Inner Compulsions

I listened to several podcasts, including the DR Show podcast, today while running errands and walking.  One of Diane Rehm's guests was Sharon Begley, who has written a book on compulsion. She's written a book on the topic.  She talked about our device-driven compulsions, which I've written about in the blog as "addictions."  She describes the anxiety that people experience when they are not able to constantly check their devices.

Begley also talked about inwardly-driven compulsions, such as the compulsion to write. She used the examples of classic writers John Milton and Ernest Hemingway, who claimed the deeply driven need to write every day.

I had dinner last week with two people who are readers of this blog, and they talked about my "discipline" with writing it.  I laughed off the comments because I feel totally undisciplined about my writing...even my books.  I've often described the months before I locked my doors and wrote Leading from the Heart as my pregnancy.  Something was gestating within me, was growing, and couldn't be stopped. I had no choice but to deliver. I literally felt that I would go crazy if I didn't write even though I sat down not fully aware of what might come out. I think it was my way of saying what Milton and Hemingway described, not that I am comparing my writing to that of those masters.

When I get in the rhythm of writing, most of the time I really can't stop myself.  When I say I am undisciplined, it is because I feel like I am channeling something deep inside myself which bypasses my brain.  Even my books felt to me as if I was typing as fast as I could to see what would appear on the computer screen.  I've also felt a little embarrassed that I didn't put in lots of disciplined research, but I won't apologize for writing what is in my soul.  That is my compulsion.

Over the years, I've spawned a number of visual artists, each producing amazing work, which I sense bubbles from within them in a way that I imagine is much like my writing is for me.  I recall a coaching client coming for our session one day with a sheet wrapped around a painting that she didn't want anyone to see because it was totally different than anything she'd seen before and thought that it didn't count as "real art."  Of course, it did: it was her art.  Another former coaching client has been experimenting with a new medium and is producing some truly remarkable work which is unlike anything I've seen before.

While I almost never know before I sit and look at the empty blogger page each night what it is I will write, once it begins coming, it is effortless and bursts from within me, sometimes at a fearsome pace. I wrote 32 pages in one day when writing The Game Called Life: I truly don't know how I did it. So, despite the impressions that my friends had about my discipline with this blog, the only discipline that I bring is making myself sit down each evening.  And, I suppose that is a genuine discipline, and it is one that I haven't had for a couple years.

What is unique in this time for me is that I don't feel any bigger projects gestating: I don't feel something that I am compelled to say. I miss that rush, but it almost feels like that was of a different time, and what I feel drawn to right now is sitting each evening and sharing what I know in my heart. Maybe that is all I should be feeling as Valentine's Day approaches. The arrow that Cupid seems to have aimed at me is the love of writing and sharing that "compulsively."