We are officially halfway through our Breathing Room Blog Book Club with this post. If you’re just now joining us, no worries, this is the kind of thing you can really jump right in on. Throughout this series, I’m going back through each chapter in Breathing Room, and I’m giving thoughts, questions, editorial comments — present-day reflections, chapter by chapter. It’s an opportunity for you to read and discuss Breathing Room if you haven’t already, and it’s an opportunity to interact with the material in a new way.
Today, we’re looking at chapter 13, “Creating a Room of One’s Own.” The title of the chapter is taken from Virginia Woolf’s essay, which calls women writers who have been buried or muted in the patriarchal industry to find their place — both literally and figuratively — and to let their voices be heard. She says, very pointedly, that a placeless person is a silenced person, and I’ve always loved that. What Woolf is really calling for, more than anything, is women to find their voice. And I think that message applies today as much as it did in 1929.
I spoke at a women’s day retreat on Saturday, and we talked about the fact that we can move in one of two direction in life: we can choose to hide or we can choose to emerge. One of the things I talked about was voice, and how easily our pleasing overrides our authenticity. We can use our strong voice to emerge, or we can suppress it and hide. When we override our own voice over and over again, after awhile, we are walking heads, unsure of what we really want, how we really feel about anything.
This isn’t something that was just going on in the garden of Eden or in the early 1900s. This is something that goes on for humanity. And so I love the concept of finding a room of one’s own — knowing our place — from which we can speak, desire, emerge.
In On Writing (which I am a huge fan of), Stephen King talks about his writing journey, including his publishing journey and rise to fame. The book is mostly about craft, but in one passage he talks about making it big, setting up a huge writing desk in a gorgeous study, everything covered in rich wood tones. He had created a space worthy of his status, worthy of the paychecks that were coming in. And do you know what happened?
It blocked him.
The big desk. The fancy paneling. The floor to ceiling bookcases. It all blocked him. He realized he needed a little more grit to create enough energy and angst for his best writing to emerge. I think there’s something to this. I don’t think any of us need to wait until we have a writing cottage with a chandelier and a wood burning stove in order to do our best work. Not. At. All. In fact, if we had that, it may just make us so nervous about needing to preform that we get blocked.
We don’t need a lot of glitz and glam (though I certainly don’t think either glitz or glam are evil.) What we need is a center, a home base, a place of strength. I think that starts from the inside and then manifests itself on the outside. If we don’t have that center inside us — if we have not nurtured time with God and our soul, over and over again — then it will very difficult for us to find that center in a room or a cottage or an office.
What would help you find your voice? What would help you emerge? What would help you get back in touch with your worth, your strength, your wholeness? What activities, places, practices help reconnect you with the God-image that is inside of you? Your answers to those questions constitute your “room,” and I encourage you to start carving this place out for yourself in the world and returning to it often as a way to come back to yourself, to re-integrate, and a way to sit in the healing and grace-filled presence of God.
One of my favorite lines from this chapter:
It’s OK to elbow out some space in this world for your soul. It’s not just OK, it’s vital. I’m learning that every day, so often the hard way, when I push and push and then find myself empty, fragile, disconnected. God doesn’t want us to move through this world just experiencing contact. He wants us to experience connection — with ourselves, with others, and with him. That starts from living out of a centered place instead of a scattered place. It starts with spending time exploring what we want, how we were designed to come alive, and also just breathing in the presence of God.
We will not let the flotsam and jetsam of this world overtake our souls. We will not let life’s inertia choke out our voice. We will return to The Place, which is home, and then go out into the world knowing we are loved. Wildly.
Love and more love,
Leeana
