Why It’s Hard to Trust Our Instincts and How to Start

Why It’s Hard to Trust Our Instincts and How to Start

It's funny how Buddhism creeps into my life in ways that seem opportune and coincidental. Everything seems to be falling into place right now in ways I never believed would happen.

My trip to Savannah this summer almost didn't happen for personal reasons, but a little voice in the back of my head (and my mom) convinced me it was the right move to make so I jumped in with both feet and then the most amazing opportunities opened themselves up to me. All the experiences I had this summer enabled me to learn how much I've changed through my practice of Buddhism and strangely enough how my life is mirroring that of my latest script character to enter my mind. Everything I have dreamt up and wanted her to be is mirrored in the changes I have made for myself and the dreams I haven't dared to believe would come true until now. I didn't force the dreams either for myself or my character, they simply opened themselves up to us and we stepped inside rather than thinking and questioning, and all the usual things I do to rationalize the steps I take towards the future.

This leads me to conclude that Buddhism is opening itself up to me in similar ways. It's not that new ideas and concepts suddenly appear at the right time, but that when I finally take heed of certain ideas, they appear to me because I am ready to see them. I am ready to open myself up to them and accept them in order to move forward in my life and also with my writing. I am not a religious person in any way, but the more I practice (or do my best to try!) the more my life improves. I'm not saying that I don't suffer and that my life is perfect - right now it in no way is - but everything in my life is perfect in that this is where I am right now and that's what my focus should be in order to live a good life. As I accept the moment new opportunities appear - such as my plan to move back to Savannah - and problems I had with my characters and how their lives would unfold start to open up to me. This is where faith and intuition give me the motivation to keep on writing; not to give up. I have faith that although it may take time, the answers my characters pose will come to me, and that often in the moment if I don't have all the answers to my life's questions, how can I necessarily have answers to my character's lives' questions as well?

What I do know for sure is that I should keep writing. I feel it in my soul in the same way that I know I should move back to Savannah; in the same way I know I'm finally in love with a great man and that my life needs to move towards that now; in the same way that whatever happens will happen, but that I can do my best to make the choices I instinctually believe are the right way to go in the future while still doing my best to live in the moment.

Reading Joyce Carol Oates' 'The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art' is a great book to read if you're struggling with the writing process.