I M Perfect lady

From "Big Magic" by Elizabeth Gilbert…

"Motives"

"Oh, and here's another thing: You are not required to save the world with your creativity."

"Your art not only doesn't have to be original, in other words; it doesn't have to be important."

"For example: Whenever anybody tells me that they want to write a book in order to help other people, I always think, Oh please don't."

"Please don't try to help me."

"I mean, it is very kind of you to want to help people, but please don't make it your sole creative motive, because we will feel the weight of your heavy intention, and it will put a strain upon our souls. (It reminds me of this wonderful adage from the British columnist Katharine Whitehorn: "You can recognize the people who live for others by the haunted look on the faces of the others.") I would so much rather you wrote a book in order to entertain yourself than to help me.  Or if your subject matter is darker and more serious, I would prefer that you made your art in order to save yourself, or to relieve yourself of some great psychic burden, rather than to save or relieve us."

"I once wrote a book in order to save myself. I wrote a travel memoir in order to make sense of my own journey and my own emotional confusion. All I was trying to do with that book was figure myself out.  In the process, though, I wrote a story that apparently helped a lot of other people figure themselves out – but that was never my intention.  If  I'd just sat down to write Eat Pray Love with the sole aim of helping others, I would've produced an entirely different book. I might have even produced a book that was insufferably unreadable. (Okay, okay…Admittedly a lot of critics found  Eat Pray Love insufferably unreadable as it was – but that's not my point: My point is that I wrote that book for my own purposes, and maybe that's why it felt genuine, and ultimately even helpful to many readers.)   Elizabeth…

I understand this and it makes great sense.

I love that I am not responsible to help others with this blog OR with my art.

Although to be honest, I did want to go public with my journey so that others would see they were not alone…and in hopes it would help someone.  For, at the time I was so confused, there wasn't anyone writing about this experience that I was going through.

I have tried to help, and write with helping in mind.

But, now I know why some of my greatest writings are when I am trying to just figure me out.  It is for my own selfish purpose.

When I am doing my art…it is all about me.

On rare occasion I try and make it a viable message….and those fail.

My best pieces of Art, are those that I don't even understand until years later.

There is a burden when doing anything for others….if it is just that sole purpose; if you are not enjoying the doing of it.

This was great for me to read tonight as the discussion on another blog is taking on the issue of sexual abuse in the church….or the families of the church.

I often write my comments as 'helping' and I am sure they feel heavy.

I will have to watch how I interact and the reasons why.

I should be able to discern this by how I feel.

If it flows freely and I am not trying to help or teach; but express me….it should feel and be genuine, and less burdensome to others.

Often I am learning more about myself as I respond and ponder and reflect at who I was prior to discovering my own sexual abuse.

The two lives are so completely different.

As I try and talk to the women who are walking where I once walked….I will have to find a way to talk; for I am talking to Me in my Past.

I truly don't know what the tone will be; what I can say or how…that will connect us.

Is there a place for us to stand….a piece of ground that overlaps.

A common place where the old me and this new one can meet?

Something we both have in common?

What part of me now is the same as the old me?

Nothing comes to mind.

My free spirit and my caged self….

The sleeping and the awakened.

My frustrations lie in not having a common road; a place for us to meet…a language we both can hear…and be heard.

Who I am today is like a free soul; unburdened…because I can see.

I stand with my truths…even the ugliest I embrace.

It is like I am still the same me; but one that sees all of me and loves her.

The old me didn't see much.  Okay, didn't see myself.

At all.

How would I have been able to help another see; if I myself was blind?

A person born into captivity has no trouble with their cage.

You can't see something wrong when wrong has been your normal.

It is a miracle that I am who I am today….coming from whence I came.

"Relax, you are not in charge…."