Is It Self-Protection or Self-Sabotage?

Lisa [00:00]:

Well, hello, Donna, welcome to the Writing Your Resilience podcast. I am so delighted to see you again and to have you on the show.

Donna [00:10]

Well, I’m happy to be here. Lisa, thanks for having me on

Lisa [00:13]

So, for listeners who don’t know or people who are watching on YouTube, but you and I worked together for gosh, what was it nine months, almost a year?

Donna [00:23]

I think it was close to a year.

Lisa [00:25]

We got to know each other well, and I got the privilege of knowing about your story, which we may or may not talk about today. But first, what would you like people to know about you as a writer, and anything about your project?

Donna [1:00]

Well, thank you for asking, because I like to tell people that I’ve been writing for my whole life. It began when I was in second grade and I used to tell tall tales, we’ll say, and a teacher told me I was a spinner of stories, and that was right. It just shifted my perspective of what I was doing, and it gave me the confidence to publish my first short story in my high school literary magazine. And so then in my 20s, I wrote a lot, and I submitted for publication. That was interrupted when my husband and I started our family, and then I had a career in communications.

So, for a long time, I was writing a lot of material that didn’t really require very much creativity. I also want to say that I write for higher education clients. I have no trouble writing these stories. I get curious about the subject. I write stories that flow easily. It is not that way as I’m writing my memoir. So, I’m working on a memoir about loss. It has felt like a mystery, almost from the beginning, and even though I’ve been writing literally every day of my life, I feel inadequate to the task of turning this story into something that has meaning for readers. I keep hitting snags that makes me wonder if I have what it takes, and whether I should give up and move on to something else that doesn’t feel like torture.

Lisa [3:25]

Great question: Should I give up and or should I be spending my time on something that doesn’t necessarily feel like torture? Does that sound like the question you’re coming to the podcast with today?

Donna [3:30]

Yeah, yeah.

Lisa [3:31]

My heart is connecting to yours as a person who also writes about loss, because, oh my gosh, it can be so difficult to wade in that material, because when you’re writing, and especially when you are immersing the reader in scene—so if you’re not sure what I mean by scene, I’m talking about cinematic writing, for those of you who are listening. A part of your brain relives it. It’s actually the mirror neurons in the brain. They fire in the same way as if the event is happening, because the brain does not actually know the difference between imagination and what’s happening right now. So that can create all kinds of challenges when we’re trying to write.

My cat, Foxy, seems to agree, because she has decided to join us today. So, you’ve been trying to figure out, does the story matter? Where do I go with this? Is there anything else you want us to know before I get into a few things that are the common reasons why we get stuck in this place?

Donna [4:15]

Yeah, just to sort of refine my question a little bit. It’s really the question of whether the voices in my head are coming from that traumatic place and they should be disregarded, or whether they’re really telling me something like, see, you don’t have what it takes. That’s probably not my true self talking. But you know, the practical aspect of the question, which is, maybe I need some more training. Maybe I need a coach. What’s the difference?  I don’t want to give in to this idea that, oh, I should just quit. But then again, maybe I do need something else. I don’t know if that refines the question.

Lisa [05:00]

It absolutely does. So here are some things that I hear in your question. Which voice do I listen to? You know, is this part of me that’s saying like, oh, maybe you should do something else, or maybe you need more help. Is it telling the truth or is this the BS voice from my past that tells me all these stories that are not true, and sabotages what I want, because—and I don’t want to read into your experience, I’m just going to talk in generalities. Now, when this voice comes up, it’s often the voice of, I’m not good enough, and that’s related to things that happened to us in the past, and, oh, does it get us into so much trouble.

Donna [05:29]

You have nailed it. Yes, that is absolutely the question in my heart. Yeah.

Lisa [05:31]

So, let’s talk about the voices for a second, and I’m going to talk about them in a general way, and then I’m going to ask you to chime in and say, is this it or is it maybe something else?

So, there are a few different voices inside you. The way I talk about this with a lot of people, this is a trauma informed way of talking about writing, is to talk about it in terms of parts of self. When you see me, or we see Donna on the screen, you see one human being, but inside us, psychologically, we have different parts. Some of those parts are trying to protect us. Some of those parts are the wounded parts of us. Some of them are the really powerful, strong parts of us. We all have these parts, right? And for some of us, certain parts are more powerful because of the experiences that we’ve had in our lives. So, you know, the voice we always want to be listening to is the wise one. This is the voice that has our back and knows what we need to do. And sometimes this voice is telling us it’s not time to do something, it’s not time to work on a project. But then sometimes it’s the wounded one that’s talking, and the wounded one is saying, I’m still hurt, or this feels too vulnerable, or I don’t trust you, writer, adult person who’s putting their pen to the page to keep me safe especially if you’re trying to publish this and you want to put this out in the world. Are you kidding me? No way. Then there can be this other part, we’ll call it a protector part, that’s like, hey, we know wounded part doesn’t feel good enough, so we’re going to get in your way at every step of the process, because we’re going to fulfill the fact that you’re not good enough. We’re going to protect that, because that’s a truth inside us, even though adult you might know that’s not true, right? This is stuff I’m working through, or this is a story that is absolutely not true, even if my nervous system doesn’t yet believe it. But these voices are competing with our desires. As you hear me talk about these different voices, which one do you think is showing up the most?

Donna [08:00]

Wow. You know, if I could, I want to add one more voice, there’s that part of me, like when I was talking about writing for clients, I know when a story is not ready, and I have to do more work, and I have to rearrange and I will even want to throw my hands up at times. But that professional part of me that knows the craft, and knows when it’s good enough, that’s another voice that should be the wise one, but isn’t always or it can’t be heard above the din. I think of this, this wounded one, or the protector, or how many other ones were there?

Lisa [9:00]

Oh my gosh. There are so many different parts. And so, we tend to really think about, I mean, this is very simplified, okay? And so, if someone is listening and you are a therapist, and you’re like, uh, that is not how internal family systems work in the most literal way, no it is not. I’m trying to simplify for the sake of talking about writing. But yeah, so we can have the wounded one. We can have protectors. We have the wise self. And I would say the editor falls in between a little bit, because the editor is a wise part of us, especially if you’re a seasoned writer, which you are, and you write beautiful sentences, and we’re going to at least link to your Keepthings essay, because it’s so beautiful. And you may have something else you want to add to this, but you’re a beautiful writer. I always have admired your writing and gone, oh my gosh, you are so talented, and yet this editor part, which allows you to do this professional work, which it sounds like, we’ll call it strong Donna, right? We’ll say that’s another part. Strong, confident Donna, maybe who has good connection to the wise one, right? This highest form of self. Strong, confident Donna, professional Donna. She knows how to write; she knows how to get it done for her clients. So, the editor works really well with strong Donna, because that part of you knows what it’s doing, right? So, it’s listening, but sometimes the editor comes in at the wrong time, like we’re still trying to create. We don’t know what something is. We don’t need the editor part yet. We do need it at a certain point, but not yet. So, we get bound up in the rules, because we know how to write. You know how to write, so, and I find like as an editor, because I’m constantly reading other people’s work and offering people feedback, then I get to my own and it’s like, the feedback, the rules, all the stuff gets stuck in my head. So, knowing how to silence that is important.

But being able to connect with the part of yourself that is strong and wise with your memoir is a challenge. Laura Cathcart Robbins, we are recording this on May 17th, which is the launch date for the Laura Cathcart Robbins episode. One of the things that she said, which was so profound to me about book marketing, is that, when you’re marketing a book in any other genre, you’re marketing the book. When you’re marketing memoir, you are marketing yourself. So you know that piece of it makes us feel so much more vulnerable, and that’s one of the reasons why we sometimes tap into these other things, the protector and the wounded one, they can speak a lot louder, because there can be an identity piece that is connected to your writing, especially when you talk about public facing writing, like when you’re writing for your clients, you’re writing their stuff.

Donna [11:55]

That really gives me another way of thinking about this altogether. I think I’ve been denying that the content of this loss memoir is part of what’s in the way, that there is something to be protected, that there is something that’s wounded. I have to think about that in a different way.

Lisa [12:10]

It takes several drafts, sometimes to figure out what the story is for yourself, like every story is answering a question, some question you have inside about yourself, about the world, about how life works. And so, when we don’t know the question, we don’t need the editor as much. We just need this meaning-making part of ourselves, and that can feel vulnerable. But in this process, we want to think about how we are keeping that wounded part of us safe, like, how are we showing that part of us that we’ve got it.

Some ways we do that are not pushing too hard, not writing too many days of the week about the really sad, hard stuff, or focusing on what does this mean. Maybe just a small piece of it—it doesn’t have to be your whole project, because I think we get stuck on, like, oh my gosh, I must know the essential question for my whole book, and if I don’t know that, I can’t move forward. Think about what’s going on in this chapter or this scene. What sense was made here? What question shows up at the beginning, which is usually related to what this person wants, right? What does your narrator want? Do they get it or not? So, thinking in these micro levels can be a way of keeping that part of yourself safe and telling it that you’ve got it. Publishing can smaller pieces, and this doesn’t necessarily have to be about your memoir, but other things that are maybe in the creative nonfiction genre, that can be a way to also say, hey, look, I’ve got what it takes, and you know, protector part, I am worthy.

So, there’s usually some worthiness work that needs to be done that’s off the page that’s more therapy driven. Because this is one thing that I’ve been talking to some writers about, and it was a hard lesson for me to learn. There’s this belief that if I just published the right thing at the right level, in the right way, I will now be worthy. I will have arrived, and I can hold the mantle of writer, and know that is going to be easy peasy from now on.

Donna [13:40]

Wow. Yeah. You know, that makes me think about my self-published book? Would you want to hear about that?

Lisa [13:43]

Yeah, tell me about it.

Donna [13:47]

Okay, so several years ago, I sort of said, okay, by hook or by crook, I’m going to publish a book. I don’t care. I wanted to do this all my life. And I looked into self-publishing, and I wrote this book on what I know about the art of the apology. It’s called Not Just Words. I wrote it fast. It sort of seemed to come out of me. It was a pleasure to write. And then it got out there in the world, and I started to feel like, well, but wait a minute, it’s self-published, so I can’t talk about it. I can’t promote it. I barely mention it to most people. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it to you before today. It’s a funny thing, because I don’t really recognize that I had that worthiness thing going on to such a degree, because I have often told people listen, you know, self-publishing is a really great way to go. Yeah, there was joy in writing that book, and there was joy in writing for a family-only book of essays about my memories and stuff that my kids gave me as a gift one Mother’s Day. but it’s self-published, so, you know, I mean, it’s almost like the most comfortable old pair of slippers that are really a mess. You know, it’s like it’s so easy to fall into that. Well, this is good enough, because it keeps me sort of small and hidden. And I think you’re right when you talk about protection. It’s keeping me from putting myself out there in a way that’s vulnerable, or God forbid, if someone criticized my writing. I have enough trouble with somebody criticizing one of my little, you know, pieces. It would be really hard to hear criticism about this particular loss event in my life and what happened as a result of it. So, yeah, I’m really starting to understand the power of keeping that hidden, of not addressing that possibility, right?

Lisa [15:25]

It is so hard to put ourselves out there, no matter what you’re doing. And I think as women, especially, we are socialized to be caregivers, to think of other people. I mean, there’s a whole societal thing that we could add on to this, but one thing that we do generally as people, when we’ve experienced really tough things, when life has been hard, and we’ve learned that staying small keeps us safe is that we perpetuate our misery. Because there’s a part of us that’s like, no, I am supposed to have this bigger life. I am called to do these things. And yet, there’s nothing wrong with self-publishing, right? Self-publishing is a viable way. I will tell anyone who wants to self-publish two things: do your due diligence, write the very best book. You can get feedback, get editorial consultation, have somebody do that work for you. However, you also need to market your book. You have to put yourself out there. And you have to believe in your work in a huge way. You have to really believe that this is of service to others, and I am going to market the hell out of it, because it is of service to others. And there’s an episode of the podcast that Ingrid Clayton did, and this was at the beginning of the season, so it was in early March, so just look for Ingrid Clayton’s episode, and I will also add it to the show notes. In it, she self-published her memoir, and she had a very specific reason why she did that. She had queried 100 agents; she had done all the work. She had worked with an editor. She did a lot of due diligence. It just wasn’t happening at that time. So, she said, you know what? I’m going to figure out Instagram, which she did beautifully. I’m going to build this platform. I’m going to do these things. And then, because her book is about narcissistic abuse, which is a form of abuse that often makes you second guess yourself and you don’t believe yourself, she titled her book Believing Me. And she said, I’m going to believe in me by self-publishing. So, you got to listen to her say it. There’s so much more that she has to say about it, but I think learning how to promote yourself helps to rewrite that, but it’s uncomfortable, so having support around that can be important.

And, you know, you said something about, do I really want to wade in this work? Do I want to go back? Earlier this week, I was reading this Substack post by Jeannine Ouellette—she has a great Substack. And sometimes people will write into her with issues they’re having. Someone had, it was a loss story, and I’m going to link to her post in the show notes, but I’m just going to summarize it very quickly.

This person was an unwed mother. They weren’t sure about motherhood. It ended up being this wonderful experience, and then their child dies in a very tragic way, and they had written all these pieces during this child’s life, and then, of course, the devastation they’d experienced made them put them away. And now many years have passed, and they’re coming back to this experience, and they want to write about it, and they’re trying to figure out, what do I do? Do I work towards publishing this stuff that’s beautiful to me, and yet it is also very precious? It’s both precious and beautiful. And Jeannine had some great advice, so I’m going to read this excerpt from her Substack. “Just know that even if you decide to pursue publishing your stories, that choice will not make them more of anything that they are not already, and it could make them less simply by overlaying the magic of what you now feel for them with a patina of grief and commerce inherent to the publishing process.” How is that hitting your body?

Donna [22:52]

I mean, I felt that right in my chest. It was just like, you know, there’s such a responsibility there, and yet, there’s also some freedom there too. It’s just like, let go of your expectations. Listen to what the story is asking you to do.

Lisa [23:05]

And sometimes the stories we write, especially in memoir, are for us. Sometimes we write them to give ourselves faith that we can write in this way, or they settle a question inside us that allows us to write the thing that is what we’re actually supposed to be writing, and sometimes they’re supposed to be published. You know? I mean, there’s lots of different ways to answer this question, and none are wrong. But I think it’s important to say this, because so many people will start a memoir, and then they think, no, I must finish it. I have to finish it in this one way, or else I’m not worthy, or I didn’t do the process. That is not true. So many people have what we’ll call “practice manuscripts.” I’m putting that in quotes, yeah, because they teach you things. So, I’m going to give you some invitations, just because I’m trying to keep these Summer Shorts short, but here are some invitations. Sit with that and ask yourself, what does your heart want? And give yourself plenty of time to answer that question in whatever way feels right to you. If you need to put it away for now and maybe forever, and I would just say, for now and then you can pick it up and continue to say, is it forever? Create some sort of ritual that will give you closure around this project, so that you have a way of saying goodbye to it, and that it’s not just rolling around inside you. Say goodbye to this project, and I would also say, publish this project, not for the world, but to create a tangible object. And often what I’ll tell people, and I’ve had plenty of clients do this between drafts. Go to your local copy place and create a bound copy that you can hold. Create a cover for it in whatever way you want. But do that so that you can say, this is the copy that is finished for now. It is settling something inside me. I can put it on my bookshelf and trust that it’s doing work inside me, even just having that there, that the process has already done something inside me that is changing me, which is changing my environment, which changes how I write. And then if you’re supposed to work on it more, you will keep looking at that, and it will call you to pick it back up.

Donna [24:05]

Wow, that is so powerful. I’ve never heard anybody make that suggestion. That’s goes deep. I want to cry a little bit, but I’m really like hearing what you’re saying with that. And it’s time for me to ask that question,

Lisa [24:15]

Go for walks, sit in your quiet spaces. Do it in whatever way you want, but definitely give room for that. That’s how we use this process for healing and transformation. We allow it to be what it is. So, as we wrap up, I want to first say thank you for trusting me and trusting all of us with your story and your experience.

Donna [24:45]

Well, it was a pleasure, and I totally trust you as well, which is why I came to this.

Lisa [24:47]

So, I’m going to wrap up with three lightning-round questions that I ask everyone. What is the best piece of writing advice that you’ve received?

Donna [24:52]

I love what Elizabeth Gilbert says in her book, Big Magic. She says, done is better than good.

Lisa [24:57]

Yes, it is. How are you nurturing your resilience as you explore this and all the writing you’ve been doing?

Donna [25:02]

I’ve been trying to listen to that little voice inside me that says, get up from the desk and go outside. Yes, I will walk my dog. I will ride my bike. I will walk a labyrinth that’s nearby in this in my neighborhood. I’ll just do something to get up, get away from the desk, and go outside. And the other sort of piece that I do if I’m going to be sitting at the desk, I look for what brings me joy, and I write that.

Lisa [25:15]

Beautiful! I love that. Everyone should be doing that, right? It’s fine to write about the tough stuff. Write about the joy too. And if people want to connect with you, they want to read your writing, they want to know more about you, and they want to know about this book on apology, which you are now going to tell people about because you are an amazing writer, how do they find you?

Donna [25:47]

The best way to find me is through email, which I’m assuming is going to be in the show notes, so people can find me there. I’m also on Instagram. I post a little bit about my writing journey, but it’s also a place where I do a bit of photography. I post pictures of flowers that I grow in my garden. So that’s like a place to get another side of me. To get my book, Not Just Words, go to my website donnamoriarty.com. You can find out more about that book at that website.

Lisa [26:02]

All of that will be in the show notes, in case you would like to connect with Donna. Well, Donna, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I am so honored to see you today and to hold space for this journey.

Donna [26:10]

Well, it was such a pleasure to be here. I learned a lot from this conversation, as I have learned much from you over the time that we’ve worked together, so thank you again for the opportunity.