When my bosses asked me (again!) to forego the job transfer I wanted and stay where "they really needed me", I quit. No job. No plan.
But what now? Why, time to clean house of course. In going through my childhood memorabilia box I refound my best friend Dear Diary (DD). She had always listened and helped me figure out things. We celebrated our reconnection by purchasing our favorite Staples golden tablets. Just like old times. Me grumbling, moaning and dumping questions: "What's to become of me? What am I to do with my life?" Instead of predictably sitting there taking my abuse, DD answered back.
"Well, you could always write," she said.
"How? Details, please," I begged. So I wrote and I wrote. And my writings pointed me to writing books, to writing courses. And I wrote and I wrote. Through my daily missives I rediscovered my school essays, weekly newspaper reporting clips, corporate training programs. That's it! My new career would be my old love.writing. So I set up my office and progressed from "just journaling" to "real writing."
And then the fun began.
My new job jitters were physically debilitating events. My throat tightened and my stomach twisted around on itself. What was this all about? What possessed me? With no prior frame of reference in this matter, I did what I always did with conflict, I ran away. I didn't enter my office for weeks and days.
But I had to solve this mystery and my morning Dear Diary sessions led me to my writing teacher's book, "The Art of Fiction Writing" where I met My Inner Critic (Mic). Now that I had identified the culprit, I just had to eliminate him.
My first act--lock Mic out of my office and refuse to succumb to his hypercriticality. That was a short-term fix. I needed long-term solutions.
More writing yielded more options. Of course! Draw on my business consulting experiences when I trained managers in redesigning their work life to achieve corporate profitability. Mic couldn't be any worse than my change-averse clients who excelled at maintaining the status quo. Could he?
I scheduled daily on-line meetings with him. He yelled things like, (expletives deleted) "Writing is so foolish.spending so much time on yourself. What, you a writer? You were successful in business; you can't have a creative writing career too! Ha. Ha. Ha."
I listened for a time and then I (gulps) confronted him: communicating my writing goals, outlining performance expectations and engaging him in rewriting his job description.
Today, when he attends daily writing appointments, he knows his behavior must be positive, his criticism timely and constructive. Oh, he still tries his tricks but I (no gulps) still confront him.
And, some days, we even clink a chardonnay over his progress. Mic's defensiveness is down, his self-confidence is up and he's learning that health and happiness just might be a reasonable alternative to tyranny and torture.
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