For the third straight week, I’m continuing my exploration of Steven Pressfield with his Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be. (In case you haven’t noticed, I really dig what he has to say about life, art, and the creative struggles we all face when we sit down to battle that enemy of enemies: Resistance. I guess it’s because when you distill the battles of ego, perfectionism, originality, and what-have-you into an external force, it becomes easier to overcome, but I digress).
What I’m going to do here is write out some of my favorite excerpts from the book and then provide my commentary. I strongly recommend you pick up any of his books if you’re struggling creatively.
Here we go…
Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants to Be
He starts bluntly on page 11,
“What do we mean by ass?” In the first-level interpretation, the word means body. Our physical presence. When we say, “Put your ass where your hear wants to be,” we mean station your physical body in the spot where your dream-work will and must happen.
“Want to write? Sit down at the keyboard.
Wanna paint? Step up before the easel.
Dance? Get your butt into the rehearsal studio.
Dumb and obvious as it sounds, tremendous power lies in this simple physical action.”
My thoughts: Yes, this may sound incredibly easy. But it’s so incredibly difficult when life has a tendency to get in the way. (It’s almost like Resistance shouts, “Yo. Virtually, everything is way more important than the work at hand. Are you sure you want to do this?). Sometimes, the work is simply to overcome these twin gravitational forces of inertia and fear to just sit down and show up. If you’re out there struggling, just practice doing that one tiny action to see what happens.
Fear
Steven Pressfield states on page 12,
“What keeps us from writing or dancing or painting? If the process is as straightforward as we just described it, what’s the big hang up? Why doesn’t everyone do it?
In one four-letter word: FEAR.
Yes, we’re terrified to begin our eight-hundred-page Elizabethan family saga. When we sit over our morning coffee thinking about it, our palms sweat. Our heart palpitates in dread…
Tremendous power lies in the simple, physical act of stationing our body at the epicenter of our dream.
There is magic in putting our ass where our heart wants to be.”
My thoughts: And that power/magic is that in a small way, we’ve faced ourselves. Which often can be the most difficult thing people can do. (Right now, I’m on a gigantic viewing kick for films where the protagonists have to face themselves at the end of the second act before they have a redemption in Act Three). Facing ourselves can be difficult because, despite our highest intentions, we have to contend with our imperfections.
The Known and the Unknown
Pressfield notes on page 36,
“When we put our ass where our heart wants to be, we’re taking a step that has terrified the human race since our days back in the cave.
Why is commitment so scary? Because when we commit, we’re moving from the Known to the Unknown.
The definition of dream is that which exists only in our imagination. In other words, in the Unknown. It says: Don’t try to overcome your fear. Fear cannot be overcome. Instead simply move your body into the physical space you fear…and see what happens.
I actually think fear becomes greater the more important the work is and the more you feel like have to do it. Avoiding it becomes like a type of death.
My thoughts: Facing the Unknown, and making a commitment to explore it, is terrifying. But to avoid it is to create a tumor, which can destroy creative well-being over time. Just sitting down in a chair to show up can begin to eradicate it.
The Universe Responds
On page 37, Steven Pressfield notes,
“It is not an idle or airy-fairy proposition to declare that the universe responds to the hero or heroine who takes action and commits.
It responds positively.
It comes to the hero’s aid.“
My thoughts: I love, love, love this idea. It can feel outright dangerous at times because we’ve taken the leap and now we wonder if there’s anywhere else to go but down. Believing that something is there to catch us and help us on our journey feels like we’re jumping into a giant catcher’s mitt. We’re not descending into the void.
This is the Job
On page 75, Steven Pressfield says,
“This is the job. There is no other job. This is the job.“
My thoughts: It goes back to what Pressfield says in Turning Pro – that this is is the job. There isn’t another gig (despite our day job). We show up every day. We show up no matter what. The stakes are high and real…
What say you?