by James L. Rubart, @jameslrubart
| “I have prayed for years for one good humiliation a day …” Richard Rohr |
Darci and I live below a winery perched on a small cliff about 300 yards from our home.
The owner has a band and on many summer nights we hear them practicing. At the end of August something compelled me to go up and take a look at the band and introduce myself. So I did.
That led to them inviting me to come to their after hours Open Mic Night on September 4th. I went. I played my guitar. I sang. It didn’t go well.
I was humiliated.
I was excited going into it. I practiced a song I knew well in the days leading up to the 4th. But the lack of playing in public for quite a few years caught up to me. Nerves kicked in and I stumbled through the song.
But it was okay. Why? It was a chance to tell my ego, “Yeah, I screwed up. Big deal. You don’t get to rule my life.”
It was the chance to tell my ego, “You’re worried about looking good to others and if they’ll think well of you. They didn’t. Deal with it.”
It was a chance to tell my ego, “Take a back seat, I’m trying to grow as a person here.”
As writers we can get so focused on the outcome we miss the lessons along the way when things don’t go as planned.
If we want to fly, with our writing, our platform, our LIFE we need to expose the pretender, the poser, the shadow self on a continual basis.
(But—nothing against Richard here—I think once a week is plenty for me right now.)
Your turn:
When have you faced humiliation recently? What did you learn from that experience? How are you going to open yourself to humbling situations?
How Do You Stand Up for Yourself When It Means Losing Everything? Allison Moore is making it. Barely. The Seattle architecture firm she started with her best friend is struggling, but at least they’re free from the games played by the corporate world. She’s gotten over her divorce. And while her dad’s recent passing is tough, their relationship had never been easy. Then the bomb drops. Her dad was living a secret life and left her mom in massive debt. As Allison scrambles to help her mom find a way out, she’s given a journal, anonymously, during a visit to her favorite coffee shop. The pressure to rescue her mom mounts, and Allison pours her fears and heartache into the journal. But then the unexplainable happens. The words in the journal, her words, begin to disappear. And new ones fill the empty spaces—words that force her to look at everything she knows about herself in a new light. Ignoring those words could cost her everything . . . but so could embracing them.
James L. Rubart is 28 years old, but lives trapped inside an older man’s body. He thinks he’s still young enough to water ski like a madman and dirt bike with his two grown sons. He’s the best-selling, Christy BOOK of the YEAR, CAROL, INSPY, and RT Book Reviews award winning author of ten novels and loves to send readers on journeys they’ll remember months after they finish one of his stories. He’s also a branding expert, audiobook narrator, co-host of the Novel Marketing podcast, and co-founder with his son, Taylor, of the Rubart Writing Academy. He lives with his amazing wife on a small lake in Washington state.