10 Learnings From Paper Mentors
Books can take us to different worlds, including new ways of seeing ourselves
If only there was a magic pill, a key, a holy grail that would soothe your doubts and reassure you you’re on the right path — your right path.
But there isn’t one. There are many right paths you could take. Most don’t even look like paths at the beginning, let alone during the messy middle. It’s confusing, and what works for one person, doesn’t for another.
"But the important point here is not that you have or don’t have what other artists have, but rather that it doesn't matter. Whatever they have is something needed to do their work. It wouldn’t help you in your work even if you had it. Their magic is theirs. You don’t lack it, you don’t need it. It has nothing to do with you, period." — Art & Fear, by David Bayles & Ted Orland
Part one of the battle is finding what works for you. But part two is to believe in you. To trust you know what works for you. To see things through.
I’ve learned lots of things from paper mentors — those whom I’ve never met but whose words have filled my mind with hope and possibility. If you were to read all of the books in this post, you may well come up with ten totally different meaningful takeaways.
Everyone’s creative process is unique
Anyone can tell you how they do something, and when those words come from authority figures or domineering personalities, it is easy and understandable to then feel like you need to follow their ways in order to be successful. But as I quoted above, what works for them doesn’t necessarily work for you. Figure out what works for you and trust it, believe it, defend it.
David Bayles & Ted Orland — Art & FearUnderstand how you’re motivated
I wrote about this in detail in my oh, hello self post. This was news to me, but I finally feel seen. This also means that I need to talk to myself in a more playful way, and I now understand why I face such resistance — that others may well not face — when it comes to doing what I’m supposed to do.
Gretchen Rubin — The Four TendenciesFollow your integrity
There are two books for this, both from Martha Beck. I have a hard time separating them in my mind because I listened to them one after the other. Both provided stories and concrete meditations, reflections, and steps to set me on my way — to feel into my body, to recognise when I’ve departed from alignment, to acknowledge when I’ve lied to myself. Taking action is, of course, up to you.
Martha Beck — The Way of Integrity; Finding Your Way in a Wild New WorldPractice presence
Our beliefs and the stories we tell ourselves impact us immensely. From a reactionary state, we can easily focus on the spoken and unspoken needs of others, of future states or dangers we must prepare for, of lamentations of the past — of perfection as a misguided (a.k.a. maladapted) cure for all those ails. But both these books and others agree that presence appears to be the answer to everything. I believe it also ties into integrity because it is hard to do one without the other.
Katherine Morgan Schafler — The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control
Michael A. Singer — The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond YourselfFear has a seat, but isn’t the driver
I love Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic so much that I listen to it at least once a year whenever I need a bit of a boost to help motivate me back into creative openness. Also, I love non-fiction audiobooks read by their authors. She has much philosophizing and storytelling to share about the creative process, but one of my favorite is the letter she writes to fear at the beginning of every new creative project — it’s allowed in the car, but neither gets to drive, nor control the radio.
Elizabeth Gilbert — Big MagicYou have permission (to disappoint someone else).
This is something that really sunk in for me when reading Glennon Doyle’s book, Untamed. I want to say that I understood that on some level already, but in her sharing her examples of stating and holding boundaries and the actions she presented from her own lived experience — her words hit me deeply in a life changing way. And/or I read it at the right time for me.
“Every time you are given a choice between disappointing someone else and disappointing yourself, your duty is to disappoint that someone else. Your job throughout your entire life is to disappoint as many people as necessary in order to avoid disappointing yourself.”
Glennon Doyle — UntamedTrue fear is different
Amy Poehler mentioned this book in her memoir and so years later I finally picked it up. The gist is that in our societal niceties we suppress our innate awareness that something is off — we’ve been trained to talk ourselves out of ourselves. But our bodies and animal instincts know things that don’t even need to be explained, in fact it is our addiction to explaining and story that puts us in danger. Our animal instincts know things that we simply need to honor, and doing so will go miles farther in keeping ourselves truly safe from extreme danger than being polite ever will. It is more dangerous to be polite than to be true to yourself — it can literally put your life in danger. True fear presents itself at an instinctual level in the present moment.
Gavin de Becker — The Gift of FearAnswer ‘why’ questions with values
I have a lot more to say about questions that start with ‘why’ coming soon. For now, Pooja Lakshmin, MD outlines a process for finding why which is essentially tying why to your values — and I’ve decided if this isn’t a suitable answer to whoever is asking, then that’s their block, not mine (or yours).
Pooja Lakshmin, MD — Real Self-Care: A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness (Crystals, Cleanses, and Bubble Baths Not Included)Rest is your birthright
Our societal work ethic is still a byproduct of the centuries of slavery and white supremacy in the United States — and this can and will be used against you to conform, to stay in line, to be mired in a state of scarcity. There’s a prevailing culture of toxicity and workaholism as a way to prove our worth and buy us a seat at the table, but for many the systems are still stacked against us. We don’t need to buy into the system. We can embrace and honor our own, and that is powerful. That is autonomy. That is creative.
Tricia Hersey — Rest is ResistanceMagic comes from pain
There is no magic to creativity, but creativity can be magic. For this, I have a book recommendation and a TV series recommendation, but truly so much of the creative experience is wrapped up in this sentiment that there are likely millions of other references that could be made here. This quote sums it up from Susan Cain’s book Bittersweet, in reference to Leonard Cohen — “Whatever pain you can’t get rid of, he seemed to say, make it your creative offering.”
Susan Cain — Bittersweet
The Magicians — this TV series currently available on Netflix in the United States. It is darker and gorier than the shows I usually go for, but if you stick with it, seasons 3-5 are a fabulous metaphor for both the creative process and hero’s journeys.
What meaning are you gleaning from your readings and watchings?