“You want to write a book? Who do you think you are? Why would anyone spend any time or the money on it? Who’s interested in reading your stuff? You will expose your inner life unnecessarily. You are not a writer. Don’t pretend to be one. Your book will simply prove your mediocrity to everyone. Even if you manage to write it, who will publish it? I think you will have to go the self-publishing route.” Oh no! This voice in my head. In any case, I don’t have time. Nor the talent or the imagination. I don’t feel inspired. I am not in the right frame of mind. There’s too much else going on. I am struggling with ‘structure’. It’s serious and solitary hard work. As the story is still unfolding, we haven’t reached the end yet. So, how can it be finished? When I sit at my desk staring at a blank page, I freeze. I don’t know what to write about. It’s too big a job and the hospital is keeping me so busy. On top of that, there are unending chores that need done. The summer has finally arrived and I should take the time to enjoy that. The list of excuses goes on and on. There is so much I don’t remember accurately anymore. How do I put that in words? I am up against this project when I want to flow with it. The book wants to come from a place of love. Not angst. I need to take it easy. Breathe. Gently ask my inner critic to come back later, when I am on the second draft. For now, leave me alone with these blank pages. Let me see them as friends who want to help me be fully expressed. I need to learn to connect with my anxious heart, soothe it and be fully present here at my desk. Right now. And start, regardless. Go to the kitchen. Make a cup of coffee. Water the money-plant. Return to the study. Look at the man in a blue and white base-ball cap walking with his tan Labrador in the park across the road. The round green trees and the clear blue sky. I put on the soundtrack of Human’s music on Youtube – a spectacular film by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, music composed by Armand Amar. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uog4eCZTUX4) I am but a dot on this enormous picture inside which I live. Connected with everything. Not separate. In my heart, can I trust myself to be a tiny part of a greater process? Trust myself. Show up every day and work with the mystery. Trust myself.