Learning to fall

These past couple of weeks life has been getting away from me a bit.  I mean that mostly in a positive way.  I've been busy with yoga teacher training, new work and a weekend getaway to Santa Barbara, all of which have taken me away from writing a little bit.  But today I was back at it again and will be tomorrow and I plan on keeping it up from there.  It's so fun and strange to be writing a first draft again.

The last time I was writing one was in 2008 and I'd forgotten what it felt like to just pull stuff out of thin air.  The hard part is trying not to care how you're telling the story and just focusing on getting the thing out.  I try to remind myself that the first draft of my first book in this series was equally as sh$%&tty as this one when I started out.  Also there are aspects of storytelling that can be fixed in the rewrites, so right now it's about letting go of the idea that the storytelling will be a success right out of the gate.

Of course, letting go and being open to failing the first time around can be hard to do in any area of life.  In my yoga practice this is manifesting with me trying to let go of my fear of falling in inversions like handstand.

One of my teacher's said to me a little while ago that the best way to get over a fear of falling is to learn how to fall.

I love that.  Because falling is inevitable, right?  We all have to get up there and do our best and fall down sometimes, don't we?

But if we can learn how to fall with grace, with compassion, with an ability to be kind to ourselves and those around us who tried to help, then that fall will be a success in its own right.

In yoga learning to fall pretty much means knowing the best way to get your feet back on the ground.  I think right now in my writing life learning to fall means allowing myself the capacity to keep giving it my best even though I might fail.  At least then I have a foundation to support me for the next draft, and the draft after that and after that.  At least then I'll have roots, so as I build on that first draft, climbing higher and higher, my book will have something to anchor it to the earth and support it as it grows.  Then hopefully one day it won't fall.

In the rest of my life, learning to fall means not being hard on myself when I find out I'm wrong about something, knowing when to apologize when its necessary, and knowing how to leave the fall behind me once it's finished.

What does learning to fall mean to you?