After the book signing last week, I had an epiphany.  It sort of runs along the lines of expectations but goes a bit deeper I think.  I will do my best to try to elegantly share my thoughts with you.

I believe that all of my stress or strife over life is self-imposed.  I’m not referring to tragic world events or when some you really care about is ill.  I’m talking about the daily bump-ups against life.  I realized that my reactions are solely based on how I think things should be or how I would like them to go against what actually is.  I’m not referring to the now popular adage of “Be Here Now” or even “Living in the Moment”.  For me, distraction is highly underrated and should be used often.  Fantasizing is not being in the moment and it’s how I create and write.  What I’m addressing is about getting next to “what is” and in that place I can find the grace.  Life is an adventure and we can fight it all along the way or find a way to enjoy the ride.

I realized that I am more go-with-the-flow than I originally gave myself credit for, or maybe I have just recently moved into a different frame of mind.

How does this impact my writing?  Glad you asked. 🙂  There were times when I was writing My Body-His where the story went into a completely different direction than I thought it would and I actually panicked a few times telling my husband I needed to scrap and rewrite.  I never did and what I think happened is that it offered the story unpredictability because even I didn’t predict it.  These days, I follow where my characters take me without the stress because it’s their story after all.

My husband wrote a book many years ago called Evolving Paradigms which spoke of the limiting effects that takes place when you get locked into a particular paradigm and cease to grow.  The pertinent part of the book for this blog has to do with the premise that we function during the course of our lives in three ways: as reactors, responders, and initiators.  We are born as reactors and during that phase we have no control over how we respond to situations or stimulus.  As we grow and mature, we still react, but we can pause long enough to choose how we would like to respond.  Ultimately the goal would be to evolve into initiators who are controlled less by their reactions and a need to respond by releasing the struggle that goes with wanting to have control over the uncontrollable.

Luke, in My Body-His and My Body-His (Marcello), must maintain control of his life at all times and Jane, although she does try to please him, is not a natural submissive and is ultimately a force in Luke’s life that he cannot control.  Because of Luke’s upbringing, which you find out more about in the second book of the My Body Trilogy, his need for complete obedience becomes his own downfall.

For me however, getting next to “what is” and letting go of how I think it should be or go really frees me to enjoy the rollercoaster of life and sway with the ebb and flow.  The humorous part for me is that I can’t change “what is” by sheer will and holding onto the false image of how things should be is just unnecessary conflict I create within my life.

I don’t mean to imply I am cured from getting miffed over life circumstances sometimes, however I think I have found a new ease with the dance.

Love to read your thoughts on this realization of mine and how you cope with life’s twists and turns. Please comment.

Warm hugs,

Blakely

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Find My Body-His (book one) for sale on Amazon here.

Find My Body-His Marcello (book two) for pre-sale on Amazon here.