Deserving Our Writing Dreams* Guest Post by: Noelle Sterne

Many of us dream of and fantasize success in our most passionate pursuits—writing for me, runway fashion designer for my cousin, chess master for her son, Yankees’ shortstop for her other son. Every musician dreams of rock (or Philharmonic) stardom. Every actor dreams of lead roles and Oscars. Every writer dreams of bestsellers, big money, movie adaptations, major TV appearances, and induction into the Kindle Million Club.

How do we help ensure we make it? Yes, we must work enough, persist enough, and pursue enough. But we must also feel we deserve our Dream.

Do You Feel You Deserve Your Dream?

If you feel you don’t deserve your writing Dream, no matter how much time and sweat you put in, how many agents and publishers you know, or how many “lucky” breaks you have, you’ll torpedo yourself. Spiritual and life counselor Louise Hay in The Power Is Within You says, “When we have strong beliefs that we don’t deserve, we have problems doing what we want.”

I felt undeserving of writing success for a long time, despite churning out pieces, queries, and pitches. Finally I recognized some of the negatives that kept me gridlocked.

Apply to you?

· Do you feel a vague sense of guilt when you’re writing what you really want to?
· When you’ve just settled down to write, do you suddenly remember you absolutely must go get the car washed?
· When you’ve marked out the whole afternoon for writing, are you gripped by waves of nausea, headaches, dizziness?

 

Your shifty unconscious has just dispatched the guilt gestapo to subvert your creativity and stifle your Dream.

Unfortunately, our culture keeps this squad on active duty, especially for women. Single or married career women feel we must make our marks. Mothers take the raggedy heel of the bread, serve everyone else the perfect wedges of pie, and scrape the dregs for themselves. Wives put off their Dreams until their husbands establish their careers, children are grown, elderly parents are cared for, and church members are served their last supper.

Beginning to Reverse

To reverse your Dream-draining thoughts and actions, you don’t need twenty years of therapy. Only realize you have the power to change. Refuse to let the self-denial and guilt gang in, no matter how much they’re pounding on the door and pummeling the windows.

Despite a successful career in journalism, Elizabeth Gilbert admits in Eat Pray Love finally that she dared ask herself what she really wanted. Her answers ranged from a new linen shirt to living in Italy. But you don’t have to go on a shopping binge, relocate to exotic climes, or even leave your house. Instead, practice deserving with relatively small things.

Choose the better piece of toast or neater piece of cake, get tickets to the playoffs, order a mile-high pastrami sandwich and don’t share it, give yourself a daily bottle of imported beer, get a massage, buy that slinky pair of jeans (not your grandmother’s overalls). You’ll soon graduate to giving yourself the time, energy, and focus to pursue your Dream.

Dare to Deserve

If you’re questioning your deservingness, no need. Your desire to follow your passion signals that you unequivocally deserve your Dream. Otherwise you wouldn’t desire it at all.

To focus on deserving, though, may mean giving up certain things you may have hung onto for years. Give up thinking about your face (wrinkled), your feet (bony), your stomach (too big), your house (unclean), your garage (a disaster area), your desk (piled high), your finances (lacking), your work (chronically behind), your mate (chronically annoying), your status quo (too soothing), your future (too scarily unknown).

Instead, know your Dream isn’t flighty, stupid, ridiculous, impossible, but meant to be. Creativity counselor Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way reminds us, “Our creative dreams and yearnings come from a divine source.”

Get to Deservingness

How do we rise above those oozing negative thoughts? The principles, ancient and lately rediscovered by many spiritual teachers, are explained in Success Cybernetics by metaphysical teacher U. S. Andersen:

1. We are what we concentrate on.
2. What we concentrate on grows.
3. What we concentrate on becomes real.
4. We always find what we concentrate on.  

 

“The greatest danger in your life lies in dwelling on failure,” says Andersen. The greatest reward lies in thinking success.”

So, concentrate on what your Dream looks and feels like. When you do, you’ll make it more powerful by visualizing it in actuality now. How delicious does it feel to see yourself ensconced in your favorite spot writing what’s in your heart?

If you need a little help to reach this mind- and feeling-state, picture yourself in a field during a spring shower. Stand face skyward, arms open, the gentle drops alighting on your skin. Each drop is a positive, effortless thought. Are you straining? Trying? Not likely. All you have to do is stand there, enjoy, take in, accept.

Despite unmade beds, unwashed cars, unweeded gardens, unanswered emails, you do deserve your writing Dream. Just keep envisioning it, feeling how it feels to write, and letting yourself take the steps. One day, in the midst of a fantastic creative session, you’ll realize you don’t have to work at deserving your Dream. You’ll know it’s here.

Thoughts? Ever feel undeserving?

Bio:

Noelle’s column “Bloom Where You’re Writing” appears in Coffeehouse for Writers. In her book Trust Your Life: Forgive Yourself and Go After Your Dreams (Unity Books, 2011), Noelle guides readers to let go of regrets, relabel their past, and reach their Dreams and lifelong yearnings. Please visit www.trustyourlifenow.com

 

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