A Woman Writing

Lesson One

Caroline Myss once said to a room full of us in seminar with her that if she didn't have a group of students to teach then she would teach to the soap in the shower!

I recently realized that if I am not animating characters on the page then I tend to become overwhelmed with the notion that I have to DO something in my life. I get antsy. The restlessness can provoke me into making choices that aren't necessary and often times generate undue stress for myself. In other words, I now understand the old adage that a writer has to write in the same way Caroline was telling us that a teacher has to teach. It is the right use of our life's energy when we know what our passion and purpose is.

I further understand that if and when I generate negative consequences from the decisions I make out of a state of restlessness that I have become possessed by my Negative Animus. Becoming aware of this unconscious pattern means that I have the power to change it.

How do I break this pattern?

By holding myself accountable to a regular writing ritual that allows the writer in me to play in words and imagination. And the ultimate outcome of this gift to myself is acknowledging a passion that fuels my experience because it aligns me to the Great Spirit of my creativity. It is the woman in me who knows how to hold that Negative Animus in right relationship to the world I generate. Anchoring the masculine within translates the wholeness of my writing practice into positive forward momentum in all aspects of my life. The passion to write becomes the engine of my life.

In Latin, the word animus means intellect, memory, character, and is often equated with "mind" and it is also used to mean courage, will, and vivacity. In Jungian psychology it denotes the masculine spirit or unconscious mind of woman.

When I am unaware of my own mind or disregard the spirit of my unconscious then the animus can act like a possessing demon. I can be seduced out of right relationship with the very things I say that I desire and throw my experience off balance. But another wise mentor, Barbara Hannah, taught me that as a creative writer, the animus can become my collaborator guiding me into the very source of my own creative impulse in the collective unconscious.

Simply put, if I let writing be the ballast in my lifeboat then I'm able to steer the craft peacefully down the river as I'm no longer paddling against myself.