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Writing from the Deeper Self

"Bringing Your Inner Treasures

to the Outer World . . ."

Book Development

with Naomi Rose

November 2008 Newsletter

       1. Introduction: "We Are Inter-Connected"

       2. Feature: "Is It Commerce or Is It Art? "

       3. Article: Becoming Prosperous in Your Outer Life

                   by Doing 'Inner Work' in  Your Inner Life:

                   Money from the Deeper Self"

1. INTRODUCTION  
In this issue, I originally thought I’d write a feature article about how you get to witness yourself through writing a book. After all, for a long time I’ve held that writing a book ~ such a longer journey and commitment than writing an article, for example ~ not only asks things of you, but it also gives you incredible treasures, and those mostly before people pay money for it, readers read it, reviewers review it, and so on. The treasures you get in the process of writing are inestimable. There is no dollar amount that could be put on this, the experience of finding out deeply who you are and what you are attuning to when you create.

So the experience of witnessing yourself as you articulate what’s inside you ~ whether you do that through well-thought-out ideas, or captivating emergent images, or the pauses between breaths that bring about a musical-type cadence in your writing rhythms ~ is a doorway into the deeper Being that infuses us all, and a way to discover the limitlessness of your inner wealth.

But once I had put down the title, “Self-Witnessing Through Book Writing,” something else took off, like a horse that knew the way. I followed it, keeping my balance, leaning into it, allowing it to lead me along its winding roads to its until-then unknown conclusion. And when I was done, titling it, “Is It Commerce or Is It Art?” I realized where this subject had come from. It had been planted several weeks before, by a conversation I’d had in session with a client.

When I first began this book-development work, based on the Writing from the Deeper Self approach I’d created over 20 years ago, most of what I wrote about it had to come from within myself alone. No one was saying what wanted, within me, to be said; and though it frankly scared me a bit to have to break so much new ground, the insistence of its message kept me going. Now, several decades later, I’ve been saying this kind of thing so long that I have become my own receptive audience, and it’s more gratifying than scary to bring forth what is within.

But it’s really a new development ~ a delightful development ~ to realize that I’m no longer alone in this. That what I’ve seeded has been growing, and that even the amazing and wonderful clients I’m so privileged to work with know something of what I teach, in their deep hearts. I’m beginning to realize how much I learn from them.

So the fact that this month’s feature emerged from a session with a treasured client tells me that we really are (as we all know, but it’s good to be reminded) interconnected. What is deepest in our souls ~ if given a receptive ear and authentic expression ~ yearns to give itself to us, and also to the world. The very same thing that we fear bringing forth, because we sense it will change us and ask something of us, is also what will give our readers to themselves. In the mystical life, there is an understanding that God is creating through us, is creating us, and is us creating God. In writing from the deeper Self, and helping others find their way to do it in their way, I have come to know just how true this is.

We are a busy lot, but yet I hope you’ll give yourself time to read what’s in this newsletter. Something is bound to speak to you ~ maybe answer a question you’ve been holding, consciously or not ~ maybe give you hope, or light on a subject ~ maybe give you another way to look at your relationship to creating, and even to (the hot subject of the day) money.

Your companions, reading this now, live all over the globe: the United States of America (a term recently rescued from stale discarded use), Australia, South Africa, Canada, Argentina, and other parts of our wide, amazing, and yet interconnected world. May your dreams of creating a better, beautiful world include creating, in whatever forms that takes: a book, a song, a dream, a legacy. If I can be of service, I would love to.

In Harmonious Prosperity,

Naomi Rose

2. IS IT COMMERCE, OR IS IT ART?
When Writing a Book Is a Spiritual Practice, an Act of Devotion, and a Gift to Your Readers

If you read the popular literature (i.e., books, emails, Internet promotions) on book writing, you may get the feeling that writing a book is all about producing a product. This orientation, which is rather hugely represented, suggests that ~ at least for non-fiction books ~ authors should know their market before they even start writing, so that they can tune their writing to what readers want and will buy.

Obviously, this is a purely commercial orientation. And while I have nothing against the wish to be successful in the marketplace ~ I encourage that, because this kind of success supports us to keep doing what we’re doing, and also brings to the reading public things that could truly be of deep service ~ there is a difference between serving the public and playing to the lowest common denominator.

So I seem to be talking, here about the balance of being true to yourself in your writing, and at the same time communicating something that’s of real value to your readers.

I recently read an interesting book called The Art of Business, published by Berrett-Koehler (a San Francisco-based publisher with a socially responsible mission). As a person to whom the arts come more easily than business, I wanted to understand what the connections might be. There were some, happily; but what stands out in my mind at the moment is one of the differences. Business, said the authors, starts with the end user in mind: “What does the customer want? We’ll tailor our product to that.” So it is entirely results-oriented. How one arrives at the result, and the experience of the process enroute, is incidental (if considered at all) to the ultimate goal of coming up with a popular, saleable product.
In the arts, however, it goes in the other direction. The goal is to allow the art to emerge ~ to be true to it, and to the inner impulse that is behind its creation. Afterwards, when the creation is felt to be complete in the artist’s eyes, then the process of bridging that vision to a public reception comes in. So the centering is different. Here, the center lies within the artist. In the product orientation, the center lies in the satisfaction of the customer, for the sake (primarily) of sales.

I bring this up because I think that people who have never written a book before (which comprises most of my clients) already start out with a vulnerability ~ really, a good and necessary vulnerability, to themselves and to something larger than themselves ~ but this vulnerability can also cloud their better judgment. Especially in the absence of the experience of writing a book, and therefore in the absence of the kind of confidence that experience can bring, they can become susceptible to the fear that no one will want to read what they write, and they should “do something” to it to make it more palatable/saleable/publishable, etc. This insecurity is then amplified by the marketplace’s idea of creation-for-sales.

As a Book Developer who has been working in this field for about 20 years, with many years’ previous experience as a book editor, and a lifetime’s experience as the child of two fiction writers, I have to undo these kinds of misconceptions in many of my clients in order to clear a path for them to even hear what is inside them that wants to be written. For us, the process of coming to listen truly to what is inside ~ not only what wants to be said, but how it speaks to the individual person from within, what is the coloration, the whisper, the atmospheric cast, the panoply of images, the exquisite nature of their perceptions ~ takes precedence over everything in the beginning of our work. Otherwise, what will happen? A person will perhaps craft a book that gets the job done, and even gathers public approbation and sells copies (all good things), but does not speak to the heart of the writer.

So it’s essential to make one’s own acquaintance deeply, to learn how to hear what’s there, to give it passage, to honor it, to be able to recognize when one is off-center, and to return. This is an intrinsically spiritual process, and it’s what we long for in our soul of souls. In the process, a beautiful book will get written. And because of the deep engagement in what’s real, in the very act of writing, all that presence, energy, intention, and beauty will be part-and-parcel of the writing, woven right in, dyed in the wool. That is what will reach the readers: not so much as a “communication” as a transmission. What is in me, as a writer, is now in you. This wisdom, this nourishment, this beauty, this oneness.

Like any art, practicing it increases one’s comfort level, one’s adeptness, one’s success. Writing a book is a long-enough project that just writing it (and re-writing it) provides the practice. People can be daunted by the idea of writing a book; but if they use the Writing from the Deeper Self approach in the ways that suit them best, they soon find that their lives are being rewritten by the book, as well. So it’s like therapy ~ to the extent that writing a book from the deeper Self shows us to ourselves, and gives us room to rewrite our interpretations of our lives. It’s like ministry ~ to the extent that we are serving our deepest nature and, because we are all connected at that deeper level, therefore serving our readers’ beings. It’s like devotion ~ to the extent that returning to the unfoldment of our story (I include non-fiction writing in the term “story”) again and again brings us closer to what is behind the manifestation of any story, any life, any idea, and brings us to a state of awe. And it’s a transmission ~ to the extent that what is in you, as you are giving all of yourself to the writing, discovering yourself through the writing, and articulating your deepest nature as you write travels through the printed words straight into the inner experience of the reader.

So if, in writing a book (or even considering writing a book) you tune to the life within you that seeks to be known, rather than first tuning to what will sell in the marketplace, you get to be an artist and a healer. Nor does this interfere with commercial success. An artist wants to be true to the creative process, and the creation. A healer wants to be true to the unity that links us all. If, in your book-writing, you seek (a) to bring through what wants to grow and be crafted, and also (b) to connect with your readers’ deepest heart ~ then you will achieve that best of all worlds: the marriage of art and commercial success, of spirit and matter, of being true to your deepest being and reaching a receptive, even profoundly grateful readership. That translates not only into great sales, but great humanity. Pretty good for a book writer.

Copyright © 2008 by Naomi Rose. All rights reserved

3. MONEY FROM THE DEEPER SELF:

Becoming Prosperous in Your Outer Life by Doing “Inner Work” in Your Inner Life

For over 10 years, much of my writing attention has gone into exploring the connection between what happens inside us and how that affects what happens outside us ~ what one might call the “inhale-exhale” connection ~ in terms of money. This was initially stimulated by my need not only to become adept with money, but also to find a way to embrace it as a revealer and support for the soul: the inner life. Because as wonderful as it is to have money, I personally seemed incapable of putting all my life-energy and attention into making and grooming money, rather than into developing and grooming my inner being. So, in the absence of anything remotely like that in the world available to me, I began my quest by writing a book. That book was called The Blessings Ledger. And others followed.

Over the long haul, with many learnings along the way, what I have discovered is that if we seek to become conscious of, and groom, the connection between our inner lives and money (because money is not only about money; it’s about our family-of-origin relationships, our sense of worth, our relation to other people, and our direct connection to the Infinite), then our relationship with money changes for the better, and so does our relationship with ourselves and other people.

In this time of actual and/or feared economic crisis, I would like to inject a note of encouragement into whatever your fears concerning money might be. And that is: what if the way to prosperity does not depend on what governments do regarding economics, so much as what you do inside yourself? What if the powers are truly within? And what if these powers go far beyond (but also include) the ability to have what you need, materially ~ and also extend to your ability to heal the separated pieces of yourself, to experience yourself as one whole being, connected to all of life?

This has been the premise of The Blessings Ledger, and my subsequent books, The Portable Blessings Ledger and MotherWealth: The Feminine Path to Money, as well as my article in Pure Inspiration Magazine, “The Almighty and the Dollar.” It was also the premise of my recent workshop, “Money from the Deeper Self,” held on November 2, 2008, in Berkeley, California.

At this workshop, my intent was to encourage participants to look into how their inner lives have contributed to their current relationship with money ~ in particular, how the fairly ubiquitous experience in childhood of abandoning our connection with our true nature in order to survive within limiting (often, love-limiting) conditions within the family (since, to a child, the family = the whole world) can result in unconscious decisions made at an early age that are still being lived out, as if the early conditioning were the reality of life now.

I also wanted to bring the concept and experience of harmony into the picture, especially musical harmony. Musical harmony, in my experience of singing in classical-music and sacred choruses, is an extraordinary, joyous, and ~ on a cosmic level ~ true experience. That is, every voice has a necessary part, within one’s own voice range, and each singer is responsible for learning and singing that part well. However, when you remove your attention from just your own part (which, for me, happens once I am confident enough that I know it), you widen your listening and realize that there is a whole chorus of beautiful singing all around you ~ that it upholds you, lifts you up, and brings you into a much more glorious whole than your own voice alone could do. Nevertheless, the whole does depend on your part and the constellation of the other parts in order to hum with such enlarging, beautiful, and healing sound.

The analogy of this musical harmony comes into play regarding money at least to the extent that we have all, in our culture so far, been groomed to be entirely solo players where money is concerned. We have no idea how individualistic our culture’s values have been ~ and we won’t until we open to other ways. My mother used to say, nostalgically, that the Great Depression was one of her favorite times in society, because for all the poverty it drew people together. I have no wish for any of us to experience anything remotely like that; and yet I find these days that people are talking more openly about money, and helping one another, being aware of one another, than before. When I started writing The Blessings Ledger, no one was talking about money in anything but a dollars-and-cents way. At this time in our collective history, I’d like to feel that the journey I’ve traveled can help us to talk about money in a way that serves us all. And this is part of what I call “Harmonious Prosperity” ~ that each voice affects the whole, and the whole lifts us all up together.

Response to the workshop was incredibly positive. I was euphoric ~ both for myself, and for the possibility that the participants could now make a much-needed difference in the world. What this would look like in their immediate lives and larger ripples, I had no clear sense; but I felt that it would begin to happen.

The following week, something happened to me that I want to share with you here. It’s not directly connected to writing, but it is connected to the “deeper Self.” And certainly, it’s connected to money, other people, and the direct experience of the Divine.

$    $   $

My laptop computer was making very strange patterns, right after the presidential election. The cursor led itself across the screen, opening up different programs and then moving on, like a comet shower. “I guess I have to get it fixed,” I grumbled, and started doing research to find someone who could. The person I located online, with a reassuring company name of “My Computer Guy,” told me when I phoned that the minimum rate was $75 an hour, and that it might take a couple of hours to fix. I would need to leave the computer there for several days and then pick it up. I agreed, and set a time to drop it off late that Saturday, after which I was going on retreat for three days.

When I arrived at the warehouse-like building, I thought I’d be there a few minutes, sign a piece of paper, and go. But the owner walked in and sat down, and started my computer up right then and there. He was a burly looking guy, with bushy eyebrows and a definitive way of talking. I found myself getting worried that I was going to be dependent on someone who talked tech over my head, and pushed his knowledge around (not a totally unfamiliar situation, in my background). So I was a bit prickly from the start, defensive, hearing myself think things about him such as “You don’t know everything!” and tensing myself to appear unruffled so my words and body didn’t betray my annoyance.

And then, as he sat there and made things happen onscreen, explaining what he was doing in terms I didn’t fully understand, the reality that I was due to go on a spiritual retreat hit me. “What are you doing?” I asked myself. “Why are you judging this person as being belligerent, competitive, and unfriendly? What is really happening, here? And how much of that has to do with me?”

All this happened quickly in my mind, as I stood there watching this barrel-shaped man play arpeggios on my keyboard and tweak what showed up onscreen. And just that sliver of awareness was enough to shift my viewpoint ~ to shift it enough that I could withdraw my certainty that he was an adversary. I began to wonder what his face would look like to me if I cared about him ~ if I had known him when he was young, if he were my brother, my son, my father.

Everything softened, then. He changed nothing, but in that change in me, he changed. His face was concentrated, now, rather than belligerent. His words were well informed, rather than overbearing. His efforts to tell me what he was doing and what was happening onscreen were now clearly his way of including me, educating me, bringing me into the picture. All this took place in a fraction of a second; this shift removed a lens, or added a lens, whatever it was ~ but from that moment on, I appreciated him, I had room for him inside me, and I found him very interesting. The things that before had threatened me, which I had protected myself from by judging him, no longer threatened me. I felt lucky to have found him. He clearly knew what he was doing, and he was now spending so much time on my computer that maybe I wouldn’t even have to leave it there.

While he was at my computer, trying unsuccessfully to get the cursor to have the kinds of hot flashes it had evidenced for me at home, he was also fixing all sorts of other things I wouldn’t have known to ask him to fix. He was removing excess programs, excess baggage that had been clogging the machine and slowing it down. He was explaining about the need to do a “defrag,” for “defragmentation,” a process wholly unknown to me that essentially removed the unnecessary spaces in the computer’s storage of my files, and slowly filled them in sequentially. I was almost as in the dark as before, illumined only by his really good explanations and my changed view; but I did recognize that he was helping me in ways I had not known to ask for help. Furthermore, being a true “computer guy,” he was giving his all to it, making it his number-one focus, exceeding his closing time of 5 pm to stay with the problems and solve them.

In my inner life, I was aware of the potency of the shift I had made: the movement from feeling threatened and annoyed to feeling interested and grateful, and aware of his knowledgeable care. But time was moving on, and I had a retreat to go to shortly ~ and also, I became concerned about the cost. For we had been there far more than an hour, and was he just going to keep going, the meter running at $75 an hour, making sure that everything on my computer was healthy, and that I understood what he was doing? Was I now bankrolling his own interest? Had I asked for all this help?

Fear was replacing annoyance. Not knowing what the cost would be.

“Well,” I said, seeking to find a balance between expressing gratitude for all he was doing and my need to bring this to a close, “it looks like the cursor isn’t doing what it did, and maybe what you’ve done is enough.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, “no point in keeping this here overnight. But let me just try one more thing….” And he launched into some computer routine that required more time and attention.

Finally I just said, “I need to go,” and hoped that he would be kind and charge me for an hour’s worth, though it was now 25 minutes over that. Or if I had to, I would ask for a pro-rated price. I felt somewhat caught between gratitude and dependence, because he’d helped a great deal; and yet my level of computer knowledge was limited enough that I had no way of knowing what had really been needed. I might be paying for his own enthusiasm, for all I knew. But I would just have to live with it, and cut my losses by saying, “I have to go.”

I opened up my purse to get my checkbook, walking this delicate inner tightrope between gratitude, the discomfort of unwilling dependence, and the wish to complete this with some dignity. “What do I owe you?”

He squinted for a moment. “Well,” he said then, “I usually charge $75 for laptops.” (Oh good, he’s going to ignore the extra 25 minutes, I thought.) “But I’m going to charge you what I charge to work on regular computers: $45.”

I blinked. “You mean, the total charge is $45?”

“Yeah,” he shrugged, “why not. I didn’t find the cursor thing, and you’ve got such an old computer.”

Warmth flooded my heart. “Thanks very much,” I said, and wrote him a check for $45. And I realized, as my outer appearance was coolly writing the check, that inside, I felt blessed, I felt cared about by this reduction of his fee. I actually could have afforded $75 plus the extra time, and I didn’t like the thought that I was just trying to get a lower price. It felt bigger than that. It felt like the inner work to see him, to value him, and to receive what he was giving ~ with all the original difficulties in so doing ~ had connected me to him somehow, had formed a bond between us. And his offer had a friendliness to it that meant something to me, it wasn’t only about paying less. It was as if something underneath the surface in each of us recognized a deeper way of being together, a deeper human connection. It made me wonder if, when I first had shifted how I saw him to a more appreciative way, he had somehow gotten that. Whether he had breathed easier, felt some care coming his way, expanded into it in a way that took the form of wanting to make my laptop as healthy as possible, as defragmented as possible.

I felt that something miraculous and just about hidden had happened. “I really appreciate this,” I said, handing him the check. “You’re a good teacher. What did you do before you worked on computers?” I don’t usually ask strangers those kinds of things, but with all the inner shiftings going on within me, he didn’t feel like a stranger any more.

“Oh, that?” he said, looking a bit startled. “It was so long ago. I was ~ a teacher,” he grinned.

What do we really want for ourselves and from each other? Is it discounts? Or is it not to be discounted? Is it to be seen, and wondered about, and in some way cherished? Can we pick up when this happens, without a direct word being said? Are our ordinary occasions to be with other human beings invitations to see into who they are more deeply, with money as the outer exchange, and something yet more precious as the inner exchange?

This experience is still with me. I am very grateful for it, and for the closeness to God it gave me (seeing through one’s ego defenses does bring one closer to God), and the connection to another person it helped form.

Was that harmonious prosperity? After some false starts, yes, it was.


Naomi Rose is the author of several books on money and the inner life, some of which are available from The Creating, Comfort, & Centering Store, www.essentialwriting.com/bookstore.html. She will facilitate future “Money from the Deeper Self” workshops. If you are interested in attending or hosting one, please contact her at naomirosedeepwrite@yahoo.com.

Copyright 2008 © by Naomi Rose. All rights reserved.

Here follows a description of the workshop referred to above. Although the workshop has already taken place, future workshops are intended. If you are interested in attending or hosting one, please contact Naomi at naomirosedeepwrite@yahoo.com.

MONEY FROM THE DEEPER SELF

Healing Your Relationship to Money by Understanding Its Connection to Your Inner Life

In this time of economy uncertainty, it’s more essential than ever to look for wealth in the right place.

Most of us learn that money is something outside us, and that how much of it we have depends on such factors as luck, hard work, constant attention to getting it, and so on. But our inner life ~ our connection with, or separation from, our deep nature ~ is the real key to having what we need, and to trusting life to support us totally.

In this workshop, we will explore some common assumptions about money as an "outside" experience, and begin to look more closely at how our real nature was obscured or set aside early on, in favor of a partial self that believed it had to "do something" to get its needs (material and otherwise) met. As we begin to recontact our original nature, which is supported even by breath and the earth, and to understand some of the early decisions we have made keeping us from accepting all the blessings life hasto shower on us, and how these have related to money up to now, a shift can take place, enabling us to relax into our ground of being and ask for, and attract to us, everything we need.

Texts: MotherWealth: The Feminine Path to Money, and The Portable Blessings Ledger: A Way to Keep Track of Your Finances and Bring Meaning and Heart to Your Dealings with Money, by Naomi Rose.

DATE: Sunday, November 2, 2008

TIME: 10 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

LOCATION: Chochmat HaLev Meditation Center, Berkeley, CA

FEE: $150.00. Cost includes the two books. $25 discount ($125 total) if registered before October 15th.

REGISTRATION: To reserve your space, send a nonrefundable deposit of $75 to:
Naomi Rose at P.O. Box 21622, Piedmont, CA
94620. Or you can pay by PayPal by going to www.essentialwriting.com/classes.html.

The balance is due by the workshop date.
NOTE: Be sure to include your mailing address, so you can receive the texts before the Workshop.

For more information, e-mail me at naomirosedeepwrite@yahoo.com, or phone me at (510) 465-3935.

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