My daughter just turned 13 a few weeks ago. That makes it official: I have no more babies, only teenagers. My son’s been a teenager for years already. He’s taller than me and past that boy-voice-has-changed stage. Both kids are home for school Christmas break, while I myself am also on grad school Christmas break. There’s a letup in client demands, so I have a bit more time to write.
Truth is, I have lots of writing works in progress—unfinished because I am still living what I am writing. Lag time is good because—balance lang. Too much time writing is too much time navel-gazing, and that can lead a woman to go a bit nuts. Intentionally, I am pursuing a meaningful life: half of my day I see clients, attend to kids and spouse, and then I apply a light touch to essay writing.
Yesterday, what I said about normal entitlement resonated with a client. We ultimately came upon the question: Why is it so hard for me to outright say what I want to say and pursue what I want? My client nodded in full agreement. She talked about having such low self-esteem that she over-apologizes, over-justifies, and over-explains even the things she wants.
Bottom line, it’s low self-esteem, isn’t it? I could value myself more. That takes practice, patience with myself, and self-observation. But patience—waiting for my organic process to develop—takes time. In graduate school, when you observe a phenomenon without yet having a theory, you use the Grounded Theory approach: you observe first and make the rules later.
What I have observed so far about writing my next book is that I am still trying to become the person who can write it.
My writing time usually happens in the morning, when I am least busy with family needs. It includes reflecting through journaling, morning-pages style. It also includes researching and editing, which I now relish, especially with AI tools helping me through pesky grammar conundrums (Do I use past perfect tense? Future perfect? What is the correct punctuation to use here?)
I like to think of this writing process of mine as deep creative labor, as apt for a book on creative praxis as it could be. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, creative praxis means the integration of theory with lived experience. Not sure yet, but I think I’m writing a kind of manual for my therapy clients, something like a guidebook. One thing crucial here is letting the material lead, by observing where it wants to go. What a joy ride this could be!
At the core of it, I am integrating personal healing, because I am writing psychoeducation material after all—writing to heal myself and possibly helping other people while I am at it. A win-win!
My writing workflow is not linear because of the grounded theory approach mentioned earlier. You could even say it’s a bit all over the place! Life is messy and that’s the truth.
Still, there are main elements, and these are morning-pages-style journaling, where I unload thoughts freely and let associations surface, and then repeated editing. However, a big chunk is reflection—meaning-making—which spontaneously occurs throughout the day. Aside from typing on the computer, I also handwrite my thoughts in a pen-and-paper journal.
(I’m an advocate for handwriting because it engages visual and motor areas of the brain, memory and language centers, and parts of the frontal and temporal lobes. Try it to zhush up your brain connectivity. I do it too for its anti-aging properties as a woman in my 40s.)
When I take time to do what I want as a writer, it is an expression of normal entitlement. Creative work is where I stake my claim to ultimately live. When I edit, journal, research, and reflect, I communicate to the world-at-large that I respect my life and that I am worth it.
As a therapist, every day I see people with impaired emotional maturity, and one component shows up again and again: low self-esteem.
I’d like to think that, at the end of the day, by ethically taking my space and enacting normal entitlement, I teach my children priceless lessons. I want them to grow up with good EQ. This is me, Melany Heger—mom and therapist—changing the world, one household and two teenagers at a time.
