Nine Weeks. Nine weeks until my book is released. Just typing that sentence scares me. I never knew it would be this emotionally difficult.
I worked in isolation for four years. I rarely thought about this phase of the process. And if I did, I thought about it with glorious expectations.
I had the most beautiful project plans prepared for this launch. I created mind maps with my ideas and execution strategies; however, when it came time for all of this to occur — I was in graduate school. I had to focus on that experience and let the book out of my hands. With that I had to let go of those perfect projects plans. I never thought about the impact of this experience until a few days ago. And then it clicked — I realized that I wasn’t okay. I needed to recognize my feelings and really acknowledge them.
At the time, I was reading Throw out Fifty Things by Gail Blanke. One passage hit me like a ton of rocks. If you have the book, the excerpts below are from Chapter 10: The Phoenix Rises from the Ashes. [An Aside: If you don’t have the book, I highly suggest you purchase it. Gail’s unique perspective and friendly voice will change the way you look at “clutter” forever.]
A Fire
It doesn’t seem fair, but sometimes all our stuff has to be ripped away from us for us to let go… David Hoffman is a documentary filmmaker-one of the best-and he has spent a forty-plus-year career “recording stories,” as he puts it, about what he calls, “extraordinary/ordinary people.” His reality films-more than 125 of them- have been broadcast on prime-time PBS, Turner Broadcasting, The Discovery Channel, and A&E…. David lives and has his studio in the town of Bonny Doon, California, at the top of the Santa Cruz Mountains, in what is known as Big Tree Country. One morning not long ago, he’d left his house at the crack of dawn to drive to a meeting in the Silicon Valley over the mountains. At about 6:30 a.m., his wife, Heidi, called, screaming on his cell phone to tell him their house and David’s studio were on fire….
–> Before reading on, what is your first reaction when you read the paragraph above? Don’t think — just react.
My first reaction: I didn’t think about David’s career or his studio or even his house. My first thought: is everyone safe? Thank goodness his wife was awake. I didn’t think about anything besides that.
… Is that just our natural reaction when we hear that there has been a fire – almost like a reflex?
… Or is that reaction more telling of what we value in life?
The Ashes
The house, at least the shell of it, survived; but David’s studio – containing everything he’d created during his entire career as well as all the projects he was currently working on – burned to the ground. His film library and the original footage from forty-three years of work, his eight Emmys and other film awards and medals, his working documents, thirty-eight thousand pounds of data that had traveled with him through twelve different moves, everything, truly everything, was lost, all burned to ashes in just minutes….
–> Has your perspective changed after reading this excerpt? What is your immediate reaction after reading this text?
My perspective changed. David became the victim. I no longer thought of the fire, but focused on what was lost. The fire had not hurt anyone so I had moved my worry to the physical materials that were forever gone. Interestingly, I notice that if A is okay, then I move on to B, if B is okay, then I move on to C. I have a checklist of “values” and go from the top down in terms of what I worry about. So since everyone was okay, I moved onto worrying about the lost materials and how that would impact David.
… Does this type of thinking leave any room for a sense of calm?
David’s Reaction
At first, David was devastated. He sat down crying in the smoldering rubble and thought, There must be something I can salvage from this… “We pulled out negatives and prints by the thousands, all burned around the edges…. It was all gone. My entire creative history and the only financially relevant legacy I had to leave my wife and three children were completely destroyed.”
–> Have you ever felt like you were in a situation like this before? As if everything you had created were destroyed — all of your previous work became useless?
This is how I felt. I thought everything I had done — everything I had created — was all gone … destroyed. Nothing to salvage. I felt stuck in this place.
… Why is this not a good place to get stuck?
Now What? Making a Decision.
“I decided I had a new chance, a chance to start over, to do my greatest work, a chance I never thought I’d have. The fire dies; the Phoenix rises. I decided that this could be a thrilling period, that I could actually create new criteria for what was important in my life…. A year from now, I want to be able to say I would have chosen this fire.”
Like David, I decided that I needed to let the fire die so that the Phoenix could rise. I had to let go of the anger associated with the fire and the ashes. If not, how could I possibly move away from the past? I couldn’t. I wouldn’t be able to move forward — to grow.
Gail Blanke concludes the chapter with a powerful statement, “Know this: Your greatest work is ahead of you.”
• • •
Lots of thought-provoking questions in this post. I hope your reflection leads you to recognize what is necessary to rise from the ashes.
What are you moving away from?
What are you looking forward to?
Do you believe that your greatest work is ahead of you?
• • •
{Images via istockphoto.com, top image: sironpe; bottom image: shunyufan; Cover image via Amazon}
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