Resistance

Earlier this week, I submitted the draft of the book I'm ghost-writing to the doctor I'm writing it for. It took him a couple of days to get back to me and when he did his response was music to my ears, "I love it!" He exclaimed. And with Elle's eagle eye, the final manuscript will be even better. Elle,who is my friend and editor, and a published author in her own right -- go to Amazon and type in L.G. Mansfield -- is one of those people who has mastered the nuances of the English language. Because of this, she is my grammar guru, the person I rely on when I want to be certain every I is dotted and every T is crossed. She's often the one who encourages me to keep writing when I doubt my abilities. Whenever I face resistance, I go to her first. As we walk my dogs around the neighborhood, she listens as I complain about being stuck, or not knowing where the book is going, and gently prods me along the writing path.

With the medical book behind me (except for some small, final edits, I'm officially turning my attention back to my own writing and calling upon Elle and other members of my support team to see me through the last phase of what has been a personal journey into the heart of the matter. When I started writing the book, among my initial resistance was the term "memoir," and I must admit it still is. Who wants to read a book about my life? But, what I realized is that the book is really a first person account of my feelings about being adopted. It's about my inner child, who wandered around in a fog, looking for the truth. It's about my constant search for identity. It's about desire to know and the resistance of outside forces to open the door. On one hand, it's about guilt and shame, fear and frustration; on the other hand, it's about truth and love and self acceptance. It's about intimacy, a term that author Michael Brown explains as going "in to me and see." It's about universal conditions that affect all of us. In essence, the book is not so much about me as it is about the experiences of any adoptee.

When I started writing this book, I thought I was writing it to heal my emotional wounds and become a person who was more capable of authentic intimacy, and so far, the process hasn't disappointed me. Initially, scenes from my life started pouring out, and I just let them flow, without censorship. Often I was amazed at the forgotten memories that filled the pages. Slowly, over time, a theme emerged, and then out of a chronology, a plot began to take shape. Six months ago, when I stopped working on the book, I was about half way through the story. Tomorrow, I intend to pick up where I left off. Today, I'm going to work through any lingering resistance.

Like many adoptees, even though I appear to be confident and capable, I have deep-seated doubts about my abilities, never feeling like I'm good enough, or that I deserve the best. As a result, I've spent much of my life acting, faking it, hoping that one day I'll believe in myself as much as others do. That I'll genuinely trust in the process, rather than seeking the approval of the outcome. This fact explains why I've spent most of my professional life writing for others: It's safe, doesn't impact my heart, doesn't require any kind of intimacy, and in the end, there's either a monetary reward or heartfelt appreciation for my efforts.

Writing from my own heart is different. It requires courage to face my wounded inner child and let her know everything will be okay, is okay; acceptance of what was and what is, and commitment to move through resistance whether there's an "I love it" at the end or not. There's no guarantee of a cash reward, adulation, or a pat on the back from any but the close few who read the finished manuscript. If I send it out to publishers, I know rejection is part of the game. But I can't think about that right now.

As I muster up the courage to stay in the present and attend to only what is required to finish the book, it helps to know that when I can't break through the wall of resistance by myself, I can call Elle or Sasha or other members of my support team. Sometimes, all I need to stay on the writing path is "a little help from my friends"--especially the ones that have more faith in me than I often have in myself.