Satya writes: This week Kaspa wrote about our unusual courtship and about learning to trust. We decided to ask people to pay whatever they wanted to pay for our e-courses this month.

I am also going to trust you now by being honest about how our e-courses have been selling and by telling you how our experiment went.

When we first set up Writing Our Way Home, our courses got filled up, quickly and easily.

Over the past two years, we’ve noticed numbers gradually dropping. We keep looking at the materials and asking for feedback and we remain convinced of the quality of what we’re offering. People tell us that our e-courses change how they experience their lives. And so what was happening?

It’s impossible to be sure but we guess it’s a mixture of more competition (many more people offering e-courses) and people having less money swishing around. Our courses are also in the category of ‘things that are crucially important but easy to not spend money on’ – like learning or therapy or keeping our bodies healthy. When we’re anxious about money, these ‘extra’ things are usually the first things to go. That’s understandable.

And so we thought we’d experiment with trusting the universe even more than we do now. How would it be for people to pay whatever they chose for what we offered? How would it be to trust you? We made some pay-what-you-like buttons and we waited…

The courses start today. Writing and Spiritual Practice is now completely full, and Finding Your Way Home has just a few spaces left. We suggested that people pay £50 / $80 for the month –  they actually paid between $10 / $13 and £50 / $80. The average of what people paid was about 65% of the suggested course fee. The extra number of participants means that we got the same money as usual. We’ve been able offer our e-courses to more people, including those who wouldn’t have been able to afford the usual price. Win win!

So yes, I think it was a very good decision to trust you : )

What does this have to do with valuing yourself?

When we leave the price up to you, you have a choice about paying what you can afford (or a tiny bit more), or paying as little as you think you can get away with.

It’s tempting in life to pay whatever we can ‘get away with’. I am very familiar with that impulse. ‘If I give her less money for petrol, then I can buy myself some ‘free’ cake on the way home’.

I think that this temptation to pay less often comes from a fear of scarcity, and an undervaluing of ourselves and of other people. More and more, I’m choosing to hire the more expensive builder who comes highly recommended, or to buy a high quality toaster, and feeling good about spending the extra money as it’s bringing me extra value, and also rewarding the builder for the care they take with their work. The builder gets more money to spend on his own life and family. I can feel good about supporting them and supporting the value of them ‘doing good work’. I can feel good about my nicely-built-converted-garage.

I’m not denying the reality of tight finances. Sometimes we simply can’t afford to shop at the ethical supermarket and so we do our shopping elsewhere. Sometimes there really is no spare cash.

But what I’m talking about isn’t really about the figures. It’s more about our priorities, and about being conscious of where we put the money (and time and energy) that we do have. It’s about valuing others and ourselves, and trusting that the universe will provide us with what we need (maybe not what we want, but what we need!)

When people pay what they can afford, rather than less, they are making themselves and their learning and wellbeing a priority. I’ve seen this valuing-of-self rippling outwards and changing people’s relationship with money and with abundance. It’s pretty powerful stuff.

I guess that most or all of the people doing our e-courses will be paying as much as they feel comfortable paying. When people have finished the course, I’ll ask them if they thought it was worth what they paid, and whether they’d like to pay anything more. I’ll ask them how it felt to pay what they wanted to. It’ll be interesting to see what emerges.

We’ll probably repeat the experiment with Eastern Therapeutic Writing & Writing Ourselves Alive starting in July, so you can either pay the usual price now or come back when we’ve made the new buttons. Or if you’re quick you could still sneak into Finding Your Way Home starting today.

Thank you.

*

‘Thistledown’ by Jo Starkey

Satya writes: On Friday, I didn’t go on the internet until noon.

I started the day with some Buddhist practice and a leisurely breakfast, I wrote long swathes of my novel, and I dealt with all my email in half an hour before stopping for lunch.

This morning, in direct contradiction with my plan, I decided to ‘just look once at my email and Facebook and my book stats before I settle down for work’.

I looked just once. I opened my novel manuscript. After ten minutes I thought I ought to reply to an email that had stirred me up emotionally. After twenty minutes I thought I’d check to see if I’d sold any more books in America.

At 10.15 I posted a photo of this vegan bundt cake on Facebook. Then I replied to the comments that ensued. At 10.35 I found myself buying a bundt pan online.

And so it went on.

I’ve been re-reading the Big Book (the bible for members of Alcoholics Anonymous) and musing about the nature of addiction. In one story, a man who’s been successfully sober for some time goes into a bar, with no intention of having a drink. He then has the idea to have a shot in a glass of milk with his lunch. The experiment worked so well, he thought he’d have a second. You can guess the end of the story.

I smile when I think about that shot in a glass of milk, as it replicates my crazy thinking so perfectly. I have amassed a lot of evidence that shows me it’s very difficult to just have ‘one look’ online. And yet there I was again, at the beginning of a fresh week, scrolling down through the Facebook news of people I don’t know very well and reading the new reviews on my books on Amazon.

I’m still clinging onto the idea that I am sufficiently in control to have one look before I start work. I am clearly not.

We are all mostly bundles of habits and addictions and compulsions, of varying intensity. Some have serious and obviously detrimental consequences. Most don’t. They get us into more or less trouble at different times in our lives. They can affect our health, our happiness, our bank balance, our loved ones, and our peace of mind. Watching television, buying scratch cards, perfectionism, caffeine, taking risks… Even ‘healthy’ habits can tip over into compulsion – running until we regularly get injured, or losing sleep as we try to get onto the next level of our computer game.

Our brains are mega-sneaky. Compulsions want to survive, and they will do whatever they can to trick us. They probably even think that they are helping. ‘You’re feeling stuck on which word to use next? You’re trying to avoid thinking about that difficult conversation you need to have later? Come, look at kittens on Facebook! You’ll feel much better!’.  

The first of the twelve steps is to acknowledge how truly out of control we are – how little effect our own efforts are having on our behaviour. This means acknowledging that we can’t afford to pick up the first drink – whether it’s in milk or not.

I’m supremely lucky in that this addiction (or any of my others) isn’t a threat to my life. A lot of addictions do lead towards complete self-destruction, either slowly or quickly, and if you’re unlucky enough to be dealing with one of those I hope you can reach out today for the help you’ll surely need to turn things around. But minor as it is, my addiction does result in lost income, peace of mind, productivity, and hours and hours and hours that I will never get back.

I don’t know if I’ve quite reached the first step yet. I might need to suffer through a few more mornings of broken work and scattered mind. I don’t want to give up an ordinary relationship with the computer. I want to be better than that.

The truth is, I can’t afford to take a sneaky little look at my email – even if it is on my phone before I even turn my computer on. Tomorrow, I shall hand myself and my will over to something bigger, and not go onto the internet before noon.

What habits do you struggle with? How close are you to admitting defeat?

*

A reminder that we have two e-courses starting this Friday (24th) – Writing & Spiritual Practice with me and Finding Our Way Home with Kaspa. For the first time they have bendy pricing which means you can pay whatever you choose. There are still some spaces on both courses.

Photo: Chocolate bundt cake from Isa Chandra Moskowitz’ amazing blog. Go see.

Satya writes: This weekend we went to the Malvern Spring Show. We chatted to people on various stalls, and without fail they reported that their takings were down on last year, which were down on the year before.

We’ve been hearing this more and more in our daily lives. People are feeling the pinch. People are afraid of the future. People are clinging on to their money.

I’m no expert in the workings of the world economy, but I can see how a (justified) fear of scarcity leads to less spending which leads to less money swooshing about which leads to more fear which leads to less spending. Etc.

Spending less money can be bad for us. We might be tempted to cut our spending on the things that are crucially important to our well-being. We might justify continuing to spend money on our favourite compulsions (chocolate, clothes, cigarettes, wine…) because we work hard and we ‘deserve’ these things.

It can be more difficult to justify spending £45 on a massage or a book of philosophy or a therapy session or a day retreat. We don’t need these things, and they don’t give us an instant hit of feeling-better, and sometimes they even make us feel worse in the short run.

I believe that when we stop spending money (or time or energy) on these crucial-to-wellbeing things, we stop investing in ourselves. There is a loss. We are of less use to ourselves and to others.

So what do we do about it? 

First, take an honest look at where your money does go. Are you still spending on things that you don’t get any value from, and could this money be diverted elsewhere?

Be creative. You could think about how you could invest in yourself by spending less money, or none. Swap massages with a friend, or borrow a book from the library. Take time cooking yourself a delicious meal. Start writing a journal or a regular meditation practice.

Be curious about what ‘gets in the way’ of you investing in yourself. Do you always blame a lack of money or time for taking part in the activities you want to take part in? Do you put yourself at the bottom of the priority list? What might that be about? Do you feel unworthy? What might you be afraid of finding? Keep being curious.

And my fourth suggestion may be a little controversial. If you have found something which you think will be good for you, trust that you will find the money to do it. Keep your ears open for ways in which the Universe might be trying to help you. Leap and the net will appear.

We’d like to do our bit by offering you the opportunity to choose what you pay for our mindful writing e-courses starting on the 24th of May. Think about what you’re (and we’re) worth and what you can afford, and then simply pay that amount. Now that money isn’t getting in the way of you signing up, what is? Be curious ; ) Sign up here for Writing & Spiritual Practice or for Finding Your Way Home.

As I finish up writing this blog post, the radio is telling me that, for the first time in years, there is a strong case for optimism in our financial future. Yes, times are hard. But sometimes we need to take a leap in order for the net to appear. Take a leap. Invest in yourself.

*

Auricula by hddod with gratitude.

Recently I’ve been following the controversy surrounding allegations about a top yoga teacher in America. People in positions of authority are always getting into trouble. Spiritual or religious teachers, CEOs of companies, politicians, sports coaches…

As we come to trust & depend on these people, especially those we know personally (our doctor, or the head of our family) we become vulnerable.

Unfortunately, spiritual leaders & CEOs & doctors are also human beings. They are driven by a whole host of conscious and unconscious drives, some of which will be healthy and altruistic, and some less so. Serious allegations might come to light – of sexual misconduct, or financial swindling. Sometimes it’s a more ‘minor’ transgression that nevertheless transforms our view of them as ‘safe people’.

When this happens, it hurts. If we can’t trust this part of this person, then can we trust the rest of them? Can we trust anyone? Where are we safe?

One solution to this disappointment is to just not become vulnerable any more. If we don’t trust people, then we can’t be hurt by them, can we?

We can protect ourselves by building thicker walls, but these walls often keep out the good stuff as well as the difficult stuff. They mean that we throw the lovely baby out with the dirty bathwater. These walls keep other people out entirely, leaving us alone.

Kaspa & I are also a position of trust, on a much smaller scale. We head up a small local sangha and we run ecourses & other events where we’re responsible for holding a space for people. We’re both therapists. We’ve recently come back from running a mindful writing retreat in France.

If we’re doing our job properly, people will become vulnerable in the spaces that we hold. As people get to know us better, some of them (all of them?) will occasionally crash into our own blind-spots. Ouch. It will hurt. And they will be disappointed.

So what can we do with our own disappointment when this happens to us?

We can acknowledge that this experience is a part of being human, and allow ourselves to feel sad. We can remain curious about the relationship we’ve entered into. Are we ignoring aspects of the person we’re trusting because it makes us uncomfortable? Do we often get drawn to people with these particular blind spots/dysfunction? Why?

We can talk to the person. We can talk to others. We can be kind to ourselves and allow our wounds to heal at their own pace. We can go into our next relationship with our eyes more open. We can gently ask ourselves again and again, what is there to learn here? What haven’t I learnt yet?

Sometimes it’s the right thing to end a relationship. Sometimes it’s the right thing to stay. Sometimes it takes a very long time to decide which of these is best for you, for the person concerned, and for everyone else.

I think that it also helps if we can find a deeper faith – something that lies underneath our fallible nature as human beings. This person might let me down, but I will learn something necessary as a result. This person might mess up, and I might discover deeper levels of compassion. Seeing your messiness might help me feel better about my own.

It’s not easy. But love can transform disappointment into hope, if we give it enough time and if we can let it in.

*

‘I Hate How Much I Love You’ by shewatchedthesky via Creative Commons with gratitude

Once upon a time…

I tell stories for a living. I told the story of Leonard who thought he knew his beloved wife until he found something in her handbag that changed everything. I wrote about Ruth who gave herself three months to decide whether or not to kill herself.

Why do I tell these stories? What drives me to write?

Because my main characters turn up in my head and ask me to tell their story. Because I am deeply in love with language. Because I find things out about myself and about the world as I write. Because I want to be heard.

But for me, the most important thing about writing is that it helps me to uncover the truth, and it helps other people to uncover their own truths.

People read about Violet’s awkwardness in relationships and they recognise parts of themselves. They read about the very worst of Ruth’s depression and they feel less alone in their own darkness. They read Joe’s journey and it helps them to understand their friend’s son, or to acknowledge their own need for acceptance.

When we uncover our own truth, layer by layer, when we can be more honest with ourselves and with others, we are led to a deeper understanding of why things are the way they are. Through truth (when we get past the ‘ouch’) we find compassion for ourselves and for others.

The most important thing about truth is that it leads us towards love. It helps us to love others and to love the world. And it reminds us that we are loveable, just as we are.

…and they lived happily ever after.

*

This blog is for ‘What I Live For‘, an online event to celebrate the re-launch of my novels under my new name. Read other people’s contributions here & on Facebook here.

Find out whether Ruth does find enough meaning in her own life & buy her three-month diary for just 99p / $1.49 on kindle today (also available in paperback).

And if you’d like to explore meaning in your own life during May, join me for one of our mindful writing e-courses - Writing Towards Healing, Journalling Our Way Home or how to be idle with a Mindful Moodle -  all starting today.

“I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.” ~ Augusten Burroughs

Read about my flaws, yours, and why we’re all okay just as we are over at my author site:
http://www.satyarobyn.com/?p=235

Satya writes: This red-shuttered building is Chateau Ventenac in the south of France. Last week, it was my office.

Kaspa and I have just returned from teaching a week of mindful writing, graciously hosted by the lovely Julia. From our third floor bedroom we could see the diamond-like contours of the Pyrenees. The grand terraced garden is stuffed with sage, bay trees, lavender & rosemary. We were fed delicious food three times a day, and the pain au chocolat were plentiful. We worked with poems and small stones and went on slow walks around the village and listened to Rumi and explored and mused and cogitated and lay happily like beached whales in the hot sun.

So did I enjoy my work?

If I said no, you might hate me. Just as well that I can say that I did. But what made the week joyful? For me, the amazing surroundings were the icing on the cake, not the cake.

The cake was being able to do the work that is important to me. The cake was engaging with the world around me as it is, not as I want it to be. The cake was learning some difficult things about myself, and getting things wrong, and knowing that I’m acceptable just as I am nonetheless. The cake is my Buddhist faith, my faith in other people, my faith in nature, my faith in love.

Just in case you’ve got the wrong idea. Real life happens in the south of France, just as it does anywhere else. As well as the sun there was a lot of rain, illness, doubt, grumpiness, sunburn, boredom and all the rest. Especially, for me, during our second silent day. There was darkness as well as light.

But I returned home to Malvern feeling privileged that I can make my living through working with people in this way. Through writing blogs like this one and running mindful writing e-courses and sharing the stories of the characters in my novels. Work = Joy.

So how can we move towards joy in our own life’s work? And when I say work I’m really including all of it – the deeply important work of raising children, the making of art in your spare time, the work of interacting with strangers at the supermarket…

A few pointers.

1. Pay attention. My favourite half-hour from the week was the second time we did walking meditation down through the terraced garden. It was cold, but the cold wasn’t a problem – I was transfixed by the giant pearlescent iris, the wafting herby aromas, the tiny conical snails going about their business…

2. Start to let go of your self. We are very fond of our selves, and this gets us into a lot of trouble. We cling tightly to who we are and who we aren’t, and pull at what we want and push at what we don’t want. When we can begin to loosen these tight samskaras, more of life gets in. We become more intimate with the world and with others.

3. Attend to the darkness as well as to the light. For me, joy is blocked when I start to deny the truth of the things I’d rather avoid. Allow it all to bubble up into the light. The jealousy, greed, impatience, the deep grief… make space for it, honour it, share it with others, allow yourself to slowly heal.

If you’d like to work in this way with me or with Kaspa, we have three e-courses starting on Friday – Writing Towards Healing, Journalling Our Way Home or how to be idle with a Mindful Moodle.

Do let me know in the comments what gives you joy in your work. Deep bow.

Satya writes: I was going to write something else today about my new novel covers and my propensity at these times to tip into full ego-mania.

And then I thought, god, how boring.

I get the same feeling when I read through my old diaries. Those old familiar patterns…

Trying to eat less. Not caring about eating less. Trying to eat less.

Putting too much into my diary. Feeling overwhelmed. Cutting back. Putting too much into my diary.

Spending too much time on the internet. Setting myself limits and sticking to them. Spending too much time on the internet.

And yet.

When I read through those old diaries, familiar as that old person is to me, I am also reading about a different person. She was in a very different relationship. She was unaware of the depth of her foolishness. She wasn’t a Buddhist. She hadn’t published any books and she didn’t have a private psychotherapy practice. She even had a different name.

Eating too much. Being greedy for attention. This kind of pattern-of-behaviour goes DEEP. However you want to make sense of it, through early childhood wounds or through karma that lasts back many lifetimes, our favourite compulsive habits have deep and insistent roots. They cling on for dear life. We can recognise the terrible destructiveness of one of these habits and carry on regardless. We can be in a great deal of denial. We can harm others.

I want to say, go easy on yourself. It’s not as easy to change as you’d think. Sometimes we make progress with our bad habits only to encounter them again, as if we’re on a merry-go-round. I’d like to suggest that we’re actually on a spiral, so although you come round and it all looks very familiar, you are actually in a different place to last time. You are moving away from the gravitational pull at the centre of the spiral. You will reach a point where you can fly free.

Until then, I will continue to struggle with my ego-mania. I will continue do the things that help – writing about it in my journal, doing Buddhist practice, noticing noticing noticing, focussing my attention outside of myself, attending a twelve-step programme, writing blogs, drinking tea very slowly in the sunny garden.

These things may get me out of the hole, and they may not. There will be holes in the future, and I will trip into them and fall onto my face. Ouch. How embarrassing. Sometimes the wounds will take a  while to heal.

And.

I will make progress at the speed of a very slow snail. I will move around and around (and around and around) on the spiral.

I am changing. I can’t help but change. None of us can.

*

Photo: ‘Origin of Symmetry’ by SplodgusMaximus

“For there’s more enterprise / In walking naked.” ~ W.B. Yeats

Here I go again.

My four novels all have new covers, to re-launch my writing career with my new name. I feel like I’ve just bought a strange new hat and am wearing it for the first time. I think it suits me, but I could be horribly wrong…

Most of us would rather everyone liked our hats.

We ask our friends what they think and then we pay close attention to their reaction. Are they just being polite? We ask again. We ask some strangers and share a photo of our hat on Facebook. One person pays us a compliment and we get a nice warm glow. Another pulls a face and we put the hat in the back of the cupboard and never wear it again.

This is the trouble with relying on others to validate us and our hats. When we become constrained by this needing-to-be-approved-of, it limits our ability to do our best work. Our best work might alienate the people we’re currently in touch with. It might ask disturbing questions and raise people’s defenses. It might be just ahead of the zeitgeist. 

Gez Smith talks here about how addicted most of us are to these ‘positive strokes’, and yet: “…to do our most interesting and creative work, we need to get away from this need for approval, do something genuinely new, and do it because you believe in it, not because others will approve of it (although it’s nice if they do).”

Some people will like these new covers, and some will much prefer the old ones. That’s okay. Some people will like my books, and some people will hate them. That’s okay.

I love them. I love my characters very much – Ruth, Leonard, Violet & Joe. I love the stories they have to tell, and I have faith in the message they are taking to the world.

I shall wear my strange hat with pride. What about you?

*

You can buy the books on kindle now, but we’re officially launching the novels on the 10th of May with a free online event, ‘What I Live For‘. People will be writing or making art about the things that make their lives worth living. If you’d like to join us, read more here or say yes to our Facebook invite and invite your friends.