When You're Against the Wall

(The following article was printed in a Tom Bird Author's Roundtable Newsletter. I felt it carried the passion and desire I still feel today in reaching my goals along with tips on how you can reach yours - so I am reposting it here.)

The Wall - Jamie Saloff - March 12, 2001

In Julia Cameron's newest book, SUPPLIES (Tarcher/Putnam), she talks about the writer's wall. The Wall was a place where my desires were willing, but the words would't come. Blocked by The Wall, I'd walk away from manuscripts, give up on ideas, stuff them into filing cabinet drawers where they'd remain for years.

I'd faced The Wall many times. Each time, I'd look upon my wall and pretend to be puzzled. 'Why are you here?' I'd ask innocently of its stone blocks. Then I'd beat myself upon it with exaggerated melodramatics, even bloody my hands along its hard face, all to prove my intent to tear it down.

The Wall became so formidable in my writing, I began to envision it, almost feel it... rough, like my husband's unshaven stubble; cold, like cement in the early morning; solid, immovable, insurmountable. I wrote of it in my journal, even saw myself tearing it down during a meditation. Yet it remained.

Secretly, behind my own back, I'd been building the wall higher, laying the bricks deeper, securing the mortar, all to ensure that what I'd been holding back would never, ever be revealed.

Truth has a way of shining through.

Something happened to me in Sedona, Arizona during a writer's retreat I attended there. I didn't know it at first. I came home thinking nothing had changed. I believed my Wall had survived the ordeal. But something dreadful happened. I noticed it one morning as I envisioned The Wall. I'd added a Little Dutch Boy complete with hat and traditional wooden shoes. He showed me where the mortar had come loose, how he'd stuffed his child's stubby fingers into the leaking holes. This worried me. An underlying panic settled in.

For as long as I'd hoped and prayed to tear down that Wall, now at last it began crumbling. But at what cost? What would be washed away in the process?

I feared my writing all the more. I held my pen in fits of fear watching my Little Dutch Boy hold fast against the ever-crumbling, water-spurting holes. It could only be a matter of time before The Wall burst and released the pent up torrent to ravage the landscape beyond. Oh, how I feared the inevitable disaster sure to come.

You see, I did not want my life to change, no, not really. No matter how much I cried out 'Tear down the Wall! Let the creativity of your true self flow!' a part of me turned a deaf ear. That part held fast to the pain and ever-pressing heartaches because they were known. I knew how to handle them, to overcome them, to survive with them. If ever they should leave me, all that I knew would be gone and I'd have to start anew. The unknown scared me.

Then one morning, I heard a great crashing. In one mad rush, the water poured forth engulfing all in its path. It came without being asked. It came without my permission. It came tumbling and falling like a mountain dispersed by an atomic eruption.

After... I heard nothing but a still silence, the kind of sound that engenders resignation and an acknowledgement that from here forward, there's no going back. Then, a peace settled in, an inner quiet unlike any I'd ever felt before, like Spring after a long winter. Hope emerged.

As far as I could see, nothing but new ground lay before me, all landmarks had fallen, all that I had once known had changed. In an instant, a new life stretched before me. Possibility rose to meet me and I walked forward to explore my new land.

Now I understand The Wall. Now I know what they are for. They are barriers we as writers build to keep our true selves out. We stuff our true selves behind The Wall along with anything else we don't want others to know. We try to hold back thinking we are doing someone else a favor. We are protecting them. Sheltering them from some great danger. This is what we believe and maybe we are. But at what cost? Why have we deemed ourselves martyrs worthy of nothing but self sacrifice?

When you see The Wall, don't turn away. Don't let it stand. Tear it down! Use whatever means available and remove it before it engulfs your life and steals away all that is yours. Tear it down while the mortar is wet, while the bricks still stand loose and the water does not yet run deep. Write freely, write deep, write honest and from the heart. Avoid the crashing of The Wall.

(If you're against The Wall in your life, visit my Make the Pain Stop website. If you'd like to know more about life breakthroughs, check out my book Transformational Healing or visit my I Can Transform website.)