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Creating Trust through Writing

Judith Heaney
3 min readJul 17, 2019

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Elizabeth Gilbert says, creativity is waiting to see who is going to show up to work with it because it wants and needs to believe us trustworthy of doing the work of showing up no matter what.

Most of the time, I consider myself trustworthy. But here’s a confession: some nights I enjoy my reward before I show up to write or I don’t show up at all. I may say I don’t feel inspired, but truth is, it’s up to me to create the inspiration I need, not the other way around.

image courtesy of chris holmes

If it’s been a series of long days with appointments and activities and parenting my girls through the snares of their relationship, reminding them to walk away when necessary, I want to fall onto my couch and do little of anything that requires something of me. I don’t feel inspired; I feel lazy.

In other words, writing is the last thing I want to do, even though it’s the thing I crave throughout the day. Does that make sense to anyone else?

Writing is something I crave for its wonder and its way of creating stories. It allows me to follow complete strangers around without my being creepy. But writing is hard work. Creating is not without its difficulties. Inspiration isn’t a given.

And when I’m tired? The motivation to show up is bare bones if it’s there at all. That’s my moment of truth. Will I show up even though I don’t…

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