I’ve just been typing my journal from March 19 and came across this:
I’ve been reading Rohr’s book on the 12 steps. I feel so odd. It seems like I’m already doing it, but if I am I should be happy and I’m not so I must be doing it wrong and don’t understand at all. Maybe I really am a very good person who does a lot of things right. The reason I don’t get that is that’s not what I feel like. So I keep trying to be what I already am.
So odd to read this and realize that “trying to be what I already am” does not work. On April 11, the Daily Good was about a man named Nic Askew, who had developed a way to get people to talk about their real lives, be their real selves. This can’t be done by just saying “Be yourself.” The black and white films are quite extraordinary.
From my journal for April 12
Yesterday was the most amazing day. It had a kind of flow to it, bits of understanding that made a pattern. It started when I went to the Clinic to have blood drawn. Alice Vining came, sat down next to me, and said she’d just read the description of myself I wrote for the biographies book. She said it was well written and she was impressed with my honesty.
The “biographies book” contains the biographies of all the residents who wanted to write one. It’s available only to residents.
Then there was a Daily Good about a man named Nic Askew who filmed people in such a way that their honest selves appeared. His “technique” is very hard to put into words, but watching one was a revelation. A woman talked about struggling with depression, then some sort of crisis, then she found herself in Fields of Kindness. She felt completely loved. She got teary with some lovely smiles. She was just completely real. He has a website called Soul Biographies, black and white film that he’s taken of people. I felt both inspired and validated.
So I just relaxed in some way, let myself be myself. Something else that happened to me on March 19 was that the song in my head was St. Francis’ song for the “creatures” meaning created things from Brother Sun and Sister Moon to the tiniest animals. The music is quite joyful, and we also have a circle dance that goes with it. So I started doing the dance, and felt wonderfully happy as a result.