My “Big Magic”

A hen pregnant with eggs

When I was back from a dialogue workshop with a client a few weeks ago, I was very much excited to write a blog about this dear-to-my-heart topic. Particularly also because the experience of the synchronicity: The workshop is about dialogue, the whole day was facilitated through the dialogue, and my mother and I also had completed a circle from mistrust to a real dialogue before and after the workshop.

I so wanted to write down this experience. Yet despite the goose bumps and inspirations I felt under my skin, every time when I sit behind my laptop, I was like a pregnant hen full of eggs but nothing comes out after hours of sitting. I can’t type anything slightly near to my inner magic feeling, everything is just flat blah blah blah on the screen. My husband was joking that I was not writing a blog, but rather, having a “writer’s block”.

My history with Gilbert

In a talk with my friend Sharmishtha, I was expressing my writer’s block frustration. Then she said “ Qi, you have to read this book called ‘Big Magic’ by Liz Gilbert. I just read it, and I am sure you will like it. You know Elisabeth Gilbert? She is the author of Eat, Pray, and Love”. Oh her, of course… my memory flashes back… My last encounter with Gilbert was exactly reading that Eat Pray and Love book, when I was having the one (and hopefully the only) burnout in my life, when I was consistently feeling inside and looking outside like a vegetable…. I don’t remember anymore what was in the book, but I remember like just yesterday that book has infused a full dose of human sensations into my body, and with that little light in the tunnel, inch by inch I climbed out of my black hole. That was already a big magic for me by that time. And now her new book called “Big Magic”? And my second encounter with her when I feel “blocked”? Would the magic happen again?

When the “how” embodies “what”

I was so pulled into reading, she writes so effortlessly (at least seems so, as if the words just pour out of her heart, it doesn’t pass my brain, it lands directly into my stomach. I feel like eating it rather than reading it). Soon I find I was in a flow typing my notes of what I loved about her writing, next to the resonating content I too highlighted. I was fascinated, contrary to my feeling of “block” for my own blog, her attitude made her being permeate through every word and every second it gets in contact with my stomach. Those are the unspoken words behind the spoken words. I find unlike many other preaching books, how she writes exactly matches what she writes. And I can tell she is having great fun every sentence, every minute of it. Sometimes she would play hilarious jokes that made me laugh madly, sometimes she made plot reserve for surprises, sometimes she give me a wake up call as if she walked off the page pulling my ears, sometimes she connecting the dots using her life story make me believe that magic happened to her, so would it happen to me too. That’s the power of writing, which I want to learn from.

To write, first is to live. For writing is connecting. Connecting to others, but most of all, connecting to oneself. And if connecting to others is a result, then connecting to oneself is the cause with a never-ending process of living. Yet it took me a long time plus a career change to live the connection between this cause and effect.

When result burned me, process saved me

When I was having a burnout back then (It happened after I had just been on the peak of my career, and it happened when my previous marriage fell apart), some colleagues at work labeled me as “over-achiever” and I labeled myself as “loser” in every aspects of my life. My years of corporate trained result orientation have had its glorious time. Yet finally it came to collect its fines when I became attached to it. If the path to the best result is not aligned with the path that will be most joyful ride, I relentlessly choose the former, so I suffer. When I can’t top myself, while my ego pictured the world’s expectation is on me to perform, to not to disappoint, I want to do better, no, more accurately, I have hard time to accept I am not perfect.

It’s only when I had that fall on my full face, I start to connect from ground zero to that BIG magic within all the SMALL stuff I’ve taken for granted: Warm words from people I barely know, the unconditional presence of my parents, the friends who not only come closer but kicked my ass out of my vegetable cave, and most of all, my own curiosity. It continues shimmering through the dark black hole. Now and then she managed to ask me “why I am feeling what I am feeling? What can I learn from this moment?”. I didn’t think of when I must be back to game again, nor did I sentenced myself that I will never come back to the game again. I simply stayed with that curiosity when moments unfold, and that back and forth swing of feeling bad and feeling good, and the discovery of my inner various characters and voices who can either make me feel good or make me feel really bad …. I learned to play with them. Screw all the expectations of who I should be. The show is on NOW to be just who I am!

A little secret

A little secret stayed true to me in the many years followed since till now, that whenever I had expectations for what I shall achieve, things often go south, and I am utterly disappointed with the results. But whenever I let go of the expectation, and truly enjoy the process of riding with my curiosity friend who leads me to a bunch of other interesting inner characters I can dialogue with, the result often is surprisingly amazing. That is true no matter whether it’s a workshop I facilitate, a coaching session I do, or an interaction I have with my family members.

Please understand I am not preaching that we shall not set goals and have dreams in life. The company is born to generate the result, like we human are born to exercise our talent to make contribution to the world, not only the consumptions. The result orientation should serve as our compass, when we hesitate which way to go, it keeps us focused and stay on track. That’s all what it is needed to serve us. There is a certain degree where result orientation becomes result attachment. That’s when we are identified with the result. That’s when we become rather rigid in our action and interaction. That’s when we start to lose connection to our joy of ride. And that’s when we blindly follow instead of consciously lead.

the "Innocent" and the "Great"

In the I Ching, the great Chinese Book of Change, there are two signs (hexagrams) perhaps best connecting to my Big Magic I am describing above. One is called “innocent” (authentic, spontaneous, curious from within), which attracts unexpected good. The other is about “taming the great”, which prevents the overgrown desire and ego for pushing for the result aggressively. They complement each other. For the innocent attract greatness, and the great needs to be tamed by reconnecting to the innocent. The dance between the two basically boils down to this: We must actively disengage our egos before we can obtain the vast rewards that come from living in a state of innocence. When we engage in ambitions, anxieties, anticipations, our ego is leaping ahead. We miss the opportunity of the present. When we engage in anger, judgment, and condemnation (either toward ourselves or toward the others), our ego is looking backward. We won’t see beauty in the present. Either case, the result is misfortune. Being innocent is to stop the ego looking forward or backward, instead actively fully participate in the present with curiosity. The success will meet you in the coming time.

The Chinese change philosophy believes that there is great danger coming along with the fulfillment, while there is great fortune embedded in every misfortune… It’s not the fulfillment nor the misfortune that makes us, but the dance throughout the process –(a process of struggle, learning, situational awareness, taming the ego, return to the innocence…. ) made the difference on our happiness and ability to live life fully. It’s like mountain climber’s joy, which is in the climbing itself.

From block to blog

So I find I am writing again, connecting to myself again. It may not be a masterpiece, it nor will have more than my finger counted amount of readers. But it doesn’t matter. I find my enjoyment and creativity already fulfilled during the writing. And I love the whole process: re-encounter Gilber like embracing an old friend, harvest the big magic inspiration from her book, learn from her how she writes, feeling the gratitude and happiness of sharing/loving the same book with my friend, making the dots connected while writing, experiment and experience on myself the changes from “block” to blogging….

Boy, so much I got from this process from “block” to blogging. And the ground is too fun to be left un-played.