The changing CrossFit journey has brought a new sentence into my story-telling that I never thought I would utter again. “I’m writing a book…” No way. Not again.
It’s been a pretty consistent belly-feeling that I would never write another book. It’s something a full professor at a seminary could do in her vocation; most are always “working on their next books.” But I’ve never been highly invested in being a "seminary professor," per se, nor have I wanted to put myself through another book-writing journey. I’m a nonlinear, deep-feeling thinker in a linear, highly cognitive, submerged-emotional world. I’m both proud of the last book I wrote, and I have a deep ambiguity about it. My energetic body actually feels discomfort when I speak about it in public. The idea of writing another one, on top of all that ambiguity? No thanks.
So no one was more surprised than I when I found myself using the sentence as a rationale for my shift away from my CrossFit community patterns, into new ones. It seemed to be something folks could “get” without it being all emotional—for me, mostly.
CrossFit is a workout-business for most people, affiliate-owners especially, though for me it is a sacred community gig. Anything that changes my life so fundamentally cannot but be sacred for me. I’ve often named it as my primary community of practice. So, I used the sentence with a couple friends in the gym to explain what was changing for me. "Morning is writing time," which is true. One asked me about it yesterday. I stammered an answer, feeling shy and unworthy.
Then today I held space for a Fire&Water friend whose new life of abundance is nothing less than spectacular. It’s a delight to hear what’s arising for her, as ever, but this time had an energetic poke for me.
She’s reading my book.
Spirit used the book to give a sense of container and more expansive practice for her to understand her own experience. We had this delightfully awkward moment when she presumed I remembered what I wrote in a particular chapter, which I never do. It gave her opportunity to read the words that had been so liberating for her, inviting, perspective-growing. And so I got to hear my words in her voice, receiving them as she had received them, almost as prayer.
This is the use of the word(s) that matters to me. Deeply felt words—which my book is, if nothing else—that find their way as prayer and liberation for others, in their own experience. That’s not how books are considered in my business, which is why I don’t write them anymore.
Except my primary community of practice has now shifted me in such a way that I heard myself saying “I’m writing a book…”
This is always how Spirit works with me, through me… Indirectly, unexpected, unforeseen.
Well, s@#%!
(Again. Thanks, Mom.)