“wisdom found in the pause

When One Door Closes…Being Open to the Gifts Behind the Next Door.

Posted by Barbara Techel
When One Door Closes Being Open to the Gifts Behind the Next Door.
Gidget

I’ve been working just about everyday on the fourth draft of my new book, Wisdom Found in the Pause. It’s in part, about my second dog in a wheelchair, Joie, who I adopted from Oregon Dachshund Rescue in 2012.

Joie, while a beautiful gift in itself when I brought her home that fateful day in October three years ago, would be short-lived. But the lessons that continue to unveil themselves have been openings of deeper understanding and healing for me. So while the book is about Joie, it’s also about what I learned about myself after she passed.

I was mad when Joie died. Mad at God that I couldn’t have her in my life longer. I just couldn’t understand why she was called home so soon after I opened my heart wide open to love another.

A heart that was still tender from the loss of Frankie. It felt so unfair.

But as often happens from painful experiences, we don’t see the gifts or blessings until years later.

I see them continually as I work through finishing this book revisiting my life with Joie on the written page. But I also see the gifts in where I am heading in terms of new opportunities and new projects/ideas I’m investing my time in.

I also see it most clearly in the gift of Gidget. It flashed vividly through my mind again last night as she lay tucked under her blanket on her bed in the living room.

If Joie hadn’t passed away, I wouldn’t know Gidget. Each dog that has entered my life has changed me in different ways. Gidget is now doing this for me with lessons she is teaching me. Just like Joie did and Frankie and Cassie Jo before her.

Each sweet dog, a magnificent gift that I got to open my heart to and in return those gifts live on forever within me.

To hold onto grief or guilt because of their passing’s would serve no purpose. It would only shut down my heart and joy could never enter again.

It is in this awareness that I see their true beauty and that loving again is what they teach us so brilliantly. And that love is the answer.

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Writing a Book is Messy. Where I’m At.

Posted by Barbara Techel
Writing a Book is Messy. Where I'm At.
My faithful writing companion, Gidget.

I’ve heard this phrase three different times the last few weeks- “writing a book is messy.” Once in a blog post, once in a podcast and once in a webinar.

It’s exactly how I’ve felt since starting my second memoir, which I began in the winter of 2013. While there have been many rewarding moments writing it, most of the time it has been messy.

I’ve wanted to quit a thousand times.

I’ve had to learn to accept this- it has been a tug and pull much of the time. My two children’s books and my first memoir (for the most part) came much easier for me to write than this new book I’ve been working on.

A part of me wanted to share more of the process with you sooner, but the other part of me was, honestly, too afraid to say anything. Afraid I may disappoint others if I don’t finish this book.

But today I completed another round of editing of the third draft of “Wisdom Found in the Pause.” I’m feeling way more clarity about it than I have in a long time.

The book feels like two parts—the first part of my time with Joie, my second dog with IVDD and in a wheelchair, who I adopted from Oregon Dachshund Rescue. As many of you know, I had to help her cross over ten short months after she came into my life.

It threw me completely off. Though honestly, looking back, I realized I had been off for quite some time, but was too afraid to look at why.

The second part is that Joie’s death was my wake-up call to sit with all the uncomfortable feelings I had at the time. Joie’s gift while beautiful while she was here, and I got to love and care for her, her deeper gift came after she was gone.

It was then that I discovered a new definition of purpose that I’m much more comfortable with. I learned how to sit in stillness and silence. I learned to see transition as a necessary part of life.

The messy part of writing this book has been trying to convey my time of solitude which was a sabbatical for me, into a book others will want to read – but more than that – how it can help others.

But over the past three months, since devoting more time to working on the manuscript, I have more hope that his messy business of writing a book- this new book – may just turn into the real deal.

Lastly, I’ve had huge fears around the idea that this book will not be “as good as” my first memoir, Through Frankie’s Eyes. How do I top my journey with Frankie and how that book has touched many lives? That fear has stopped me in my tracks as I’ve worked through the trenches of my not-so-pretty, but real fears.

The fears are now beginning to subside. I see a journey that is still much the same, but evolving—a new way to touch other’s lives through this new book. I have hope…

and this is where I’m at.

Creativity is a crushing chore and a glorious mystery.  –Elizabeth Gilbert, #BigMagic

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