Dopp Juice Archive

The other thing that came up in my conversations with Emma today was ego and its relationship to creativity and public presence. Basically, when my inflated ego is running the show, my work kinda sucks. But when I can skirt under its radar and stay decently humble, I can do wonderful things.

I got hit in the head with this fact about five years ago when I was living on the East Coast and calling myself a “poet.” I was performing frequently, winning slams (competitions), influencing local arts culture, and being told daily how amazing I was. My ego inflated to the size of a rhinoceros, and then — almost immediately — something horrible happened: I stopped writing poetry for three years.

It was the kind of writer’s block that I’ve heard referred to as Superstar Syndrome: I felt like I couldn’t top my own work. I had become so invested in the identity of being impressive that I lost all willingness to make mistakes. It felt safer to create nothing than to risk creating something less-than-awesome.

Fast forward to now, where I’m slowly inching my toes back into the poetry pool (the water’s nice!), and playing around in Social Media sandbox. I’m aware that I’m mumbling into a megaphone with all these fancy tools, toys, and words, and that I don’t get to control the outcomes. Occasionally I get hit with an ego bomb that catches me completely off guard, and I’m reminded to check in with my intentions.

Encouragement is helpful and I usually need some kind of validation, but I also have to constantly work to find a safe balance in my self-image. It’s not something I can just “fix” — it’s constant maintenance. It’s spiritual grounding. It’s remembering that we’re all equal. It’s remembering that when other people give me attention, it’s not about me; it’s about them.

But oooh…. look at all my shiny twitter followers… Look! I must be awesome!

Down, girl. Sit. Stay.

As the conversation with Emma today dug deeper, I remembered a process someone explained to me a year ago around working through resentments. It goes something like this:

1. Who am I resentful at and why?
2. What does this affect in my life?
3. Am I willing to try to show this person the same tolerance, pity, and patience that I’d give a sick friend?
4. What’s my part in this situation? How did I add to it?
5. Have I been telling myself that I’m right and they’re wrong? (Yes…)
6. Am I using this sense of superiority to gain self-esteem or power? (*sigh* okay, yes….)
7. Am I doing this because I’m afraid that the “regular” me is not enough? (i don’t want to admit this, but, yeah, sure, okay, that’s one way of looking at it…)
8. They didn’t act right. What values could they have been acting with instead?
9. How can I work on strengthening those values in my own life?
10. I’m grateful that I have this obstacle to practice on.

Questions #8 and #9 go together and require a lot of thoughtfulness, honesty, and humility (which I can tap into if I paid attention during #4-#7). If I can find an overlap between What They Suck At and What I Probably Oughta Work On, I’ve hit on where I need to put my focus. Then something magical happens (or I need to lather, rinse, repeat), and the resentment starts to fade away.

Try it sometime. Let me know how it works for you.

I have a lot I want to talk about tonight, so I’m gonna break it up into a few posts.

I spent the day hanging out with Emma McCreary, who was in town for a few days from Portland. She and I have had parallel keep-an-eye-on-each-other lives since we first did business together five years ago, and we’ve managed to become close friends almost entirely through blogging. We only met in person for the first time last month, so it’s extra exciting that I got to hang out with her again today. It also didn’t surprise me that — in between art-climbing adventures and ultrathick milkshakes — we skipped the small talk and went straight to philosophical discussions about how we interact with the world.

Emma studies Non-Violent Communication (and other happiness-inducing practices), and has picked up some helpful ways of explaining how we humans deal with stuff. Here were some of the nuggets I stole from our conversation (mostly for my own memory, but you can eavesdrop):

• Letting your body fully experience difficult emotions is the easiest way to clear them away.
• Being in a relationship is like looking into a Fun House mirror. You think you’re looking at someone else, but you’re really looking at yourself.
• We usually try to get all of our needs met with one strategy. We’re better off if we try to get each need met with lots of strategies.
• If you need to say “no” to someone, start by telling them what you’re saying “yes” to, and they’ll be able to hear the “no” much better.
• When someone compliments you, they’re usually letting you know you helped fill one of their needs.

Good nuggets. Thank you, Emma.