I don’t quite know how this happened but Thursday evening has arrived and I haven’t had time to write a blog post. All of my ideas have been shut up in an airless waiting room, and now I’m finally sitting down to write, they’re all trying to rush out of the door at once, shoving rudely at each other. No manners amongst ideas it seems – oh that one just got an elbow in the face – stop! One at a time for heaven’s sake, else someone will get hurt…
Ah, one makes it through the door, someone I wanted to introduce you to actually, but a description is in order for this fellow. He has incredibly large feet, wearing traditional black leather brogues that are neatly laced. Sitting atop this pair of feet is a huge head, with no body between them. He has pursed lips, a putty-like nose and dark-circled eyes that are hidden beneath a deep frown. The frown only conspires to make his forehead look all the more bulbous, and the thinning hair doesn’t help either.
He’s fidgety and stomps around in my mind with those great big feet, mumbling constantly. So much so that I’ve rather unimaginatively called him Mr Muhurnahur, as that’s what it sounds like, when I’m not really listening to him properly.
And what does he mumble all day?
Stories.
Not the ones that I write for you, I hasten to add, oh no dear reader, nothing so useful as being my creative muse. No, Mr Muhurnahur spins elaborate yarns that are horribly boring, but strangely compelling at the same time. Boring because he only has a few plots that he constantly recycles, compelling because those plots come straight from the dark, sticky molasses textured anxiety deep in my unconscious mind.
Let me give you an example of one his stories. “Emma goes to the dentist for the first time in six years and the dentist pokes her teeth with that horrible metal prong, draws in a breath through his clenched teeth and says “Oh dear. Three teeth have got huge cavities and we need to do three emergency root canals right now. So we have to inject your gums, and then there’s no guarantee you won’t feel anything.” So Emma-the-needle-phobic has a terrible experience and faints afterwards, in front of the entire waiting room and -”
Actually, I’ll cut him off there, as I said, he’s an appalling storyteller.
But that’s all he does, all day; he stamps around in the back of mind, telling these stories. And a part of me is always listening.
And a part of me has been believing them for such a long time. The example I give here is only one of an entire anthology he knows off by heart.
When I first noticed him (I was falling asleep and thinking about tackling my anxiety problems and sort of went into my head and met him – I know, I’m mad) I asked him to speak up. When the mumbling turned into these stories, I was shocked. I was listening to this rubbish? So I challenged him. And you know what he said?
“But if I don’t tell you these things, you’ll get complacent. If you stop being afraid, you’ll make a mistake.”
Today I had a wonderful group call with some people I met through Pam Slim’s workshop. It’s the Mastermind group idea she talks about in her book (a great idea by the way, Glen wrote about here ) It was my turn in the ‘hotseat’ and we talked a lot about what I’m doing to focus on my creative writing and two major things came up: fear, selling and the horrible bit where they intersect with me launching my first e-anthology and having to actually sell it.
During the conversation I said “I am a fearful person” and the wonderful Tanya said “Stop, write that down. You need to think about that.” She went on to point out that I tell a lot of stories about myself. Stories that I had told them, but ones that might not actually be true about myself anymore.
Being a fearful person is such an intrinsic part of my self-identity. What if I decided to stop listening to Mr Muhurnahur and started listening to some new stories?
So much of my anxiety stems from fiction; a terrible side-effect of having a broiling, churning cauldron of an imagination. It makes me scared of the dark (at 33 years old for heaven’s sake!), it keeps me awake at night, it entertains me and lots of other people, it weaves stories and it creates anxiety.
That’s nice, but what am I actually doing about this?
Well, I told Mr Muhurnahur that I don’t need him in that way any more and that he can go and tell his stories somewhere else. He has stomped off to another room in the house somewhere, and I can’t hear him so well anymore.
I also try to keep myself in reality more when the anxiety is biting. Seeing as my default setting is to escape reality as much as possible, this can be hard, but simply asking “Is this fictional? Are these fears really plausible?” is enough to rein it in enough to function, and some of my anxiety flash points are fading now.
Do you have any stories you need to throw out? Or a Mr Muhurnahur of your own? I hope I’m not the only person here with a giant headed creature wearing brogues in their head…
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P.P.S. One of my heroes, Pam Slim, published a post I wrote. Heavens to Betsy!
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Stories that I had told them, but ones that might not actually be true about myself anymore.
I find this to be the most interesting line here. How much time and effort do we spend clinging to definitions of ourselves that don’t fit anymore? I’m shy, I’m confident, I’m boring, I’m charming… how much honesty and courage does it take to admit that our familiar self-identities were only true back in school, or in our first job, or before we had kids, etc?
You’ve given me a rather large bone to gnaw at, Emma.
Yes, clinging to outmoded definitions of oneself seem to exist because they’re so familiar, and we’re comfortable with those definitions. Sort of like not throwing out an old bathrobe that has seen better days but has been washed to threadbare coziness.
The really scary thing is when we realize we’ve outgrown said night wear and we must find something else to put on.
I do wish I had a Mr. anything that murmurs in my head. Or maybe I do and I’m not really listening yet. For me, stories don’t churn and fight each other to get to the front of the line.
They come one at a time, and dragging their feet, so no need to even form a line to wait their turn. I do know that any anxiety I experience comes from not having the complete discipline I need to sit down and write every day.
Emma, you’re a psychologist, aren’t you? How much have you read about the “talking therapies”? This kind of insight – and even the way your Mastermind group is working – are typical of the “eclectic” therapy schools. Maybe you should dig into that literature if you don’t know it already?