Why following your heart matters

And how to find meaning when life feels hopeless

When the shocking thing at the start of November happened, I, like most people, felt my mind quickly sliding into the gutters of depression. A heaviness descended, and I felt hope up and leave me.

Much crying ensued. Much sulking ensued. And though I’m not new to these bouts of depression, I know it’s pretty bad when I start questioning what the point of doing anything moving forward is. Especially when the pointer of that question starts turning toward the things I consider my passions, a.k.a. writing.

I fail to find the motivation to do anything when I can’t see how the turnout might look at the end of the tunnel. Most days, I can delude myself into thinking that no matter the outcome, nothing bad can come from indulging in some creativity. Creativity, in fact, has never done me wrong or led me astray. There isn’t a single time I can remember when I engaged in creativity and came out the other end worse off from the experience.

But this time there was no tunnel. All I could see was a wall.

Alex Alvarez via Unsplash

My therapist always encourages me to challenge negative thoughts. So I try. I’ve gotten pretty decent at it. When the negativity monster starts spouting its dooming nonsense, I’ve gotten good at snarking back, at shifting my perspective and finding the light switch inside my head.

This time, however, I felt a little more concerned because I didn’t feel I would be able to talk myself out of this dead end. Essentially, that’s what it felt like receiving the news that day — a dead end.

I couldn’t shake off the pressing thought that life had become meaningless. I sat down to work on my WIP and my hands remained frozen at the keyboard. What was the point in pursuing a story that could very well have less of a future now than it did before? That the future that was being painted promised more stifling of my voice?

I did the work that I’ve practiced over and over with my therapist. I tried to challenge my thoughts. I couldn’t quite find an answer as to why I should keep trying to work on my story. What the point of art even was now. I had no rebuttals.

And then an image of Tibetan monks working on sand mandalas popped into my head.

Tibetan monks have a ritual whereby they spend a great amount of time designing beautiful and intricate mandalas into sand. They put all their focus into it. Their energy. Their determination. These mandalas are a treat for the eyes. Truly a work of wonder.

And then the monks destroy it.

This ritual is essentially done as a reminder of the nature of impermanence and to remind us to practice non-attachment.

Nothing is meant to last. No matter how much love you put into it. No matter how much passion. No matter how much time. No matter how much energy. No matter how much thought. How much vision. How much anything. Nothing in this life lasts forever.

Grim, isn’t it?

Yes and no. I guess that depends on how we choose to shift our perspective.

Thinking of the end of everything can bring despair. Darkness. Hopelessness. The idea that nothing we do matters can leave us feeling like there’s an endless vacuum in our chests, taking everything that we are and everything we could be. Dreams, realities, hope.

But this is where that other teaching that we keep hearing over and over and over suddenly comes into play: The best way to live life is in the moment.

We’ve read all the books. Watched all the YouTube videos. Heard all the sermons. And we understand it as a concept, but life and its circumstances keep us glued to this idea that we must keep sowing seeds for the future. For a rainy day.

But are you even enjoying the sowing of those seeds? When Tibetan monks work on their mandalas, their hearts are fully immersed in the act. Even though they fully understand that in just a matter of minutes, or hours, the whole design will be erased, their minds are concentrated solely on their creation.

Because all that matters is what you’re doing in this very moment and whether you’re enjoying what you’re doing or not.

It goes beyond the monks’ mandalas. It goes right to your existence and the way that you view your life, how you spend your time, where you put your energy.

Nothing you do will matter in the long run, so we might as well do what matters to us now. The thing that makes our hearts sing. By all means, yes, sow your seeds for a rainy day. But are you also taking the time to enjoy the process of creation for the sake of joy?

Are we living in a timeline where the future is grim, where there’s no going back, and there’s much suffering to come? I don’t know. The nature of reality and the universe is that it loves to flip on itself. It likes to give us humans a false sense of control and then toss it all up in the air (much like a monk destroying their mandala).

Maybe, the answers aren’t in a future we can’t quite see right now. Maybe the answer, as we keep being told, is right in this moment.

How can we find pockets of joy in the now? How can we lean into our creativity just for the thrill of it without expecting anything in return? Can we allow ourselves such an indulgence?

Bottomline: Keep working on your stories. Keep pursuing your art. Forget about what could come from it, and keep diving into the things that light you up just because they light you up. It’s the only thing that will ever matter.

Pockets of joy

I’m starting a self-challenge where I try to find “pockets of joy” on a daily basis. This means stopping to enjoy simple moments, jotting them down in my gratitude journal. But I also want to expand it into finding these moments with more intention.

I want to live a life that has meaning. Someday, when I’ve reached the end of the line, I’d like to look back and say, “I’ve filled my life with joy and things I love.” But a lot of the time, this joy or these moments don’t fall out of the sky.

Some by all means do — when your dog has a funny, almost human reaction to being told ‘no’ and you just have to laugh at the brilliantness that lives in that tiny head — that’s a pocket of joy. And it’s one that came without prompting.

But I want to also bring it more often into my life. So I’m going to be more intentional with pursuing things that bring me joy, like practicing art more often (I’m starting an art journal). Going to the park more. Allowing myself to dream wildly in my personal journal. Refining my baking skills. And doing it all without any resentment towards myself for getting it wrong — that’ll be an important part of it.

I’m still mostly figuring out what this will look like. But at the same time, I’m always wary of defining lines around an idea too harshly. I do know that to begin, I’m going to include this section in here monthly where I might share a bit of my own pockets of joy throughout the month.

This month I can say, I visited Busch Garden’s Christmas Town, and it was beautiful. Part of what made it so beautiful was being out in the cold weather. Due to my health anxiety, I never quite let myself experience cold or wet weather for fear of getting sick. But the temperature was in the 20s, and we were bundled up, and our noses were numb, and we could hardly feel our fingers even through the gloves, the hot chocolate was perfect, and for once I let myself sit in the cold and relish the wonder of winter.

Feel free to join me if you like. As always, you’re more than welcome to share in the comments some of your own pockets of joy or what you’re doing to try and include more moments of it in your daily life.

Black Friday Editing Sale!

I’m currently running a 30% off Black Friday Sale on all editorial services for manuscripts over 50k words! So, if your manuscript is ready to be edited in the coming year, now is the time to book!

Don’t miss out on this great offer which is only available until December 13th!

DM me on Instagram or email me at maria@theintuitivedesk.com to request your free sample edit!

This month on the blog

How to Write a Memorable Meet Cute

A Meet Cute is when the two main characters of a story who are meant to be romantically involved finally meet. This is an important scene, regardless of whether you’re writing romance or some other genre. The meet cute is pivotal and one of the moments your readers are most looking forward to reading! Head on over to this post to read some tips on how to write the best meet cute that you can!

Tips for Writing Magical Realism

Magical realism is fun to read but it can be tricky to write. One of the big factors of magical realism is that the strange events within the narrative have to come across as commonplace. Literally, the characters do not bat an eye when someone suddenly sprouts wings for absolutely no reason! It’s a deeply metaphorical genre, and it can be such an exhilarating experience to write it. So check out this post if you’d like some advice on how to get started writing magical realism!

What I’ve been into this month

This month I’ve dived into a thriller (Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn); a magical realism YA (The Inheritance of Orquidea Divina by Zoraida Córdova); a Pulitzer winner, historical fiction novel — WWII to be exact (All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr); a second YA novel involving some mystery and magical realism — all taking place in 1880s Egypt and featuring Latinx characters (What the River Knows by Isabel Ibañez), as well as a deeply haunting but brilliantly told account of a woman’s journey into better understanding her medical diagnosis of C-PTSD (What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo).

Every single one of these books has left an impression on me. They’re not books that I will quickly forget, regardless of what I might’ve rated them. They’ve given me lots to think about or entertained me in such a way that my brain was chock-full of the dopamine it usually lacks. I’m also quite proud of myself because I haven’t DNF’d any books in a long while, which means I’m picking books more attuned to what my intuition is calling for, and anytime I can tap into my intuition is a win for me.

This newsletter came to you two weeks late, and for that, I apologize. November turned into a vortex of time without any heads or tails to it due to *gestures to everything.* I wanted to get my message down as clearly as possible, and I hope I did.

I guess we try to move forward from here as best we can. I’m looking forward to starting my “pockets of joy” challenge. I feel a strong calling to pursue the things that bring me joy with intention and not for productivity, or because it promises some ROI, but because I simply want to. It’s my most sincere wish that you will hear this calling, too.

Until next time,

---

---

Hi there, I’m Maria! I’m a freelance fiction editor assisting women writers in amplifying their voices through their writing. You can find me on Instagram @theintuitivedesk and on Pinterest. Or visit my site www. theintuitivedesk.com to find out more about editing services.