What Does Perfect Rest Look Like?
How Do You Become Perfectly Rested Instead of Consistently Bested? A writing prompt. If I was perfectly rested I’d be someone entirely different I suppose. I’d be brimming with energetic positivity to the chagrin of all my close family who already think I’m waaaaaaayyy to positively energetic for their taste. But it would come even more naturally, more easily, more energetically from a place of wholeness and harmony instead of insistence and insanity. I’d be healthier, which really means wealthier. I’d be engaged, without even having to think about it, in deep cellular repair. I’d be healing instead of reeling I’d be more feeling instead of dealing with the twists and turns of other peoples whims and wants and their inner debutants. I’d be the queen of the ball because I’d be so rested I’d know more clearly that I already have it all. I’d be the icing on the cake because I’d have overflowing reserves from which to take I’d be the master of my domain who’d no longer check his phone for the time when he’s stuck in the rain. I’d actually realize sooner how the rain doesn’t even make me feel stuck, but often feels like a stroke of luck because it reminds me to rest to breath in all those kicked up negative ions and feel my best. If I was perfectly rested would I ever get tired? Or would it be a conscious choice of aligned integrity as to when, each night, I finally retired? Would I have more hormones and neurotransmitters so my brain re-wired toward peace and enlightenment and that mystical freedom of knowing separation is an illusion and interconnectedness is the truth. Would I have more energy to figure out life’s mysteries, and be less pulled back my fatigue into long gone histories? Would I be able to crack more quickly all of life’s puzzles, all of my circumstantial riddles? Would I feel more free to dilly-dally, lolly-gag, enjoy the one step back for every two steps forward and play more freely in all of life’s middles? Like the creamy center of a frosting filled donut. Yes, somehow, I think I would. But how, then, do I become this perfectly rested version of myself? Does it start with putting all things non-urgent, non-necessary and unaligned on the proverbial shelf? While unrested, do I even have the energy to imagine a rested me? Would my imagination become stronger so I could create my dreaming and scheming ideal life for even longer? I suppose the rested version of me gets built like everything else, slowly and brick by brick… Or wait, is that just the problem that it doesn’t get built, but it gets unbuilt, by dismantling guilt and duty and culture and expectations and all the other bricks life has piled on me. Is unmaking the wall, brick by brick, the final trick? It only takes seconds to destroy what it has taken years to build. How can I destroy old habits that keep me on the hamster wheel? Perhaps it’s as simple as hopping off, laying down, shutting my eyes and deciding to just give it all a rest. That might be as perfect as it gets.
The Next Day Newspaper
WRITING PROMPT: What would you do if you get a newspaper delivered to your door every morning and then one day it is the next day’s newspaper, and it tells you what happened today? Here is a little story I wrote based on the prompt above in my Life Coaches Writer’s Group. Enjoy. The skies were gray, just how Buster liked it, on this perfectly temperate, sunless and silvery morning. The birds weren’t singing but more like just throwing out half-hearted bars of their favorite choruses while Buster yawned awake and meandered to his front stoop, like he did every day, to peruse the morning paper and find out what the powers that be wanted everyone to think today. He didn’t believe the news, he fancied himself too smart for that, but he liked to keep tabs on what he calls “the official narrative” because it was a good predictor of everyone’s mood for the day, or week, or month, depending on how doomy and gloomy the powers that be wanted to make life seem that morning. What was today’s latest outrage going to be? What was the most divisive spin the media could put on the suffering of others? How were they going to attempt to make us hate people different from us today? Or hate ourselves? Or hate the elite? Well, the elite he didn’t mind hating, but everyone else, no dice. Buster knew he came from love, would return to love and was made of love, so he saw right through the hate-stoking, fear-mongering, rage-provoking headlines. But he needed something entertaining to read with him morning cup of organic cinnamon tea so he had a subscription to the brainwashing rags, on both sides. He picked up his Wall Street Journal and his New York Times and when he read the headlines his jaw dropped. First, they agreed on something for the first time in who knows how long. And secondly, these were tomorrow’s papers. They predicted, unfathomably, the utter destruction of New England, where he was now standing. Was this a joke? Buster didn’t know what to think? How would he have received tomorrow’s papers today? And how would they both be in agreement on anything? And what the hell happened to New England? He read on, the irony not lost on him that even the future looked gloomy to the mainstream media. They were the kings and queens of the theme song that goes “there’s nothing to look forward to, so you should just give us your money and pack it in.” Had someone in the mail room made a mistake on the date? Or the content? Or had someone at the CIA made a mistake on tipping the hand of the powers that be who want nothing more than to cause destruction because it causes fear because it causes obedience because it causes the consolidation of power we’ve become so used to that we swim in it, unknowingly, like a fish swims in water, or a bird flies on wind. Johnson or Jeff was definitely going to get fired for this. If New England also goes up in a blaze of fire Buster would be fine. First, he didn’t believe the papers got it right, because they almost never do. And if they did, he’d go out drinking cinnamon tea, knowing full well the small pleasures are all that really matter anyway.
Where Am I Being Judgmental?
This week’s prompt in my group of life coach writers was to ask ourselves where we notice judgement and what happens if we get curious about it? We had 12 minutes on the clock to write about it and this is what I wrote: I notice judgement in my own life when people are being dumb. Hey, I know that sounds judgmental but that’s the prompt so clam down. Because sometimes people are so dumb. But I’m not talking about IQ dumb, or grades dumb, I’m talking about critical thinking dumb, believing the government propaganda dumb. If everyone you know wants the world to get better, and they do, then why is the world falling apart? The official narrative is that it’s human incompetence and accidental intermittent corruption, as if corruption were the same as being clumsy. “oops, sorry, I spilled all that garbage into the ocean, let me just get a napkin.” Or “pardon me, I didn’t mean to drop that many bombs on that many innocent people, my mistake.” Well, no. And frankly to believe societies are crumbling because of incompetence is, in my view, the height of stupidity. There is a design. A corrupt and well planned design, in motion for decades and working itself out now in our towns, our governments and our news media, but under the thinly disguised costume of compounding random events. Whoops, we have a misogynist in office. Whoops, now we have a dementia patient. Well, golly, how did that happen? By design you dumb fuck. By carefully planned, nasty, dark, evil design. And I get it, you don’t want to look at it like that because, scary. I understand, but if all you do is doubt the obvious and thrust your head in the sand Then you become useless and can’t lend a hand Or help us return to the land You are just a spectator adding to the bland and the quicksand. We need to wake up. We need to admit there are nefarious plotters who want us all dead and are planning world events to make it so. We need to just get our heads around that. If we don’t admit this to ourselves their plans succeed. If we do get our heads around it their plans backfire Because we awaken a holy fire and start to inspire and aspire and a new design can transpire. But if we believe this is all happening by chance, just happenstance then we are going to be made to dance, like an exhausted silly bear, getting so much wear and tear that we say jokingly “let’s just leave and go to France.” But it’s no better there. This corrupt design is global And the only thing left that’s noble Is deciding to see it. To understand that human nature is bent toward wholeness so if society is crumbling it is not incompetence or individual choices, it is corruption, designed and planned, with all kinds of truth being banned. There is a hope in this awful darkness of deliberately designed destruction Because it is all a pageant, a production And if we can start to learn how to discern we can make a U-turn And the fires of transformation can burn instead of forests and children and middle eastern cities. So I judge dummies who think individual choices are to blame for the designs of an elite few as they culminate and isolate and humiliate and alienate. But again, it’s not too late. We can smarten up, get hip, and right this intentionally sinking ship. The trick is to use this masterminded suffering to wake us up, to change us, to make us smart so we can listen with our heart The news is lies. The government is lies The body is truth, so become a sleuth, Even if your new, dangerous, extreme opinion is called uncouth Because by banding together we can change the weather, and not like the elite globalist wack-jobs do with technology, but with the energy of our gleaming hearts, wise souls and sound, right critical thought. So I judge dumb, and I feel numb, because despite what I’ve just written I also still, very much don’t know shit about shit at all.
My Tragic Gap Statement
A tragic gap statement is a written statement you make that describes what you want and why you don’t have it. This was developed by author Sandra Marinella and I read about in her book The Story You Need to Tell. The format of the tragic gap statement goes like this: I want to XYZ (fill in your blank) but I can’t because XYZ (again, fill in your blank). In my bi-weekly writer’s group of fellow Wayfinder Life Coaches we gave ourselves 12 minutes to write about our own tragic gap statements. The experience was illuminating for all of us and can be for you too. Try it! Come up with your own tragic gap statement and explore what is holding you back. And let me know in the comments or on my socials how it went. Below you can find my tragic gap statement and the poem I wrote about it. Enjoy. BRIAN’S TRAGIC GAP STATEMENT: “I want to be a published author but I can’t because I don’t have an agent.” This doesn’t feel tragic, but it certainly does feel like a wide and un-traversable gap. My mind seems to fully believe I will not get an agent, that I’m almost destined not to. But at the same time my innocent and hopeful inner child thinks that’s utter hogwash and I’m actually destined to get an agent, then a book deal, then another and another and another and end up squarely on the NY Times best seller list over and over again for record breaking numbers of weeks. So which is it? Is my destiny hopeless failure or unprecedented success? Or is the answer someplace in the bland and predictable middle-ground of grey and blah-dy blah blah blah? I sure hope it’s something exceptional. I want to be the exception and the one who breaks the rule. That would rule! So how do I close this quickly more tragic-seeming gap? How do I get from unpublished 43 year old “writer” in air quotes to published best selling author declared without the slightest trace of irony or self-deprecation? I suppose it starts by querying agents. Actually, no, it starts with *eye roll* believing in myself. *shoves finger down throat as if to make myself barf. Not because I don’t think believing in oneself is important, it is, it’s of the utmost. It also sounds cliche, like I’m still in the middle of s sappy Hallmark sympathy card telling me “better luck next time, champ” and “winning isn’t everything.” Well, isn’t it? I mean, don’t winners just love when they win? And don’t losers hate it when they lose? And don’t air-quote writers wish they could drop the air-quotes and just be writers? And also not be broke? Or a joke? Or a crock? Or a laughing stock? But I digress. The question was how do I close this tragic gap? And the answer, despite my best efforts at dressing it up in distinctive and innovative language is the well-worn cliche: believe in myself. And then a slew of other cliches from the firehose of word vomit follow: -hard work -don’t give up -keep trying -don’t lose hope -learn from failure -failure is just feedback -winners never quit -quitters never win And if I think of one more cliché I swear that’s some kind of mortal sin. So I’ll stop with the platitudes, shift my attitudes and send more queries despite my inner wearies. And be the writer who stays a fighter until things feel lighter and I can fall in love again with my antique typewriter. I will drop my air quotes and my winter coats and clear my throats and declare myself a writer even if it’s just scrawling unpublished notes.
That Special Morning
WRITING PROMPT: Recall a special morning and give us the details. Specific special mornings are hard to pinpoint for me because I luxuriate in mornings, generally speaking. The morning I had my first day of first grade was special, nerve-wracking, sweaty palmed and fretful. The morning I started 3rd grade at a brand new school in a brand new state was that same set of frets but three times worse. Going up in grade levels meant going up in cortisol levels too, but I didn’t realize it then. Cortisol was just the feeling of dread and wanting to be dead or stay in bed, but instead…it was off to school, where I was reminded I wasn’t cool, and yet I’d return day after day like a hapless fool. The morning I graduated high school was special because I was so ready to leave the indoctrination system behind for the freedom that I was sure I’d find on the other side of report cards and school yards and administrative blowhards. Christmas mornings were special, and Easter mornings too, but less so because candy can’t replace piles of presents. Compared to my plastic superhero Hall of Justice candy corn are basically peasants. Mornings when I nail my routine are especially satisfying Or when my lover woke me up with a blowjob it was gratifying Mornings when I could spend longer in the shower Or mornings when I woke up remembering I’m made of power Special mornings are little gifts, waking me up without warnings to remind me that this next bit of time unfolding is just as sacred as the holidays, or the intimacy with a lover or the running late with a pit in my stomach. It is all sacred, the AM, the PM, when someone unexpected slides into my DM. The details of special mornings blend together, and gather into a special life.
I Have this Hunch that…
WRITING PROMPT: What do hunches feel like? How do you know which ones to follow? I wonder about hunches. Are they divine guidance from on high Or a physiological response in our gut from our unusual lunches? Or pangs from muscle spasms from having done too many crunches? Hunches feel like a subtle sensation of knowing mixed with a twisting butterfly banging around in my stomach cage saying “let me out”. To let the butterfly out means to follow the hunch. To follow the hunch means to free my gut from its twisting, which I guess means it was the best thing. Following the hunch means I follow the butterfly. The feeling leaves my stomach and grabs a hold of the knowing that flashed in my mind. The hunch is worth following when it makes me relentlessly curious. If I decide not to follow the butterfly returns to my stomach cage furious and like a bursting appendix it all suddenly becomes so serious. The dizzying butterfly doesn’t get tired so it flits around until I become delirious. Butterflies have a life span of about two weeks and in my experience an unfollowed hunch has about the same life span. Intuitive promptings don’t just wait around to be followed. The benevolence of the universe seems to have it’s own plans and if its emissary the butterfly hunch can’t get me to follow its beautiful and captivating wing span into the mystery of the unknown it will, in a short span of time, fly off and find another host, emerging from another cocoon to follow it into the joy of being. Because that seems to be where hunches lead: to glory to solutions, to evolutions, to revolutions and to better endings to our story. I’ve never once regretted following a hunch, but I’ve felt the sting of watching butterflies die in my stomach instead of being set free. If you don’t follow you hunches you get lost in the woods but if you follow a hunch you are rewarded with a bunch and as they keep on coming, you suddenly keep on knowing, and then following hunches leads to an aura that’s glowing and a life that’s flowing. I’m no detective, but I have a hunch that we’d all be better off following our stomach butterflies instead of naming them anxiety and following the dumb rules of society. But hey, that’s just a hunch, you can tell me where I’m wrong.
What I’d Say At My Own Funeral
WRITING PROMPT: Write a eulogy for yourself, being as honest as you can. What do you have to say for yourself? If Brian were here right now he’d make light of this tragedy. He’d tell you all it’s okay to grieve but to get back to living as soon as possible because he’s gone and grateful and his life was fine and dandy and y’all don’t need to make such a fuss anymore. He’d also get his feelings hurt if you didn’t grieve just a little bit. So, yeah, suffer, mourn, make him feel good, and then get on with your lives, because that will make him feel great. Brian was an optimist through and through. If he’s been able to speak at the moment of his death he’d have said “I’m looking forward to finally seeing what this death thing is all about.” He lived curiously and fearlessly. That’s what he’d want me to say, but the truth is more nuanced for sure. Brian was often crippled by fear, paralyzed as he analyzed what he perceived to the micro-expressions of others that almost certainly meant he had offended them, or was just plain offensive as a whole. Brian’s message from beyond the grave is that this life is not meant to seem so grave, and so be brave and go after what you crave, so in the end you can rave about the life you lived instead of the money you saved. Brian feared regret so he experimented with every thing he could find Drugs that made him forget Money and pride he lost in a bet Unrequited loves he could never quite get And yet He lived fully. He loved completely. And he laughed unashamedly and way too loudly indoors. He scrubbed floors. And paid whores. And had sores And settled scores But in the end he realized what he wanted was right inside, in his core Brian will not go unremembered because he is unforgettable. He is relentlessly himself even when pretending to be something he’s not. How doe that work? Well, you’d have to ask Brian, but indeed, he pulled it off. He greatest trick in life is making y’all believe he was a separate human from all of you. You all perform that same trick but forget you’re magicians. Brian made friends with his inner wizard and let a little magic leak right out into the world. Your inner wizard is just as powerful. Instead of wandering, use your wand. Instead of squandering, enjoy the pond. Instead of floundering we can learn to respond. Brian will be missed. He will be missed because each of us felt more seen when he looked into our eyes. He made us feel understood in a world where misunderstanding is the rule of the day. He made us feel accepted when prejudice is the water we swim in. He made us feel revered in a world where the sacred is seen as ridiculous or at least expendable. Brian ran toward a bomb threat, was held up at gun point, arrested and jailed. He had an adventure. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. But it was exactly what happened and it was exactly what he needed. May your life’s adventure be as much of a roller coaster. So when you get off the ride you’re a little dizzy, feeling loved, with the lingering taste of fried dough and cotton candy on your tongue. But also you’re grateful it’s over and you are firmly rooted again on the ground. At the source. May he rest in peace.
Buster’s Broken Umbrella
WRITING PROMPT: Write a scene where a character confronts one of your worst fears. THE FEAR: I chose the fear of not amounting to anything. The rain wouldn’t stop pouring down that day. Buster, a 37 year old bus driver just finished his route and was walking home. The umbrella caved under the weight of the rain and soaked Buster to the bones. He pulled his now drenched and useless jacket tighter around his shivering torso. The weather report didn’t say rain, so what the hail was this, Buster thought to himself. Just then the rain turned to snow and the steam rising from the road vanished as the soft coating of cold white fluff enveloped the landscape, quieting everything. Including, for the briefest of moments, Buster’s tormented mind. In that moment Buster realized he had lived his whole life in the same haphazard way that the weather was now living its life. Ever-changing, reasonless, and most certainly unpredictable. He had been trying to forecast his future since he could climb out of the crib and like every expert meteorologist he got it wrong almost every time. No offense to the weather men, but you can’t contain the unpredictable and your entire job flies in the face of the natural order of things. Just sayin’. That said, it is nice to know, generally speaking, if one should bring their decrepit umbrella that day. Back to Buster who took refuge under the awning of a local pawn shop. The place where unwanted trash goes to die, he thought, like all his dreams and machinations and goals and hopes. They had all been pawned off, just sitting on a shelf next to a bowling ball with a monogram that doesn’t match anyone anymore and a record player from the Pleistocene era. As Buster stood there the snow turned into a forceful wind and hail. Just as gusty as his tornado mind. And the pawnshop suddenly closed. The owner emerged, with a melancholy about him, and when Buster asked what was wrong he said the shop was going out of business. Sure, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, but sometimes those treasures stay buried on pawnshop shelves that close up, permanently. Buster peered into the dark and closed pawnshop for a long moment even as he was being softly pelted by tiny ice balls that nobody saw coming but most certainly are here. A glint caught his eye. He noticed on the far wall a small object that was definitely treasure to him. It was obscured by a bendy desk lamp and a cigar box, but it was unmistakable. It was what he had been looking for his whole life. Suddenly the sun broke through the clouds, and the wind became a breeze, more like a breath. The hail melted as it fell into rain that became clear blue skies even as Buster realized something. He already amounted to something. The weather might be unpredictable and pawnshops might be junk magnets, but if you look hard enough, if you take shelter when you need to, you may realize that something shiny and only for you is nestled behind the hurricanes and bowling balls, and it will be there for you even when everything else goes so completely bankrupt.
An Intimate Longing…
WRITING PROMPT: Write about something you want so badly. What is it? How does it feel? Good emotionally connected sex with a person I feel completely safe with, at home in, and who’s skin electrifies mine. And not just the sex, but the short-hand familiarity that comes from years in each others mind caverns and soft arms. It goes by many names, but I’ll call it intimacy. How does it feel? Alluring and terrifying. Seductive and destructive and realizing I don’t know how to cultivate it has been instructive. It feels exciting but out of reach, like when you see a movie filmed in your hometown but what you really want to be is a movie star. It kinda scratches the itch, but like poison sumac the scratching calls fourth more itching Until I’m nursing my blue balls and won’t stop bitching About a connection that could be so enriching If the thought of it didn’t leave me stitching The seams on a broken heart That’s all but fallen apart, but not from being run into the ground, but being neglected, like a childhood toy that rots under the porch while nobody on earth even cares or remembers its there. I hide behind the excuse of neglect Because I don’t have the courage to correct A trauma that keeps me from being able to select A mate who matches my resonance So I wither away in hesitance As misogynists become presidents Or should be in an assisted living residence But I digress I went off topic Because the subject of my love life is so myopic Couldn’t we just margarita, or something else tropic? I had my heart of my sleeve, but’s its time to retire So I take now my leave, unless you’ve found me a buyer?
This Might Surprise You But…
WRITING PROMPT: Write about something in your life that might surprise people. How do I know what’s going to surprise anybody else? I was surprised to learn, at age 10, that Santa Claus wasn’t real, and neither was indestructible parental trust. I was surprised to learn that evolution and gravity and germs are still just theories. I was surprised to learn that our government has signed treaties not to use weather modification technology which supposedly doesn’t even exist yet. How dutifully responsible of them. I was surprised at my 18th birthday party. I was surprised when the nursing home I used to work at had a bomb threat called in. I was even more surprised to learn, after trying to help a 90 year old woman out of bed, that it was just a drill. I was surprised to learn that people earnestly believe the US two party system gives them real choices. Do any of those things surprise you? How do I know? So how can I know if my measly little traumas and triggers, or set backs that get bigger will surprise you? How do I know if my film festival laurels or screenplay awards will surprise you? They certainly surprised me. And I was even more surprised to learn that none of them came with cash prizes. Though I suppose I shouldn’t have been. Would it surprise you to know I’m bashful? Everyone just assigns me the role of extravert because I can hold my own at dinner parties. But what nobody sees is the hot bath, fat doobie, and 1/2 season of crap TV I need just to patch myself up after a social gathering when the plastic smile sometimes seems to melt into my face, burning me and hardening that way. You can be entertaining and an introvert. You can nail a punch line, understand sarcasm, be handy with a zinger and still be shy. You can dish it but not like to take it, despite whatever stupid limerick you were taught about heat and the kitchen as a kid. It just so happens I like the kitchen but I don’t want it to to be hot in there so I’ve installed Central AC, metaphorically speaking. I can’t actually afford central AC, I’m an artist, and a student for Pete’s sake. But no I cannot take the heat, and no I will not leave the kitchen. Thank you. Would it surprise you to know I fear my own shame and I’m ashamed of my fear? Life coaches don’t have those right? They’ve supposedly taken the cure and seem so secure But I just let my imposter syndrome run me through like a skewer Until my thoughts have gone tumbling down into the sewer Sure that I’ve seen it all and there is nothing newer Would it surprise you to know that I’ve been a thief? Or a drug addict? Or a user, a liar or a cheat? Because I have. But would it surprise you to know this cheat has also been a benefactor, a lover, a forgiver, a giver, a hugger, a kisser, a friend, a coach, a healer, an artist, a dreamer, a child, and a fellow human. You’ve been all those things too. Don’t act so surprised.
