Beginning with Beginning

A sandwich call & Being

               a beginner



I just got of the phone with my dear Mirror - friend Maite. I called her for support and encouragement. Since I want to start writing my Blog. I'm calling her back when I am done. 

" Define done" : I hear my Inner - voice say. I am going to ignore the question. This call, before and after, is called a sandwich - call. This is a great tool to get us going that we learned from Julia Cameron. For months now Maite is my pal in doing or better yet living the books of Julia: The Artist's way and Walking in this world. The books are structured as 12 -week courses. After a 12 weak break - yes, why not twelve weeks? - in which we let everything sink in, we made ourselves ready for the third and last 12 weeks: Finding Water. I suspected we would find water which is of course a metaphor for finding your fulfilling life. I hope to find a never ending source of pouring splashing cooling water from a waterfall. Week number 5 is coming up now. And things are flowing nicely! More about the magic books later. All right then.

Begin with beginning.

Frankly, I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. What is a Blog anyway?

I'm a singer. What am I thinking?!

I feel the fear my youngest son felt when he was 6 years old. He came to me with his face crumpled with worry and burst into tears. "But mama!" he wails. " I can't go to elementary school! Because I can't read at all! and I cant write at all and I can't calculate!". "Oh, my darling" I replied. "You don't have to be able to do all that already. You are going there to learn all that. Just go and see."

Remembering this I feel better. Better than my Inner - voice wants me to feel. IT wants to keep me worried.

I commit myself to posting a Blog  on my site every Monday and on my face book page. I mustn't try to write right.

I just have to show up on the empty  page that's patiently waiting,  practically begging me to put some words into writing.  Anything without judgement. " How long should a Blog be? How many words? Should I read some before I write one myself? Just to make sure I do it right." My inner- voice again. Did you notice the word "right"? It blocks me instantly! This thinking swamp. I'm drowning! Already drowning! No,no,no,no,no. -I'm wiggling my finger here. - Just show up and write. Everything is crappy and messy in the first effort anyway. Marianne Blok, one of my best teachers, told me: "Your first students will be corpses" Bluntly put, brutal but true! "Should I wait for inspiration?" "Don't have any...I think"....stalling!.... No,no,no,no,no,no,NO! Inspiration far more often follows the moment we start to work. It hardly ever instigates it. "Yes, but where do I begin?" Will you shut up already, and just begin?! One word after another.

As a life coach I was taught to first investigate the REALITY. Establish a sense of NOW. What's going on? Where are you at this point in life?

It was very similar to what I was taught as a teacher and a workshop leader actually. Meet the students and the group where they are. Make sure to pull them into the "now". Making them forget everything around them.  Give them a feeling of safety by doing FUN exercises that make them experience what it's like to be crappy and a beginner. Only to find out that making mistakes is just fine and fun. Bit by bit they start forgetting themselves. To make Art we need to disappear. This happens when you forget time and are fully caught up in what ever you are doing, as I am doing writing right now. My Inner-voice needs to be quiet. And another voice , my True - voice does the writing. It's great to be a beginner. Where ever you are every day over and over again.

Tomorrow I'll begin again.