“Let’s face it, you’ve never amounted to anything and never will.”
“Your creative dreams come A BIT LATE, don’t you think?”
“You’re too OLD and worn-out to make any money now. Scraping by on an inadequate Old Age Pension is all you can hope for.”

It doesn’t matter how often I’ve had these nocturnal visitations, there’s no getting used to them. Like an infant left alone in a stroller in the middle of a traffic jam – I am always caught off-guard and undefended.

I’m sure that many of you have “been there.” The messages may differ, depending on your age, circumstances and personal history, but the basic theme of self-judgment is a common one, particularly in the west.

Of course the evil emissaries of doom and failure don’t just appear at night. Their carping can carry on throughout the day – especially if you’re taking some risks in your life, whether it’s building a business, taking a new direction in your creative field, or sharing your wisdom in a book.

“What makes you think you can make any money at that?”
“You’ll never be as good as (FILL IN THE BLANK).”
“There are already way too many books out there.”

Allowing negative messages like these to hold sway can kill our dreams, keep us playing it “safe,” and stop us from sharing our gifts. Finding ways to deal with them skillfully ought to be our biggest priority.

The most important thing to recognize is that, regardless of their content, every single one of these messages is wrong and irrelevant. They don’t come from the larger Self who wants to be of joyful service to this world, but from a diminished, fearful version of ourselves who wants to protect us from veering from the beaten path, even if the beaten path is harming us. No matter what the demons are saying, no matter how convincing they may sound, they’re wrong.

Below are some suggested techniques for routing the night-time demons. The day-time naysayers are equally nasty and there are a number of techniques for trouncing them, but for now I will focus on those that strike us when we’re at our most vulnerable. The intent is to settle you down as quickly as possible so that you can get the sleep you need to function happily, productively, and creatively the next day.

• Calm your body. Relax your forehead, your breathing, and your movements. Deliberately change position slowly as opposed to tossing and turning. Focus on your breathing and, if you wish, inwardly count your out-breaths. Sometimes it helps to tell yourself that if you’re still awake after 100 outbreaths, you’re to get up and start your day. I’ve never gotten to 100 yet.

• Invent a sanctuary for yourself. Envisage yourself surrounded by benign presences comforting you and attending to your every need. Maybe you’re lying on a comfortable bed next to billowing white muslin curtains, breathing in fresh sea air. Know that you are safe.

• Listen to a recording of poetry, meditative music, or a talk by one of the many spiritual teachers of our day. Pema Chodren and Stephen Levine are particular favourites of mine.

• If the negative messages are particularly virulent, get up, light a candle, grab your journal, and do a written dialogue with a source of inner wisdom or healing that’s meaningful to you. Allow this being to give you love and wise counsel.

It’s best not to attempt to engage the demons of the dark with counter-arguments. Even if that weren’t futile, it just engages the mind and makes it even more difficult to get back to sleep. Assuming the role of a wise guardian or parent enables us to detach from the stories, to cease identifying with them, and to take command of the situation.

Maybe the nocturnal emissaries of doom have a purpose beyond tormenting us in the wee hours. As a veteran of countless night-time encounters, I have found that I am better able to deal with the negative stories that encroach upon my mind and upon those of my clients during the day. Perhaps the demons of the dark are not our enemies after all, but merely sparring partners to strengthen us so that we can become more effective creators and happier humans by day.

Now there’s an empowering bed-time story.
(a shorter version of this blog first appeared in the Creativity Coaching Association’s April newsletter.)

I first encountered Eric’s work eight years ago when I was looking for resources to develop a course on Creativity that I was teaching at the Vancouver Film School. Eric’s The Creativity Book was a wonderful source of ideas and inspiration. In more recent years, I picked up Fearless Creating, which formed the basis for my course, “Stoking Your Creative Fire,” which I will soon be offering as a teleclass. Eric is also the originator of the exciting 21st century profession, creativity coaching. I’ve taken two of his courses, which are predictably brilliant, and am close to completing my certification through the Creativity Coaching Association.

My blog is one stop in a tour in which Eric is promoting his new book, Rethinking Depression. It challenges the prevailing perception of depression as a disorder that needs to be fixed and medicated away, and instead offers a perspective and step-by-step approach that encourages us to make meaning rather than monitor moods. I’ve struggled with depression at different points in my life – what human worth his or her salt hasn’t? – and I am delighted to see this intelligent, kind and practical book arrive on the scene.

The following Q&A will give you some deeper insight into Rethinking Depression:

The first section of your book focuses on debunking depression as a “mental illness,” which is not to say that sadness and unhappiness cannot be debilitating. Can you briefly describe the main thrust of your argument?

What I hope to demonstrate is that there is something profoundly wrong with the way we name and treat certain human phenomena. When we call something a “mental disease” or a “mental disorder” we imply a great deal about its origins, its treatment, its intractability, and its locus of control. The mental health industry has its reasons for calling life’s challenges “disorders,” but we have few good reasons to collude with them. I ask that readers who do feel depressed seek help. I hope that this books aids people in understanding what help to ask for from professionals and what help we should realize they can’t possibly offer us.

If there is “mental disorder of depression,” why are millions of people convinced that “depression” exists?

As soon as you employ the interesting linguistic tactic of calling every unwanted aspect of life abnormal, you are on the road to pathologizing everyday life. By making every unwanted experience a piece of pathology, it becomes possible to knit together disorders that have the look but not the reality of medical illness. This is what has happened in our “medicalize everything” culture. In fact, the word depression has virtually replaced unhappiness in our internal vocabularies. We feel sad but we call ourselves depressed. Having unconsciously made this linguistic switch, when we look for help we naturally turn to a “depression expert.” We look to a pill, a therapist, a social worker, or a pastoral counselor – even if we’re sad because we’re having trouble paying the bills, because our career is not taking off, or because our relationship is on the skids. That is, even if our sadness is rooted in our circumstances, social forces cause us to name that sadness “depression” and to look for “help with our depression.” People have been trained to call their sadness “depression” by the many forces acting upon them, from the mental health industry to mass culture to advertising.

Why is recognizing the role of unhappiness in our lives an important feature of “rethinking depression?”

To acknowledge the reality of unhappiness is not to assert the centrality of unhappiness. In fact, it is just the opposite. By taking the common human experience of unhappiness out of the shadows and acknowledging its existence, we begin to reduce its power. At first it is nothing but painful to say, “I am profoundly unhappy.” The words cut to the quick. They seem to come with a life sentence and allow no room for anything sweet or hopeful. But the gloom can lift. It may lift of its own accord–or it may lift because you have a strong existential program in place whereby you pay more attention to your intentions than to your mood. One decision that an existentially aware person makes is to focus on making meaning rather than on monitoring moods.

What does your Existential Program offer people who are hoping to shed the mental illness label of depression?

I ask that people take as much control as possible of their thoughts, their attitudes, their moods, their behaviours, and their very orientation toward life and turn their innate freedom into a virtue and a blessing. Even if people decide to take antidepressants or engage in psychotherapy to get help with their unhappiness, they will still have to find ways of dealing with their meaning needs, the shadows of their personality, their consciousness of mortality, and the facts of existence. This book offers guidance in all of those areas.

Rethinking Depression is a fantastic resource. Do check it out.

Especially since we live in a culture that fights the darkness. Our cities, where most of us live, are always lit up. When I wake up in the middle of the night, it’s impossible to determine the time without checking the clock.

We even medicate away mild depressions. Some psychiatrists and mental health professionals regard a few weeks of sadness, hopelessness, and disinterest in life as symptomatic of clinical depression. We are expected to be eternally cheerful. Nothing against cheerfulness – I’m pretty cheerful myself – and nothing against medications that ensure a quality of life that might otherwise be impossible for those who suffer from serious mental illness. But I can’t help but feel that we deny ourselves important spiritual and creative nourishment when we succumb to “find your happy place” messages and when we value the bright lights of confidence and certainty to the exclusion of the shadow states of doubt, confusion, and vulnerability.

Last week, I attended a candlelight ceremony put on by The Compassionate Friends, for parents whose children had died – whether by illness, accident, or any other means. The purpose of the ceremony was to ease the hearts of those who have suffered from this terrible loss – at Christmastime, when being in a happy perfect family is all but mandatory. Siblings are also invited to attend and so I lit a candle for my brother, Steve, who died by suicide six years ago, and for my twin sisters, Joan and Joyce, who died shortly after their premature birth a year after me, because the hospital in which they were born lacked incubators. It was humbling to be in the company of these brave parents, witnessing them share their tears from having lost what had been most precious to them. Lighting their candles to affirm their love, their courage, and their faith.

I woke up the next day in a dark despairing place, but I took courage from those parents and lit a candle, took out my journal, and wrote about how I was feeling. At such times, I often dialogue with a source of Inner Wisdom; this time the voice invited me to take a number of deep breaths and “let the darkness embrace you. Don’t fight against it.” I did that and I felt better. Not great, but better. Embracing the darkness helped me to see the source of the feelings, to unearth some irrational self-judgment, and to replace it with thoughts grounded in reality.

After that, I began working on my book and found that I was stuck – unable to write a single word. A scary state for a writer, but rather than give up, turn on the radio, and move on to a project for a client, I heeded the message of Inner Wisdom once again: “Just breathe, and light another candle. If you don’t write another word for the remaining hour, that’s alright. Just let go. If something comes to you, write it down.”

I did just that. After a few minutes of breathing into the silence, I had a realization that not only served my book but also addressed the state I had woken up with, in which I had felt alone in my discouragement: “There is no separation between the light and the dark. They are one and the same. Lighting a candle is an affirmation of that lack of separation.”

After that I was able to write and felt that deep resonance with darkness that, in a strange way, feels like home, as suggested by Theodore Roethke in his poem, In A Dark Time:

“In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood”

Perhaps this can be a helpful message in this time of the solstice when the darkness is most with us.

So last night I made a date with myself to get up at 6:00 AM, go to my dining table (as opposed to my computer, which is associated with “real projects” – my own or someone else’s), light a candle and just write for 20 minutes – about nothing in particular. When the alarm went off this morning, it felt like an act of utter futility. But I gently urged myself out of bed, sat myself down with tea and timer, and just started writing. The phrase, “Write into the sunrise” popped into my head so I let it lead me. I wrote about the gulls and crows that seem to greet each day with the same level of noisy unnuanced enthusiasm, about the silver sheen of the water, about the glimmer of apricot light on daybreak’s indigo clouds… Nothing in particular, but I found myself paying more attention than I usually do. The morning light moves swiftly – it’s impossible to track it – but the glide of my black pen across the gleaming white page made me realize how important if not essential it is to make the attempt. It expanded my sense of possibility. It dissolved my existential cloud.

I’ve done this kind of exercise before – many times – I have the mounds of notebooks to prove it. I’ve often enjoyed it but there has always been a vague sense that it wasn’t real writing. There was no purpose. No one was going to read it. I’m beginning to think that that mode of thinking is a kind of madness – as though nothing has meaning unless it has been so decreed by some ego – whether it’s our own, someone else’s, or a cluster of unexamined socially endorsed assumptions.

We write or we make music or we make art because we can, because it’s a vital part of our humanity. We don’t need a reason. Just write into the sunrise, for heaven’s sake. Fall in love with your day.

I know that dog. That dog is the writer within who’s supposed to be devoting the first hour of every day to a memoir/exploration about my spiritual community experience in the the 1990s. (It’s my main commitment in my 28 Days of Creative Recovery. For more on that, ask me to send you my May 2010 newsletter – donaleen@donaleensaul.com.) I’ve suited up and shown up most days, I’m proud to say, but the first day I sat down to write, the writer within refused to move.

Determined to keep my commitment to The Muse, I decided I would write about my doubts, usually the ringleader in any case of writer’s block.

“Something about this project feels old, dark, dank…like re-entering a stale, airless room that is better left to rot. Plus I’m buried in doubt, wondering if it’s just self-indulgence, hanging on to old grievances, wallowing in the past… A masochistic way of punishing myself – interminably. I’ve bumped into all of those elements in the back rooms of my mind, and there is a definite danger that any one of them could run the show. They’d like nothing better. Or maybe it’s a futile attempt to bring legitimacy to an experience that I should have moved on from long before now. Or maybe it’s a book that I ought to have written eons ago and it’s way too late now.”

No wonder the writer within was lying prone, declining all overtures.

But the thing is that writing about all of the doubt unleashed something. It wasn’t in my head anymore, preventing the brain synapses from firing. It was on the page.

Next I decided to fantasize about abandoning the project altogether.

“So what do I do? Light a big bonfire on Ambleside Beach, and with all of the nice West Van families with their dogs and baby strollers and matching Lulu Lemon outfits bearing witness, dance naked as all of the notes and journals and yearning and wondering that have engulfed this project crumble and melt and reduce themselves to ashes? And then giddily walk away cleansed and renewed, ready to reincarnate as a children’s author, provided the police whose station is just two blocks from the beach don’t haul me away first? It’s be easier than trying to write this thing.”

That was fun. As it turned out, I went past my hour and got some writing done on the project that day. The same thing happened every day thereafter.

The most important outcome from unleashing my doubt and desire to quit is that I reconnected with my determination to complete this book. Not because anyone is interested in it necessarily, nor because the publishers are clamouring, not for any reason other than it will gladden my soul.

Should you feel blocked in a project, try giving voice to the doubt, resistance, loathing, despair, ambition, fear, whatever feelings might be in the way of your creative flow. And if you don’t know what the feelings are, even posing questions like “What is stopping me from writing today?” or “What is blocking this project?” can take you off the sidewalk and onto the creative freeway.

Last evening, I worked up the courage to attend a Singles event. It had been recommended to me by a discerning friend who had also been single for many years, but who had recently met a wonderful man with whom she was falling in love. They had both been referred to this event. I took it as a sign.

The write-up on the website described it as an evening for adults over 40 “looking to share their gifts with a significant other” or “with a spiritual calling to find harmony and balance in their relationships.” The quote by Rumi – “Your Task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it” – resonated with how I have tried to live my life and to deal with my confusion, emotional clamour and cynicism in the realm of love, and so I was looking forward to meeting others with a similar intention.

Having managed to find an attractive, age-appropriate yet playful outfit, make room for the confusion, emotional clamour and cynicism within, and be open to what the evening had to offer, I felt pretty relaxed as I drove for 45 minutes through the last remnants of rush hour traffic, crossed a couple of bridges, and found my way there. Doublechecking the address, I saw that yes, it was indeed the Unity Church, which I tried not to be put off by. I have nothing against the church or its adherents, some of whom are dear friends, but I confess to having judgments about it being spiritually vague, precious, New Agey, and female-dominated. What guy is going to want to come here? But I told myself to set my prejudices and raging cynicism aside and just be open and curious. I walked in the door. It was eerily quiet…like a church. A serene space with beautiful artwork on the walls, but not a lot of laughter and no male voices. A sweet young woman, well beneath the 40+ age limit for whom the event was intended, collected my $35 and gave me a self-sticking name tag.

I walked into the room and saw about 12 people, all women except for one man, sitting in a circle. One of the hosts, an attractive woman in her 50s or 60s, saw me and said, heartily, “Don’t be shy. Come and sit down.” (In that moment, the clamour of emotions didn’t include “shy.”) I filled a paper plate with salad and some pieces of sandwich, and joined the circle. The host made a comment about how the men would come in droves if they saw a picture of “all of you beautiful women here.” I look around. There weren’t too many happy faces. The lone man assured us in his nasal reedy voice, “I could take you all on!” perhaps intending to be humourous and ironic and inject some much-needed male energy.

As I choked down my spinach salad and bits of smoked salmon wrap, I tried to tune in to the conversation. The hosts, who never introduced themselves, knew some of the people – it seemed as though some (including the man) may have been therapy clients – and they were talking about things and events comprehensible only to those in the facilitators’ immediate circle. Neither of the hosts asked my name or made any attempt to include me or anyone else whom they didn’t already know. I tried to contribute something to the conversation but it was ignored. Mary, the woman sitting next to me, a Celtic storyteller, tried to interject the odd droll comment, but was also ignored. I felt like asking if she wanted to escape and go for a beer (I don’t even drink beer) but the second facilitator, who seemed stern, but was perhaps just uncomfortable that this “singles event” was such a bust, was sitting next to her.

It was 7:30, I was almost finished my salad, and was wondering how I was going to make it to 10:00. I felt as thought I was trapped at a bad dinner party to whom I had been invited by a man with whom I was in a relationship that I knew perfectly well was doomed. I went to the washroom, acknowledged to myself the obvious – I wasn’t having any fun and didn’t like the people (except for Mary) – and made an executive decision to leave, even though it would be absolutely obvious to all, and even though the pleaser within was aghast. The sweet young woman well under 40, who had collected my $35, smiled and asked me if I had had a good time. I mumbled an obvious lie about a family crisis, asked her to make my apologies to the group, and left.

I’m still puzzling over this statement on the facilitators’ handout given out that night: “Our aim is to answer the need of communication of friendship facing adult singles today.” Huh? The good news is that I didn’t stay, thereby vaulting over what I have discovered over a lifetime of experimentation to be a significant barrier to love – trying to please people who could care less. I think Rumi would have approved. Too bad he’s been dead for 736 years and probably not available.

Writing is soul work, not a mechanical process reducible to “how to’s.” It’s like making love. Knowing the mechanics of what bit goes where will not make one a better lover. The same is true of writing. It is the soul connection that is the source of our unique writer’s voice, and that is what our readers/listeners respond to. (It’s what our lover responds to as well!)

Writing is at essence an act of courage. Sometimes dark and difficult stories emerge from pen or keyboard. People are scared of pain and we live in a society that marginalizes it, but embracing our own difficult stories and attending to others’ is the source of our power and our humanity – both as writers and as people. Such stories are part of the human experience and they are universal.

We live in a wounded civilization and we inhabit a wounded planet. In the West, we are sheltered from a lot of that, but it doesn’t serve us as writers or as people to perpetuate that pattern. A large part of the writer’s role in our society is to shed light into the dark places. Sometimes we do that with humour; sometimes we do that with pathos. But whatever our means of sharing what’s true, we need to know our inner landscape to write with any real heart or authority.

Of course it doesn’t. What sane person wants to drag his or her sorry bag of bones out from under the flannel sheets at 5 AM to write a blog that no one is going to read. Well, besides you.

Well, me. Why? Good question. I don’t know why. Nobody’s going to care. Except me.

I’ve been corresponding with my writer friend, PJ Reece, the only person on the planet I envy. A financially independent expat writer living in a charming flat in Mazatland who, when he isn’t taking salsa lessons, lounging on the beach, or listening to live jazz at the nearby plazuela, is ” just trying to finish a fucking novel, which grows in size the more I work on it. It’s out of control, my dramatic thrust has vanished, a red flag that always indicates a problem at the beginning…I must sit back in astonishment at how I’ve manifested this sometimes shabby, occasionally chic, but actually very normal paradise.”

Doncha hate him? He’s also a fine writer, and I’m not just saying that because I’ve known him for 40 years (we were both in utero of course). Check out his blog and find out for yourself. You will be one of the few, as he admitted in a recent letter: “Are you reading my blog? Don’t worry. No one else is either. But here we go…that shouldn’t bother us.”

He’s right. It shouldn’t. Three days a week I get up at 5 AM to work on my upcoming book, “Where Mystics Walk.” It’s my covenant to myself. Will anyone read it? Dunno. I’ve got a bulging inbox full of projects for hire, but writing my February newsletter as well as this blog, neither of which pay, had to come first this morning. Like most wonderful things in life, writing as if no one is reading is not a rational act. It’s far more glorious than that. It’s an act of faith.

So get writing. No  one will care. But that shouldn’t bother you.

“Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.” Don Marquis

So how do we deal with this loss that knows no bounds? From a loss that, according to the American Psychiatric Association, is comparable to surviving a concentration camp? Recognize that it’s bigger than our will or our egotistical insistence that we’re immune or have transcended it. Acknowledge it, breathe into it, and see it as a reminder of our humanity. Suffering is part of the human experience, at least for most of us. When we try to deny that, or gloss over it, we separate ourselves from our loved ones who are still living, and from other wounded humans. At the heart of our suffering is our love. Something we have never lost and never will. Let’s send love to that inconsolable part of us and to all others who have suffered loss by suicide or by some other means. Let’s send love to our brothers and sisters who couldn’t bare the pain and took their lives. Let’s share the love that also knows no bounds.

Somehow you have to come up with an article, essay, story, blog, novel, screenplay or whatever — and you wonder how the heck you’re ever going to get past that mean little flickering cursor and come up with something intelligible, never mind brilliant. You’re not the only one who feels this way. Maybe it’s an undeclared dread of The Other, The Great Unknown, The Abode of the Damned that leaves so many of us avoiding our writing project du jour — or worse, eternally distracted by endless emailing (which I am convinced is a disguised hell realm).

I’ve been writing for a living for-ev-er and I still struggle with cursor-phobia. The famous Gene Fowler quote — “Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank piece of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.” — is not hyperbole. It’s my life.

At my choir‘s recent dress rehearsal for our Christmas concerts, our director, Gail Suderman, pointed out that we were looking like deer caught in the headlights in our collective dread of our three performances this coming weekend. “Here’s the deal,” she told us, “When you’re singing, all you have to keep in mind is your next phrase, and then your next will follow. Keeping your focus on each breath, on each phrase, will carry you beautifully through all three performances.” Hearing this, we all relaxed — and we sounded one heck of a lot better as well.

One phrase at a time. It’s comparable to what the great meditation teacher, Stephen Levine, author of A Gradual Awakening, refers to as “just this much.” It applies to singing, to writing, to all creative undertakings — pretty well everything, in fact. We don’t have to upload the whole thing in one go.

And so the next time you boldly suit up for your writing session, just take it one breath, one word, one phrase at a time. Each phrase will lead to the next, which will lead to the next, and before you know it, you’ll be done!