I am continuing to enjoy the process of editing each chapter and flashback for my upcoming memoir, Apple In My Truck, A Pathway to Inner Peace.
Erin R Lund of Sunshine Editorial Services is currently hard at work brightening each paragraph. I am grateful to Erin for her professionalism, enthusiasm, and quick wit. Erin and I are in the process of preparing my memoir for publication. You can learn more about Erin at: https://pensite.org/directory/erin-r-lund/
My initial editor was Angie Bihn, who helped me to unbury my painful past. I have referred to her in previous blogs as my therapeutic archeologist. I am thankful to have Angie as part of my support network for writing and editing my memoir.
First allow me to briefly explain my history with writing. One afternoon during elementary school recess, in 1978, my teacher kept me confined to the classroom while the other children got to play. Her reasoning was that I needed to learn how to NOT talk during the moment that she was attempting to perform the roll call duties.
My punishment was to stand in front of the chalkboard and write out one hundred times, I will not talk in class. This experience taught me to dislike writing.
While living in Arizona, I worked in Emergency Medical Services as a Firefighter. Patient documentation was a daily requirement. This experience taught me that writing is stressful.
However, in 2011, I discovered a Yoga Teacher Training program. It was my yoga teacher trainers who helped me to realize that yoga wasn’t only a physical practice. They’d taught me that yoga is about joining together or ‘yoking’ your mind, body and spirit. I’d learned how to connect to my higher Self mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually.
Today, I continue to practice the ancient teachings of yoga, especially those of an ancient sage known as Patañjali. He is famous for his teachings of the Yoga Sutras. The Eight-Limb Path of Yoga is embedded within the Yoga Sutras.
Svādhyāya (self-study, study of the Self, journaling) is the fourth tenant that resides underneath the second-limb or Niyamas, which inspired me to begin journaling and or writing. I’ve grown to love my daily practice of therapeutic writing.
My yogic path of a daily Sādhanā (practice) of the Eight-Limb Path of Yoga continues. I will be a forever student of yoga continually visiting the teachings of Patañjali to learn, explore, and reach my own pathway to inner peace.
Below is the Introduction to my memoir, Apple In My Truck, A Pathway to Inner Peace, followed by a short excerpt from Chapter One, Search.
Introduction
This book is the fulfillment of a promise I’d made as I’d sat amongst peers one evening in a yoga teacher-training class.
Within the safety and support of that intimate setting, I spoke aloud a promise to both myself and the group that I would write a memoir of my life.
Through that writing process, I discovered an arc to my life’s story. In my younger years, I had been very yang-like, in that I was easily angered, narrow-minded, hot-tempered and reactive. Then, during my midlife, in 2011, I had discovered a Yoga Teacher Training program which taught me how to embrace a yogic lifestyle, and, at forty-two years old, I completely changed my life. I learned to become yin-like: calm, soft, accepting and able to find my center when necessary. Through this journey, I’ve learned that I feel best when I am able to balance both the yin and yang sides of myself.
This memoir takes the reader back in time. The chapters begin with the year 2014 when I was forty-five years old, and drift back to conclude with the year 2007, when I was thirty-nine.
Embedded within these backward-flowing chapters are flashback stories, which move forward through time, beginning with the year 1973, when I was just four years old, progressing to 2007, when I was thirty-nine.
Most of the names of people, institutions, and places where I’ve worked have been changed in order to protect their privacy. Also, some events have been compressed, and some dialogue has been retold.
Crafting and editing this book over the years has nourished my soul. The writing process has helped me to both recognize some of my triggers and contend with my uglier parts. Throughout it all, I have sought balance and a pathway to inner peace.
My wish for you when reading this book is that you find a pathway to your own inner peace.
Excerpt: Chapter 1 - Search - 2014
Neither the gold-blond carpeting nor the four mint walls were contributing in any way, shape, or form to my finding a flicker of creativity.
Just last week, I’d pinned up photos on an old corkboard which belonged to my husband, Peter. I’d dug through past memories, mined through old journals, and chuckled about my younger years, but still-- no luck. As I listlessly pecked at my cardamom-colored keyboard, the words that I wanted to express seemed to be trapped in a net. Nothing new was coming out of me. The staleness of the room had become suffocating, and I felt as if the walls and chair were folding in on me. I stood up and shook off my frustration, hoping this would stir my creative juices. I’d learned to shake like this from many years of watching my dogs.
I considered driving out to seek inspiration in a nearby city park, but decided instead to sit back down in the garage-sale chair and change the position of my legs and feet. My yogi friends would call this sitting in sukhasana, easy-seat posture. In the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit, sukha means happiness, pleasure, ease, joy or bliss, and asana means sitting down. So, sukhasana means, a comfortable seat. I thought it was funny as my ankles and calves were crossed where I sat, up on the seat of the chair, rather than being seated down on the floor in sukhasana like most yogis do. I tried keeping my mind in a state of calm so I could regain my forward writing momentum, but was again stumped; the words had dried up. I asked myself, Are you hungry? Thirsty? Was that a hot flash? Do you want a different chair to sit on? How about the exercise ball? Maybe if the dust on the ceiling fan shared its secrets with me, I could make some progress with my writing.
A beep from my phone pulled me back into the present moment. I’d hoped the text would be from my son, Tony Joe. It was.
Mom, meet me at Brew For You, downtown at 2 pm.
Lovely, see you soon, I responded.
I made sure to grab my bag of homemade chocolate-chip-peanut-butter cookies from the freezer. Not wanting them to melt in the well-over-100-degree heat, I placed them on ice, then into my small backpack.
On my way out the door, our Labrador Retriever, Gus, gave me a half-lidded look that said, I am comfy, I have everything I need right here. When you return, please come in quietly, so you won’t wake me. I gave him a kiss goodbye and left for my rendezvous with Tony Joe.
The one cookie I took out for myself was already beginning to melt. I made sure to eat my gooey treat before I turned out of the neighborhood.
***
I hope you enjoyed this short sample of Apple In My Truck, A Pathway To Inner Peace. Stay tuned, as next week I’ll bring you another brief excerpt from my upcoming memoir.
To learn more about the Eight-Limb Path of Yoga please read my self-published fictional book, dYnO’s DaNcE, On The Eight-Limb Path.
dYnO’s DaNcE, On The Eight-Limb Path, is an imaginative tale liberally sprinkled with Patañjali’s spiritual teachings. This story offers a great pathway for you to connect with your inner child.
Find your copy online at:
Be a Flower,
Share your Beauty.
Namaste.
Alicia
Healing Motion 123 (facebook)
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