The First Doubt

I'm currently reading "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron. In chapter three she writes:

Taking in the first doubt is like picking up the first drink for an alcoholic.Once in our system the doubt will take on another doubt - and another.Doubting thoughts can be stopped, but it takes vigilance to do it.

The urge to have another shot at writing a blog has been brewing within me since I finished an online course a few weeks ago. The course is called "Unravelling" and was designed by the photographer Susannah Conway.

Yes the urge that was brewing was a fusion of inner elements long forgotten, that are now being nurtured and are starting to grow again, through taking part in "Unravelling" and through reading "The Artist's Way".

Now here it is this curious brew, ready to taste, warm and strong and mmmm.....but, hang on, what is that unpleasantness I can taste?

You were wondering what had happened to the doubt weren't you? Of course it seeps into everything we do in life, though we try so hard to prevent it from taking hold. It is like the weeds in my garden getting a stranglehold on the other plants and suffocating them. Like a poison in our tea.

So it was the doubt that has prevented me from starting to write another blog until now. It was the doubt that, just days after I had paid my registration fee for the China Trek I had thought such a good idea, that crept up on me and called me nasty names. "You fool," it snarled at me, "What were you thinking of?" "How are you going to raise money all by yourself!" "No-one will help you!" "You haven't enough time!" "Make a video? Ha, yeah right!" "It's such a long flight!" "You are so unfit!" In so many other areas of life, the first doubt is an easy drink to take, and I've been taking it for too long!

So hurrah once again to my two nurturers Susannah and Julia! Their words and ideas have taught me to reconnect with both my mother and the child that was me. Not just to reconnect with myself, but to nurture, and allow myself to be creative and flawed and extraordinary! I am learning to pour the doubt away, or to leave it aside and let it go cold whilst I am busy living my life!

Through the Unravelling course I have felt for the first time like a grown up, rather than make-believing I am a grown up which is a very, very different thing indeed.

So my blog, my lovely blog, will serve as a place to come to be creative and flawed and sometimes extraordinary! A place to celebrate my mother's life and to have her watch over me, because I have missed her and want her in my life again. A place to perhaps also serve a useful place for others who may also be struggling to stay awake.