My favorite scene of all the movies or tv shows that I watch is when the actor starts shouting at the director, “what’s my motivation?” I would like to believe that most of us struggle with motivation for a goal, or an activity. This lack of motivation leads to unfulfilled dreams, a lack of direction, and a lost of hope. I have seen this progression in my own life. Over the years, I struggled with motivation for so many things, like studying for school or eating healthy foods. I want to shout to someone, “What’s my motivation?” Struggling to find motivation is especially true when it comes to my personal dreams, such as being a writer. I don’t remember a time when I haven’t dreamed of being a writer.
When I was a teenager, I dreamed of writing to take my revenge out on my bullies. After every time someone bullied me, my personal mantra was, “I am going to write a book about this …”. I would imagine the embarrassment that each of the people who had hurt me would have as they read about what they did to me in my book. Also, anyone who read my book would discover what a terrible childhood and feel sorry for me – the hyperbole of a teenager. Interesting enough, I never thought of writing any of these incidents down on paper. I am relieved because, as I grew up, I was able to put most of these incidents in perspective and even forgive most, if not all of these people. Also, a funny thing that happened as I grew up, I couldn’t remember what happened as I grew up into an adult. So many life events happened, such as going to college and university, that I didn’t have time to rehearse my old hurts. So, for many years I didn’t even think of writing. Then, as my life had just survived the Y2K bug, I was inspired to start writing.
In 2001, I was struggling with many decisions. I was taking a break from completing my residency to become a psychologist and trying to decide whether to return to that pursuit. I also was struggling with the church that I was attending at the time. Although I dearly loved the pastors at this church, I couldn’t find rides to that church. My friend, who I was renting from, stopped going to that church after a falling out with the pastors. In addition, other church members couldn’t pick me up for church and make it to church on time. Even now, I am flooded with a mixture of feelings— sadness, regret, and anger. I have forgiven each person involved but like my pastors once said, “Feelings may come about a particular incident, but it’s your choice to continue to walk in forgiveness.” I still choose to forgive, even when these old feelings arise. Most importantly, I felt that I was too dependent on the advice I received from the pastors or some of the church members. I wanted to hear from God on my own. During my struggle, I came upon a wonderful book called the “The Tree that Survived the Winter” by Mary Fahy. It was a wonderful book that helped me in so many ways. The actual book was about a tree that survived winter, of course. However, the underlying message was about working through the feelings that happen after surviving a devastating loss. This book helped me work through my feelings of fear, anger, and even depression. It also helped me to make the major decision to move back home to Medicine Hat. I always thought that I could return to my provisional psychology residency in Medicine Hat. I will write on that topic in a later blog. This book also inspired me to write a couple of children’s books — “Molly the Caterpillar Grows Up” and “Bert, the Bumblebee, Who is Afraid to Fly”. Both books had the theme of trying new things and overcoming childhood fears. I was feeling hopeful and adventurous when I returned to Medicine Hat. I was ready to be a writer.
I worked on writing for a year. I revised both books that I wrote in Calgary until I felt comfortable sharing them with an audience. I chose a select group of people to read and edit these books, ensuring that I included children – my target audience. I also was writing a third book, “Lillian the Ladybug: Can I Make a Difference?”, which would be connected to my first two books to complete a series of books entitled “God Made Me Unique”. I wanted children to know that God loved them, cared for them, and made them in a unique way to fulfill His purposes. My third book was inspired by my mother, Lillian, who seemed to be hiding from life. (I discovered that I was wrong about my mom hiding away from life, but that is a story for another time.) I also wrote a separate book inspired by my “niece” Chyann who was struggling with the ideal of having a baby sibling. Her fear, at the time, was that her mother wouldn’t love her as much as the new baby. I wrote a children’s book that included my roommate’s older cat, Boomerang, and her new kitten, Mini. Boomerang was afraid that the new kitten would replace him and ran away from home. The story continues from this point with the underlying message that each of us have value because of who we are, and nothing can change that fact. So why aren’t these wonderful books published? I ran into my next obstacle — attempting to get them published. I couldn’t find a way to get them published without paying out money. Consequently, I put aside my writing in order to work and to save up enough money to publish these books. As I worked, I lost my focus of saving enough money to publish my books, and my focus became my work.
In 2010, I moved to Southlands Boulevard because my friend was selling her place for personal reasons. I worked at a local mental health association and was enjoying the freedom that came with paying low rent and being able to buy other necessities that come with living. Then, in 2012, a sudden change occurred – my position was cut from the mental health association due to budget restrictions. I was disappointed and frightened that I would find no other work, and never thought of going back to my writing. I wanted to go back to work. During my time of unemployment, I did complete a couple of poems, but was otherwise blocked regarding writing. After a year of struggle, I was hired at the second-hand store connected with the local mental health association as well as rehired as a group facilitator. Also, I began to date my friend’s brother from high school. Life was sweet. Who needed writing?
I did, that’s who! I wrote for the sake of revenge on other people. I wrote to help me sort out life decisions, my past, and my mangled emotions. I even dreamed of a career in writing, after my several children’s book were revised until there seemed to be no more revisions to be found. Even after not finding a publisher or illustrator, this dream of writing continued in my heart. This dream of writing continued simply because, as a child, it was wonderful coping mechanism. I not only dreamed of revenge plots for the scary and humiliating times in my life but also spent time writing in my head to help me to escape from reality and journey into other worlds – some were real, and some were fantasies. I never wrote any of these stories down because I couldn’t capture them on paper. I would sit down to write them down and all these words fled, and my paper would remain blank. It wasn’t until 2001 that I learned to just sit down and write down some words until it became a story. There were so many times I tried to write and failed. After another series of budget cutbacks were made, by the local Mental Health Association, leaving me unemployed, I tried again to write stories, even a novel, but somewhere along the way I lost my motivation. And again, I stopped writing. Without a venue to share my writing, it seemed pointless. It wasn’t until I stumbled upon another writer, Xochitl Dixon, that I found a truly good reason to write my prayers, thoughts, poems, stories, and so much more!
As part of our daily devotions, my husband Kevin and I would read “Our Daily Bread”. It is a monthly faith magazine which has short devotionals by various contributors to help its readers grow in their spiritual life. I loved these devotionals that helped to focus on an aspect of my faith and use the bible verse as well as the practical advice to live out my faith. One of the writers that I enjoyed as well as identified with was Xochitl Dixon. Her stories would cut through the many layers of artificiality and touch me in my most vulnerable areas of the heart. I felt like there was someone out in the world who had the same struggles as myself and found a faith during her struggles. So, after a couple of years of enjoying her contributions, I researched her name. And I was blown away. I found a woman of tremendous faith who, like me, wanted to be part of the faith community, struggled with disability, and even had a service dog! Her reasons for writing were to make “the life-changing wisdom of the Bible understandable and accessible to all.”[1] I loved this type of motivation but didn’t see myself as a Biblical scholar. Then, I saw a hyperlink that would become my true inspiration – “Write to Worship”. The hyperlink is broken but it did inspire me to change my motivation to a more permanent and eternal one – worship of my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. I realized that I may not be able to sing, speak elegantly, or prophesy the future; I could write my thoughts down and share them with others as a form of worship. I could write my poems, stories, and blog posts and, even if no one read it, I would be worshipping my God with the talent that he gave me. This motivation inspires me to write whatever for God and allow God to help to find people who need the same encouragement that Xochitl gave me.
[1] “|Xochitl Dixon.” | Xochitl Dixon, https://www.xedixon.com/.
