How to believe when the going gets rough

Sorry, I’m been doing a very bad job of keeping you up on the progress of my new book: Find Your Reason to be Here.  The reason is simple.  This book really took it out of me!

First the editing process was brutal.  My editor took twice as long to edit it, so it cost twice as much as previous volumes, and along the way I lost sight of why I do what I do.  The cost and mental torture of just getting it out the door, made me doubt my purpose.

I’m afraid we all know this feeling if we’ve been a writer for long.  We start out certain that we have something important to say, and we love having the freedom to say it through the various new mediums available for the first time in human history.  But that does not mean we don’t suffer massive self-doubt at times.

For weeks after producing my new book I criticized myself for even trying.  I called it postpartum depression.  I felt bad, feeling like the whole thing was a waste of money.  And I’m certain my fluctuating hormones played no small part in all this.

But now I have come to my senses.  I fear that I was actually starting to censor myself.  This work is the best I have ever produced.  It summarizes most of what I have learned in studying the experience of midlife from the inside out.  It explains what happens to our hearts and our brains in midlife, especially in combination with being raised in the time of the boomer generation.  And then shows how to combat these challenging emotions, and finally succeed in becoming our best selves in spite of the many factors which may work against us.

I know now I am happy and so proud to have produced this work with my name on the front of it.  Regardless of all other factors, this is the work I needed to produce to honor my brother who did not survive the difficult vicissitudes of midlife.

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