How you get there is where you’ll arrive

I often remind my clients that the energy we bring to our writing process leaves a big imprint on the finished book. 

For example, if a book is about spiritual surrender but we're white-knuckling the writing process, the reader will feel this disconnect. They may not be able to articulate the reason, but they will sense it and the book will just feel "off." Of course the author will also be sensing this disjointedness, and so the writing process itself will be an uphill battle for them because their process isn't in alignment with where they want to end.

One of my spiritual teachers Cynthia Bourgeault talks about this idea as a required feature of deeper wisdom, that the means must match the end, and that the means and ends, the inner and outer all need to be in sync. And she quotes a line from a Philip Booth poem "Heading Out" to highlight this idea. Booth writes: "How you get there is where you'll arrive." 

Yes. How you get there is where you'll arrive. 

We all intuitively know this is true and especially important for any kind of meaningful endeavor—a book, a career, a relationship, a spiritual practice, a conscious life. The means must match the end. When they don't, it all falls flat. 

But I think many of us are so used to working with heavy and grim determination and any means necessary. That's how we got through school or achieved certain milestones, so it can be disorienting to realize that way won't work here.

Yet when I share this idea with clients, it is often met with a laugh and a sigh of relief. They can set that old way of perfectionism or hustling or rigidness or dog-paddling down. It won't work here anyway, and it will leave its muddy energetic paw prints all over the thing. A new way of working/creating/being is required—one that matches where they want to go.

So that's the next question I ask: Where do you want to go and how can we match and align the process with that? 

What do you think? Have you found this to be true in your life? I'd love to hear. 

With care,
Brianna

P.S. Here's "Heading Out" by Philip Booth from his book Selves (1990)

photo above by @bruceb_uk