3.3 Listen deeply to inner guides who love you
Everyone knows what an inner critic is. It’s that voice inside that hammers you and tells you you’re bad and wrong and worthless and shuts you down.
Inner guides are the opposite…
They know you and they love you.
They know you from the inside out. Sometimes they know you better than you know yourself. Which means they can reveal secrets that you’re keeping from yourself but need to know.
They can reveal wisdom that you didn’t know you had in you.
And what do they want more than anything else?
They want you to feel for yourself and fight for yourself.
And they want to be of use. Once you’ve conjured up your inner guides, you can call on them to help guide you in making decisions, little ones and big ones.
Here’s one example of the kind of conversation I have with my guides…
Guide: Rich, do you know that you have a habit of over–explaining.
Rich: Oh, I know.
Guide: Where does that come from?
Rich: I want people to like me so I do as much for them as I possibly can.
Guide: Hmmm.
Rich: Hmmm, what? You think that’s a mistake?
Guide: What do you think?
Rich: I know that’s a mistake.
Guide: Why do you say that?
Rich: Because when I think about the writers I like to read, they’re not the ones who over–explain.
Guide: Tell me more.
Rich: Okay. Do you know what jump cuts are?
Guide: A quick cut from one scene of a movie to the next scene without any transition at all.
Rich: Yes, and they make the movie more lively. The screenwriter is making the audience do some work, so they make the transition on their own, and audiences like that. I like that.
Guide: So…
Rich: I have this habit of doing something I actually don’t like.
Guide: Tell me about a piece of your writing where you didn’t over–explain.
Rich: Easy, it’s a chapter I wrote called “Too Much Hurting.” I was in a reverie mood when I wrote it. I jumped from one thing to another. But there was an undercurrent of resonance between all the parts of that chapter. I didn’t explain how they were all related, I let my readers feel it for themselves.
Guide: And it made you happy to do that reverie writing?
Rich: Very happy. It was more play than work. And this next book of mine, that’s how I want to write the whole thing.
Guide: What about your readers? You’re making them work harder, aren’t you?
Rich: Yes, but no. Readers don’t want to be babied. They want you to give them a hell of a good ride, but they don’t want to be passive consumers. They want to be actively engaged. They want to have their own feelings about what I’m writing. They want to be making discoveries, not have everything handed to them.
Guide: And if you over–explain.
Rich: Then I’m stealing from them. I’m taking away a part of the fun.
Guide: And?
Rich: I don’t like that. More, I don’t agree with it. Actually this a moral stand for me.
Guide: Moral!?
Rich: Yes, I want to give people the best I can give them. And that means not taking away their agency by babying them when they don’t need to be babied.
But see, I’ve got a problem. What I write about is unconventional, so it takes some explaining to make it clear what I’m saying. If I’m not clear, then my readers can’t get the benefit of the blessings I’m offering. And sometimes I have a hard time finding that line between too little and too much.
Guide: So how can I help you?
Rich: Remind me to work over each passage with you. And we’ll focus on the questions, “Am I doing too much for my readers? Am I engaging them actively or am I overdoing the caretaking?”
Guide: I can do that. In fact I’d love to do that. And how else can I help you?
Rich: Remind me to play when I’m writing. When I get up in the morning and go to my computer, remind me to get myself in a play state first, then start writing.
Guide: You’ve got it.
Notice that the guide in this dialogue is an excellent inner coach, getting me to do my own work instead of doing it for me.
By the way, my guides all have personal names and vivid personalities. They’re not generic.
But in this book I’m keeping their names to myself, and I recommend you do the same if you ever talk about your guides to other people. I explain why in this section of my Asking book.
Now let me show you another example of a guide. This one is more like a consultant who freely gives me answers, and I appreciate this when I’m tired and don’t want to have to work out everything on my own.
Guide: Truth is, Rich, you’re not a nice guy.
Rich: Why are you bringing that up?
Guide: Because you grew up having to pretend to be a nice guy. Always thinking about others. Compulsively helping people. But really, behind that “selfless” persona was serious selfishness. You were desperate for approval. That’s what it was really about.
Rich: Yes, I know that, so again, why are you bringing it up? I know that old story all too well and it makes me angry.
Guide: There it is, that anger, that’s why I’m bringing it up.
Rich: Explain.
Guide: You have a deep sense of rage about your childhood.
Rich: Oh god, yes, that’s true.
Guide: And it’s great that you know it, but you keep trying to slide away from it.
Rich: An example?
Guide: You write about upgrading love, which you take deep pleasure in talking about.
Rich: There’s a but coming…
Guide: But you also write about the death of hope. And the terrible danger your species is in. How you’re on the verge of extinction. And how do you feel about that?
Rich: I don’t like it.
Guide: Don’t like it?
Rich: Okay, I hate it.
Guide: Hate it? What’s deeper than that?
Rich: I’m in a rage about that.
Guide: That’s what I see when I look inside you.
Rich: Yes, but I don’t like that rage. I don’t like to hang out in it.
Guide: That’s what I want to talk with you about.
Rich: Because?
Guide: Rage is something that’s true about you. And not just true, but essential. It’s something that’s deep in your heart.
Rich: In my heart! I’ve never thought of it like that before. Maybe I already know what you’re driving at. I talk up the love stuff and soft sell the rage stuff.
Guide: Yes, why do you do that?
Rich: Oh I guess I’m still trying to take care of my readers. Like maybe I can make it okay, make it easier to deal with the death of hope.
Guide: Can you really do that?
Rich: No. I can’t even do that for myself.
Guide: Tell me about your readers.
Rich: There aren’t many of them.
Guide: What are those few like?
Rich: They’re gutsy. They want the truth. They don’t want one of those happy–talk, easy–step, how–to programs that America is obsessed with. And they especially don’t want that from me.
Guide: So, rage.
Rich: I notice that I keep pulling back from it. I don’t want to take my readers there. It’s so hard. It’s painful, really painful.
Guide: Here’s what I’m thinking. The rage is true. It’s true for you personally. But it’s true about reality, too. This world is enraging. You and your readers want us humans to be so much better than we are. It makes you angry, really angry that, as I’ve heard you say, being human is too hard for human beings.
And that humans are so hard on other humans. And this world is filled with mass exploitation and mass suffering. And how can you make peace with that?
Rich: I can’t. I won’t. But what do I do with my rage?
Guide: See if this works for you. Own it, make it visible, go deep into it, take your readers with you.
But then push through it. Get to the sorrow that’s underneath it. Rage is not the end of your journey. Nor is the sorrow underneath. Because again, as you say, when you are down there in your deepest sorrow, that’s when you have the deepest compassion for yourself and for everyone.
And it’s that deepest compassion that makes you fight for yourself. And for all us humans. By upgrading love. And make that your response to the death of hope.
Imagine yourself as an alchemist turning rage into sorrow then into fight then into a special kind of love.
That’s my rant for you for this morning.
Rich: Truth is, even though I’ve lived with the death of hope for decades and with my rage since I was a child, those are still hard for me to be with. I’m doing way better than ever before. But they’re still hard.
Guide: Of course they are. Especially to be with them by yourself. So call on me. Use me. I want to be of use. I live for that.
Rich: Thank you and I hear you and I promise I will call on you.
When I’m talking with my inner guides…
I’m playing my way deeper into my writing.
Which is a whole lot more fun than grinding away at a problem that I just can’t seem to break through.
The conversations I have with my guides range from tender to kick–butt to urgent to pensive. My guides bring the whole spectrum of emotion to our conversations. But no matter the mood, I always feel an undercurrent of play the whole time I’m talking with them.
That mood buoys me up and sustains me and keeps me trucking, taking on the challenges of my writing with a will, one after the other.
PS:
Virtual Writing Partner.
Imagine a writing partner who knows you better than you know yourself and then ask her to shine a light on the path you need to follow to get to success.
Or take her hand and leap three years into the future. Your book is done, you’re in demand, you’re doing webinars, you’re giving keynotes, and you’re very happy with the followers you’ve got, both in number and in quality. Now ask your partner to tell you what the secret was to your success.
