Failing Is Good

Ever fail at something? I mean really, really badly?
Wasn’t it great?
Seriously, after all the dust settled, and you picked up the pieces and got on with your life, (and maybe worked though a few other clichés) didn’t you feel pretty good?

Everyone fears failure. We don’t want to be a loser or a screw-up. We want to be good at what we do, not a laughingstock.
Look around your life. You likely know someone who won’t try anything because s/he might not be good at it.
I had a friend like that years ago. Talked a good game but wouldn’t do much because she was terrified she wouldn’t be perfect at it. She couldn’t get it through her head that no one was perfect at anything, but that’s not my point.

Figuring you have to be good at something, anything, first time out is absurd. Practice makes perfect although no one is perfect. We’re human. Everybody’s practicing.
So here’s some free advice. Get out and be lousy at something. Really stink the place out. Be the worst you can be.

What have you always a wanted to do? With me it was play guitar.
I come from a musical family on dad’s side. I got my talent from my mom’s side. I own a very good guitar and some simple songbooks. In fact some are so simple the name of the note is written within its symbol. I’m pleased to say that’s more than I require. But not much more.
My fingers remember the notes in the first position although I have to stop and think about low E, F, and G.
I’m not tone deaf though I do have a very high tolerance for missteps. I can play that lovely guitar when it’s out of tune and it doesn’t bother me. However, it has gotten so bad that even I could tell it needed adjusting.

It’s a gross overstatement to say that I failed. I learned to read music and to play simple melodies. I can even do a passable rendition of the opening of Marty Robbins’ El Paso because I taught myself to read simple tablature.
However, it’s an even grosser overstatement to say I’ve succeeded. I cannot tell a note just by listening. I do not remember how songs go; I have to have the music in front of me.
My husband can play violin by ear and guitar too, to an extent. He will say things to me like go higher, meaning, I suppose, to go higher on the scale. I cannot reason out how to do that.

I’ve tried. I have failed. It’s great.

Now, get out there and fail at something today so you can enjoy it later.

Through A Burn

I found this lovely peak during a trip through a burn area in northern Montana.

Away

I'll be offline for a few days.

This weekend is the ARE ® retreat in Montana with Dr. Barbara Lane.
I wrote about it in this post.
It features several regression sessions including one to the interlife. It’ll be amazing.

I’m driving down starting tomorrow--it’s at least 10 hours--and turning this into a five-day road trip.

That’ll be amazing, too.

Just me and my car and my thoughts. And road trip food.
Lots of road trip food.

In the meantime Miss Prozac has been busy at our team blog, Prozac Palace.

See you Tuesdayish.

The Humanely Quick Rejection

I sent off more queries the other day and a proposal to boot. The waiting is difficult, if exciting.
When we submit our work or a query we have the excitement of anticipating a positive response.
Requests to see a full manuscript are a thrill. How can they not be?
We pour our hearts, or souls, our research into the manuscript.
We hope that someone agrees the public will pay good money to read it.
Our thoughts are worth something.

Getting paid to write.
People paying to read what we’ve written.
That’s the dream.

Sure we might say money doesn’t matter because we’ve got something to say.
It matters.
What’s the point of writing if no one ever reads it?

Personal satisfaction counts for a lot. It feels good to write. Completing a manuscript gives me a tremendous sense of accomplishment.
But we want money for it. I certainly do.
I want to see my name on the cover and the spine if a book stocked on a shelf. I want to go into a bookstore and point and say, “That’s me.”
“I wrote that.”

Meanwhile I have the anticipation of waiting to hear from a publisher. Maybe there'll be the thrill of reading the letter requesting a full manuscript.
Rejections are a part of the writing life. I know there'll be the disappointment of reading a "not right for our list" canned rejection.
It's a cue to keep at it, rewrite the manuscript, or file it under learning experiences and write another next book.

And that’s why I’m so grateful for publishers who accept email queries.
Two of the half-dozen I sent to last week took e-queries.
And bless ‘em for their thoughtfulness, they didn’t leave me on tenterhooks. One rejected me within the hour. The other in about three.
It's quick. It's humane. It's two less to hope about.

Play-giarist Caught

It's a good day.

Plagiarism is said to be rare, but it does happen. It’s a lousy and lazy thing to do. It’s theft and it’s criminal.
Having someone else pass off your hard work as his or her own is a writer’s nightmare. Fortunately, it’s usually a groundless one.

But it did happen to an Edmonton-based playwright David Belke. He suspected something and checked it thoroughly.
Today’s Edmonton Journal has a front-page story about it.

Jack L. Herman of Kent, Ohio got caught.

Here’s more on it in the Edmonton Journal’s Sunday Reader section.

Ya gotta love what this guy did for an honest living.

Of Course I Can

Affirmations, mantras, incantations, spells, call ‘em what you will; they work.
Distilled down to their simplest form they’re a strong positive statement expressed repeatedly. When you say something over and over it gets imprinted. It becomes real. It is real.

Simple is best because it’s easy to remember and easy to use.
If you’ve got several areas to work on you might find yourself skipping about excitedly trying to change everything at once.

I know. I’ve done it.

It scatters the energy too much at a time when it ought to be focused. You’ll get some changes, but the attempt is half-hearted. That makes it easy to declare affirmations as useless.

“They’re too hard,” you might say. “I’m not going to bother. And they don’t work anyway.”

This clears the way for you to stop trying so you can get back at all that important grumbling you’ve been doing.

Do you realize your grumbling carries the same amount of energy and does the same thing as the affirmations? You’re inculcating problems when you could use the same focus and energy to rid yourself of them.
That’s your choice, of course. Do what you want.

Do you want to change? Do you want to stop wasting energy feeding your problems? Are you looking for a place to start?
Here’s a simple declaration to get you going. I recently started using this because I’ve been scattering my energy instead of focusing it.
I wanted something on the ground level to build on and I decided this declaration was the best foundation:

“Of course I can.”

Use it or discard it as you see fit.

Want more affirmations? LaUna Huffines has some good ones at Path of Light.

And you can always make your own.

Think you can't?

Of course you can.

Booting The Past From The Present

Does your past catch up with you? Well, actually, it’s never left your side.
Significant emotional and physical events from life, whether it’s 30 years ago or 300, stick with us.

Energy from people and events pool in our enduring subconscious minds and help to form us into who we are today. If we want to successfully change who we are, then we often need to go back and find the event.

Past-Life Regression can get this done.

At this point I usually get snickers snorts, guffaws, and other assorted bits of derision. That’s fine. It’s where that person is; it’s got nothing to do with me.
But I get significant amount of genuine, if quiet, interest, too, and that’s wonderful.

Helping a client get to and get through a previous lifetime is instantly gratifying. I get to watch pain being shed and happiness taking over. I’ve seen understanding and realizations light up faces and I know this light comes from inside.
The help that revisiting past lives brings is visible, tangible, and immediate.
I’ve seen privileged to see lives change immediately, literally right before my eyes. Pain and insecurity fall away and are replaced by the strength and beauty that was there all along. They stand tall after booting their past from their present.

Am I bragging? No. Not really.

Clients do all the work themselves. They heal themselves. They change their own lives. All I do guide them through it.
I’m grateful for the trust they place in me and the chance to help.