The third part of my morning routine, following meditation and affirmations, is my gratitude practice. We can't help but to feel good - or better, if we've been feeling down - when we take the time to consider all that we have to be grateful for and give voice to our gratitude. Part of what makes gratitude so powerful for me, is that it's also an act of humility, an acknowledgment of the support that I receive along the way.
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Doubt is the Devil
Five years ago, shortly after my editor gave me exhaustive, critical feedback on my novel, A Voice Beyond Reason, I was overcome with self-doubt.
One morning I woke from a dream to a quote that led me to look more closely at that self-doubt, including its perils and how gratitude can counteract it. The following post, originally published on June 23, 2015, recounts that experience.
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“Doubt is the Devil! Show doubt, and he’ll be back!”
I woke up with the quote resounding in my mind. It was as though an old woman were standing over me waving her finger, scolding me to make sure I got the point.
A couple of weeks earlier, I had received the comments on my novel from my editor. Like a tsunami coming out of nowhere (or, in this case, raging up the coast from Santa Barbara), twelve pages of feedback wiped out half the world I’d spent so many years building. I expected it. I wanted it. Nevertheless, in the days and weeks that followed I was overcome by wave after wave of self-doubt, at times nearly drowning in it.
Was I up for the challenge? Did I have the energy to make the changes? And, by the way, what changes? My editor pointed out the problems, she didn’t provide the solutions. It was my book. Addressing the issues was my job. Could I figure it out? Did I still even want to try?
Should I have… What if I had… Maybe I didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t…
Some days, as I considered what needed to be done and how to do it, the path forward seemed to open effortlessly before me. I felt good. I felt motivated and inspired. On others, I slammed up against a wall, struggling in vain to address confounding roadblocks. I stared listlessly at the computer, accomplishing nothing, my eyes bloodshot, a trickle of saliva dangling from my mouth, the floor under my chair like at a barber shop, covered with hair I’d pulled out in frustration.
Then I woke up to the quote.
I thought about how much support I’d received, especially recently. Things had fallen into place in ways I never could have imagined, ways that exceeded my expectations. I had been presented with perfect places to write over the coming months. I suddenly didn’t have to worry about major expenses I had been anticipating. Countless words, gestures, and signs had encouraged me to keep going.
Self-doubt suddenly seemed self-indulgent.
After all, what purpose did it serve? What purpose does it ever serve? Other than giving us excuses to let ourselves off the hook, if we choose to buy into it? Other than granting us license to avoid the challenges and obstacles from which we have the most to learn?
“Show doubt, and he’ll be back!”
Not only was doubt subversive, it was self-perpetuating. The more I indulged it, the more it got under my skin, like the poison-oak infection I scratched until it spread to my eye and sealed it shut. Giving doubt my attention only made it stronger, blinding me to reality.
It was time to open my eyes.
It was time to show my gratitude for all the support, guidance, and inspiration that continued to come my way. It was time to renounce doubt and embrace faith, in myself, in my novel, in something greater that had gotten me this far and would get me through to the end.
The dream was a wake-up call.
Enough self-indulgent, counterproductive doubt.
Time to send the Devil packing.