Not self-help books
I don’t want to read How To Be Sick. I’m sure it’s a great book, I’m sure it offers comfort to many, but it’s just not what I’m looking for.
I guess I’ve lived with ME long enough to have developed an aversion to the cloyingly syrupy personal growth industry and I admit that I just don’t want to hear all about someone’s spiritual journey all over again. I admit I may be prejudiced, but if someone wants me to pick up what superficially appears to be another re-run of Personal Growth: Beyond the Third Eye (Director’s Cut) well, try telling me something new and different.
That’s not to say that I haven’t found self-help books of any value. On the contrary. There are two, maybe three, that I have found enormously helpful over the past year—The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron and The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp.
I’m also working my way through Walking In This World by Julia Cameron but as part of the weekly routine is going for at least one 20-minute walk (more if you can manage) as part of some meditative strategy, that’s where many of the self help books fall down for the energy-challenged. They are written by and for people in a reasonable state of physical health. Similarly with Twyla Tharp. She’s a choreographer. She’s a trained dancer. She works out. It’s part of what has kept her at the top of her game. I’d like to be more physically active, I know that exercise is ‘a good thing’ assuming we’re in good health, but…
As always, it’s a case of adapting these strategies to find what works for us. I write my morning pages every day, but my pages are small. Sometimes I write afternoon pages instead. I don’t walk for 20 minutes. I just ignore the walking part of Walking In This World. I thought about workarounds like taking a 20 minute bus ride instead, but that would be even more energy draining and I can’t see how tiring myself out to the point of relapse would enhance anyone’s creativity.
And no, I don’t see a relapse as an opportunity for yet another spiritual journey. A once-in-a-lifetime spiritual journey is fine but I don’t want a season ticket, thank you very much.
Last night I bought and downloaded Sustained Creativity by Michael Nobbs. At last, I thought, something of relevance to PWME who have limitations and symptoms and setbacks, and who have that inner urge to make things. He’s one of us! He has distilled all of the good parts of The Artist’s Way, The Pomodoro Technique and even good old ME pacing regimes into one easy to read eBook. The downside is that it’s a PDF, so if you want a hard copy you have to print it yourself.
So, I’m going to see how I can incorporate these ideas and strategies into my daily/weekly routines. I guess we all want to stay well, get better and do great work. I know that I won't get there by introspective navel gazing, or flower sniffing, or reading little books of trite new age platitudes—all of which are 'nice things to do' but ultimately won't deliver the goods. In order to do great work I have to at least do some work, a little and often. Sustainable creativity, I guess.
3 comments:
I don't know !....you're like a London bus at the moment: wait at this stop for weeks on end and nothing shows up and then suddenly three buses (posts) show up in quick succession.
As it happens, I've just finished HTBS. I was put off by the title (as you say I think I already know how to do that after 35+ years of toing and froing) but eventually succumbed because 'everyone' was reading it and raving and I was curious. It is interesting because Toni B comes at it all from a Buddhist perspective and yet I kept hearing bells ring all the time and I'm not Buddhist or anything else...so I think the strategies she writes about are those that most intelligent, sensitive people will come to/discover after years of chronic illness. Still a good book for people who needs hints and pointers for getting through however.
Now...Michaal Nobbs. Well he is a our guru in a way isnt he :O) Been following his blog for 6 or 7 ?) years now and always happy to point other people towards him. What shines through is his discipline and doggedness yet approached through a quiet determination rather than a rabid 'all guns blazing'fashion : sort of 'slowly, slowly catch the monkey'.
Think his book and approach may stand you in good stead because now you really have ambition and goals and yet need to find a way to reach them that it solid and sustainable.
Looking forward to what happens next year
Hey Dig, I'm with you completely on self-help books and I probably, if I'm honest, won't read HTBS. As I said on my blog, if I don't know how to cope with my illness by now, I never will.
However, I would have been much more likely to pick this kind of book up early on in the ME experience...
And, yes a lot of self-help books fall down when they advocate brisk walks (or the like), when you are physically unwell.
Likewise, I could never relate to other writers' tips on writing, write so many thousand words a day, write in the morning, bla, bla, bla.. This all assumes a physical wellbeing at the heart of things...
I did not know about Michael Nobbs' book but it sounds like you may have found a gem, something that can truly help you as an energy-challenged artist! Good luck with it all.
Thanks for your comments.
I did admit to a certain prejudice. I have a jaded, seen-it-all-before eye when it comes to the self-help/spiritual growth industry. But as you rightly say, Cusp, the author is herself living with chronic illness so I would like to think her approach is more authentic than the usual blissed out flower-sniffing state of unreality that some of these books seem to peddle as a version of wellness.
Like NMJ says, I also feel that if I don't know how to cope with living with a chronic illness by now, I doubt I ever will, but an an earlier stage I might have gained something from HTBS.
Michael Nobbs…there are no ideas in his book that are actually new to me but he offers his take on various strategies from the point of view that his time and energy are limited and there are are meaningful ways of working that overcome the perennial frustration of variable symptoms and episodes of being incapacitated. Putting it all into practice…well, that requires self-discipline and I'm the world's worst at setting the bar to high and indulging in frantic energy spendfests trying to get there. Perhaps I will learn.
Many self help books are probably good at the 'coming to terms' stage, and let's face it, we go though that every day to some extent. However, now that I am past the housebound/bedbound stages I need different strategies to cope with increasing activity levels and meeting deadlines etc, as well as trying to keep self-care etc on an even keel. So I'll stick with Sustained Creativity for now.
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