Battling Resistance (with a capital “R”) can be won by making one choice. Everyday. If you would like to learn what that choice is, feel free to skip the entertaining Resistance-in-the-form-of-Excuses (with a capital “E”) I’m providing below as to why I have abandoned my Substack for over a month.
1.) I poked my eye out. The morning of April 18th, I woke up with two things on the agenda: gardening and writing, in that order. As I bent down to pull the first cluster of invasive flora, a tree branch met my eyeball and I ended up at urgent care and blind for three days.
If you didn’t already guess, I have been unofficially and incurably diagnosed as “prone” by my family members. You can read all about the day it became unofficially official HERE.
2.) I fractured my index finger and couldn’t type for two weeks. Whilst working at a nearby horse stable, one went rogue, the one whose reins I happened to be holding, and smacked my finger on the side of a UTV so hard I ended up in the ER with a perpetually painful and gnarled digit. It still hurts to type.
3.) I turned 51 and had the breakdown I thought I would have at 50, but didn’t. April 30th, the day before my 51st birthday, I fell inconsolably depressed and hopeless. I wasn’t allowed to have this sort of breakdown last year, because I was celebrating my half-century milestone with one of the world’s greatest actors of all time, Gary Oldman. So, naturally, I went nuts a year later after wondering what kind of insane decision it was to move to a 9-acre property in the middle of nowhere that needs to be mowed every six hours. Which brings me to my next excuse…
4.) We have to mow 9 acres of grass every six hours.
5.) I have entered my late-middle-aged-white-lady-with-chickens era. The coop/run prep has been a full-time job and the chickens arrive on June 1st. To say that my life hasn’t been utterly consumed by this would be an understatement. My fingernails are still black from staining the poultry mansion and my entire wardrobe now looks like I had a fight with Banksy and Banksy won.
6.) I took a memoir writing class. Because instead of writing my own fucking memoir, I joined a class taught by a famous memoir teacher and read a bunch of other people’s memoirs instead.
7.) Picked up my son from college and drove 11 hours round trip. En route, I acquired a $100 speeding ticket. The ticket’s not an excuse, just an anecdote.
8.) Beavers. If you have never had to deal with beavers flooding your yard, you wouldn’t understand the special kind of hell these murderous, psychotic creatures can cause. I know, they look so sweet, swimming around in the little pool they’ve built for themselves at the expense of your home’s septic system, but let me tell you, Death-by-Beaver is real. They have 4-inch razorblades for teeth and have been known to charge you when threatened. This particular beaver is carving an hour-glass figure out of our willow tree and has created a swimming pool for himself in our front yard.
9.) Decided to quit Substack and all forms of social media after writing an article tilted, “The Power of Almost Quitting.”
10.) Decided NOT to quit Substack and revamp my entire platform purpose. Which brings me to the existential question posed by an astute, aspiring, middle-aged memoirist from my class:
WHY DO WE DO THIS? Why do we want to dig up all of our disgusting shit and relive it and write about it in detail for the world to read. - Astute, Aspiring, Middle-Aged Memoirist
ANSWER: To share. To inspire. To connect. To heal.
I want to connect. I want to find the humor in the pain. I want to share it with others who need to know that this will be fodder for THEM to get through whatever they are going through and write THEIR stories for OTHERS to feel not alone in the fuckscicle of life and continue the cycle of inspiration. (Tune in next week for big and exciting changes with LAUGHING MATTERS!)
For now though…
If, like me, you’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of not doing whatever THING you have been called to do, you gotta bring in the big gun: Steven Pressfield .
If you don’t know him, get to know him. If you don’t have his book THE WAR OF ART, get it now. It’s for anyone who is aspiring to do anything bigger than the laundry that is sitting idly by waiting to be folded.
The War of Art argues that the biggest obstacle to creative success isn’t lack of talent or opportunity, it’s what Pressfield calls “Resistance.” Resistance is the internal force that shows up as procrastination, self-doubt, fear, distraction, perfectionism, and, my personal favorite, Excuses.
She calls with her sultry voice that tells you to reorganize the spice drawer before writing your epic novel. She jolts you with the sudden conviction to compare chicken feeder reviews online for forty-five minutes. Resistance came for me, just this morning at 10:17 a.m., with the realization that the 8-inch floorboards have become an urgent moral issue. So I, being morally righteous, squirt an obscene amount of Murphy’s oil soap into a bucket, threw on a Mel Robbins podcast into my ears, and lost myself in an hour-long discussion about how, if I change my wardrobe, I can change my life. As I swished the final swish of the mop, Mel’s guest ( Erin Walsh, author of The Art of Intentional Dressing w/Substack of same name) challenges me, and a few million other listeners, to answer a simple, six-word question every morning before getting dressed:
How do I want to feel?
Well, thank you for asking Erin!
I want to feel like a successful fucking writer.
I’ve spent years assuming that successful people were somehow immune to Resistance. That writers write, artists art, and entrepreneurs entrepreneur while the rest of us wander around Ikea wondering if maybe a new shelving system will finally unlock our potential. But potential doesn’t come in the form of cheap plywood and hex wrenches. In fact, potential never just “shows up.” You have to conjure it.
When I read The War of Art, I realized the this: the people who get things done aren’t the people without Resistance. They’re the people who drag Resistance along behind them like a toddler having a tantrum in the cereal aisle. Pressfield furthers his argument by stating, the more important the work is to your soul, the more resistance you’ll feel toward doing it. Which explains why I can spend six straight hours scrolling Poshmark for used Aviator Nation sweatpants, but fifteen minutes working on my memoir feels like trying to walk the Appalachian Trail in these:
Maybe, just maybe, the work of uncovering and exposing all the shitballs that have been thrown my way via my ex over the last twenty years is some deep, soul work that I am vehemently trying to avoid?
What about you? Are YOU avoiding the calling of your life? In what ways?
And if you are the perfect non-procrastinating, resistance resister, please share the wonderful ways you have created the perfect, prosperous life in the comments!
The path to creating meaningful work is not finding inspiration, it’s defeating the inner Resistance that prevents you from starting and continuing.
So, how might we mere mortals begin to win the war?
Pressfield’s solution is to “turn pro”: treat your creative work like a professional rather than waiting for inspiration or motivation. By showing up consistently, doing the work every day, and pushing through fear and discomfort, you can overcome Resistance and fulfill your creative potential.
And in order to be a pro, you have to dress like one! Yes, all roads DO lead back to Mel Robbins’ podcasts.
If you want to “feeeeeeel” like a successful actor, dress like one! If you want to “feeeeeeeel” like a rockstar, cut your hair in a mullet, throw on some eyeliner, and rock on! If you want to “feeeeeeeeel” like a professional writer, find you some blue-collar work clothes and start getting dirty!
Steven’s “superstitious” talisman choice was to wear a pair of Timbos in order to invite the writing Muse to grace the page. Since I’m a jumpsuit devotée (because if I could dress in Garanimals as an adult I would, that’s how sad my adult-dressing skills are. Erin Walsh: s.o.s.!!!), I decided to take Stevo’s advice and zip-up in coveralls to signal to the Muse when I was ready to be divinely inspired. Then, would zip-down to release her from a hard day’s work of digging through the trenches of the past to unearth precious gems such as these:
“I’m telling you the truth right now, I will always lie to you.” - My Ex
I even put together my own little inspo video to prove it!
Yup, that was me, rockin’ that Resistance-fighting garment like She-Ra, Princess of Power, while we were living in France, where I had zero distractions beyond pastries to die for and body odor. Not mine. French people’s.
Which brings me to…
EXCUSE #11: I wore my jumpsuit out to the point of ripping a giant hole in the crotch when I sat down to finish this post.
Now what?
In Laughter,
LStL
LAUGHING MATTERS is a place for personal essays about the things we’re all thinking but don’t always say out loud: aging, creativity, fear, love, disappointment, and the strange relief of finding humor in the middle of it all. Here, I try to tell the truth without making it heavy, and to find meaning without losing the laugh. If you’ve ever wanted to feel a little less alone inside your own thoughts, you’re in the right place. ❣️
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p.s. if Erin and Steven couldn’t convince you (and me) to get up everyday and move past the distractions, maybe everyone’s favorite guru Rick Rubin can teach you how to be a lazy workaholic:
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