy that you were. You promised."

"I don't remember any promise."

The angel looked at me as though I had sold my soul. The words came out a little harsh, I thought, but neither boy nor angel knows how hard it is to write. "Tell him I forgot the promise, but that everything is going to work out all right and he's not to worry."

Shepherd sighed. "Ah, Richard," he said. "Do promises to children mean nothing to you?"

"Not when keeping them is going to break their heart! He doesn't want to know there are storms ahead, that before long he'll be the only one of his family left alive, he doesn't want to know about divorce and betrayal and bankruptcy, that he won't marry the woman of his heart for another thirty-five years. Shepherd, one year is forever to a nine-year-old. You're right, that promise means nothing!"
~~~~
"Books are written on years turned inside out by ideas that never let go until you get them in print, and even then writing's a last resort, a desperate ransom you pay to get your life back."
~~~
....this could show him what's important in a lifetime! You find what you love and learn everything about it. You bet your life on what you know and you run from safety, off your mountain into the air, trusting the Principles of Flight to bring you soaring up on lift you cannot see with your eyes.

Yep, I made it to page 20. At this rate, I should have it finished sometime around Christmas. Of course, I have lots of other things slowing me down, too. I am trying to get caught up on all of my taped TV shows on the DVR, so that they don't get recorded over. And I am still watching 24 and LOST in real time on the TV. Of course, they are both really hurting my heart. I know that a lot of people don't understand how a TV show, movie, or book could hurt your heart. Or they can understand how a book can hurt your heart but not a TV show (or a movie). That I don't understand. They are all stories. The only difference is that one is told via the written word and the other is acted out. In some ways a TV show creates a stronger bond, because your attachment to the characters happens over a longer period of time. However, it all comes back to how well the story is told. If the story is well-written, it can break your heart. Period. Last week, at the end of LOST, I was a crying, drippy mess. I am really worried about what is in store for me this week. It makes me hurt... To watch this clip you have to turn off the sound on my music player at the bottom of the page...