By Valerie
“You can measure your worth by your dedication to your path, not by your successes or failures.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Well, shit.
You probably guessed that I just read the book Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. I found it both inspiring and infuriating.
For someone like me who lived with undiagnosed ADHD for 45 years, there’s a lot to unpack. I’ve already written about some of my complex PTSD resulting from decades of external and internal messaging that I’m lazy, unmotivated, ditsy, airheaded, and unfocused. So a quote like this invokes a trauma response. My body freezes, my breath changes, and my brain immediately begins the monologue that goes like this, “Your worth is tied to your dedication? Well, you’re screwed then. You’ve never been able to stick with anything. It took you ten years to finish college. You have several unfinished book chapters that have been sitting there until they’re no longer relevant. And you quit violin, piano, clarinet, ballet, singing, and theater. You kill every houseplant because you forget to water them, and you’ve been carrying around that unfinished cross-stitch through every move for 20 years. Dedication = worth? You’re effed. And once again…worthless.”
I got really good at masking this inner monologue, so when I’ve talked about these feelings with people who grew up with me, they can’t square who they saw with this new information. But that’s what masking is. I got so good at it, I hardly knew I was doing it. My ADHD brain moves so quickly from one thought to the next that I was barely even aware that I was masking. I had some quiet moments alone in my room when I would break down under the pressure of never-good-enough thinking, but my religious training had me bypass all of those emotions to testify of a magical healer that made it all okay. In reality, I was never really okay. If I had really been healed, my body would not have had the response to this book that it did.
But here I am, with all my cPTSD anxiety, having listened (because reading with my eyeballs is an impossibility) to a book that made me exceptionally envious of people who could do things. Gilbert talked about writing a short story for years. Like…. howwwwwww??? How do you keep a train of thought for that long? Every single paper I’ve ever written has been a product of furious last-minute, late-night sweat. If I were to start early and set it down and come back to it a week later, it would be gone. Lost in some unknown file folder in the dark recesses of my brain, covered by a million new ideas or thoughts that had also gotten lost back there in the intervening week.
Some of the things Gilbert brings up in her book are highly relatable for me. Like the following very long quote about fear:
“Let me list for you some of the many ways in which you might be afraid to live a more creative life: You’re afraid you have no talent. You’re afraid you’ll be rejected or criticized or ridiculed or misunderstood or—worst of all—ignored. You’re afraid there’s no market for your creativity, and therefore no point in pursuing it. You’re afraid somebody else already did it better. You’re afraid everybody else already did it better. You’re afraid somebody will steal your ideas, so it’s safer to keep them hidden forever in the dark. You’re afraid you won’t be taken seriously. You’re afraid your work isn’t politically, emotionally, or artistically important enough to change anyone’s life. You’re afraid your dreams are embarrassing. You’re afraid that someday you’ll look back on your creative endeavors as having been a giant waste of time, effort, and money. You’re afraid you don’t have the right kind of discipline. You’re afraid you don’t have the right kind of work space, or financial freedom, or empty hours in which to focus on invention or exploration. You’re afraid you don’t have the right kind of training or degree. You’re afraid you’re too fat. (I don’t know what this has to do with creativity, exactly, but experience has taught me that most of us are afraid we’re too fat, so let’s just put that on the anxiety list, for good measure.) You’re afraid of being exposed as a hack, or a fool, or a dilettante, or a narcissist. You’re afraid of upsetting your family with what you may reveal. You’re afraid of what your peers and coworkers will say if you express your personal truth aloud. You’re afraid of unleashing your innermost demons, and you really don’t want to encounter your innermost demons. You’re afraid your best work is behind you. You’re afraid you never had any best work to begin with. You’re afraid you neglected your creativity for so long that now you can never get it back. You’re afraid you’re too old to start. You’re afraid you’re too young to start. You’re afraid because something went well in your life once, so obviously nothing can ever go well again. You’re afraid because nothing has ever gone well in your life, so why bother trying? You’re afraid of being a one-hit wonder. You’re afraid of being a no-hit wonder.”
My 45-year-old monologue is all fear. Of all of those things she lists, particularly for me those in bold, and more. Like, afraid of myself. Afraid of everything. I could have filled the entire book with a list of my personal fears. My life is a monument to fear. Recent big life changes–Big Magic changes–are part of chiseling down that monument and replacing it with something of courage.
Writing this post is part of tearing down the Big Fear monument. Putting this out into the world, not knowing if anyone would ever read it or even care about it. Accepting Brock’s invitation to participate in this writing project is a big part of the masonry effort to rebuild the Big Courage monument.
Gilbert hits on a big element for my Big Fear monument. Internalized misogyny.
There are many reasons why women’s voices and visions are not more widely represented today in creative fields. Some of that exclusion is due to regular old misogyny, but it’s also true that—all too often—women are the ones holding themselves back from participating in the first place. Holding back their ideas, holding back their contributions, holding back their leadership and their talents. Too many women still seem to believe that they are not allowed to put themselves forward at all, until both they and their work are perfect and beyond criticism. … I’ve watched far too many brilliant and gifted female creators say, “I am 99.8 percent qualified for this task, but until I master that last smidgen of ability, I will hold myself back, just to be on the safe side.” … But we women must break this habit in ourselves—and we are the only ones who can break it. We must understand that the drive for perfectionism is a corrosive waste of time … At some point, you really just have to finish your work and release it as is—if only so that you can go on to make other things with a glad and determined heart.”
In the past two months of searching for a job, I’ve scrolled past hundreds of job postings because of my internalized misogyny. As a proper Mormon mom, I’m supposed to be taking care of my daughter 24/7. I’m a failure if I can’t keep a 4-year-old entertained, fed, and educated for 12+ hours every day. I’m a failure because my brain can’t engage with the monotony and demands of being a stay-at-home parent. I’m a failure if I put my kid in daycare. Besides, I’m not good enough to be qualified for this job, and if I take that job, it would highlight my weaknesses. All of those messages providing the building materials for Big Fear.
But it’s time for Big Fear to come down. So here I am. Engaging with creation. Writing. Trying. Processing. Building.
I don’t know if I will graduate from stream-of-consciousness writing into something else, but for now, this is the Big Magic I can muster. And while I still feel wholly inadequate, unworthy, and feeble, these words echo in my head:
You are worthy, dear one, regardless of the outcome. ― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: How to Live a Creative Life, and Let Go of Your Fear
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