A friend recently asked me what I’d wished I’d known before I published my first book. She may have been asking what I’d wished I’d known about the industry or the culture of publishing, but my answer went in a different direction. “I wish I’d known how deep my desire for approval and recognition was,” I told her. “I wish I’d known myself well enough to recognize that a career in publishing wouldn’t be the very best fit for me, for who I am.”
I knew I was Type A. I knew I was an overachiever with a deep desire to be successful. But I didn’t know how deep my desire was to be validated, recognized and known.
Turns out I had to learn that the hard way.
I would have much rather learned about my shadow side from a distance – who wouldn’t, right? But it doesn’t often work that way. We learn who we are not by holding ourselves – our good parts and our flawed parts – at arm’s length, but through real, lived experience, which more often than not includes struggle, pain, tumult, disappointment and failure.
My shadow side was only fully revealed when I was deep into my vocation as a publishing writer. And I was only able to recognize, acknowledge and ultimately confront this part of myself after it had fully emerged – and then only after I realized I couldn’t subdue it or overcome it through my own best efforts.
They say of all the nine Enneagram types, Enneagram Threes know themselves the least well. Apparently this is because we are so busy performing and producing, so busy trying to live up to who we think others think we are, or who we think we should be, we don’t acknowledge or even recognize who, in fact, we really are.
I can’t speak for other Enneagram Threes, but I can say, for myself, this assessment is spot on. When I page through the journal entries I wrote as I was moving toward my decision to step away from publishing, I see the same words repeated again and again. “Fragmented.” “Disintegrated.” “Fractured.”
It’s obvious to me now. Of course I felt fragmented. Of course I felt disintegrated and fractured. I’d spent so many years trying to be someone other than myself, I’d segmented myself into a million disparate pieces.
I realize this all sounds overly dramatic and more than a little psycho-babbly, but here’s the long and short of it; here’s what I have learned that I hope might be relevant for you too:
When we know ourselves, we are able to recognize and move toward the environments in which we thrive. And, at the same time, when we know ourselves, we are able to recognize and move away from the environments in which we fail to thrive.
Some of us – maybe most of us – will become better at knowing ourselves through trial and error. Some of us will learn more quickly than others where and how we thrive and where and how we fail to thrive.
Some of us will be stubborn. We will try to make ourselves fit into a space or a place that is not right. We will try to change ourselves to fit our circumstances. Ultimately we will fail at this. And ultimately, in failing, we will come closer to knowing our true selves.
Turns out, publishing was too big an arena for me. The public nature of the publishing industry fed my voracious shadow side like gasoline feeds a fire. The more I looked to the publishing world for approval and recognition and the more I pushed myself to be successful and admired and known, the more my ego demanded and the more distant I became from my true self, from the person God created me to be.
My shadow side has not vanished simply because I’ve stepped out of the publishing arena. My desires for validation, recognition and success are still there. The difference is, these desires are not being fueled in the same way and to the same degree. I’m still a Type A overachiever, and this is not inherently a flaw. I still strive to be successful in my work as a writer for The Salvation Army, and I still enjoy the validation I receive from my boss or my colleagues for work well-done. But because my work is not public in the same way, and the arena in which I am working is much, much smaller, my ego stays in check.
Over these last six months I’ve come to realize that there’s nothing I could have done that would have better equipped me to succeed as a published author while at the same time keeping my self whole and intact. I didn’t “do it wrong.” Nor is the publishing industry “bad.” Like a couple with irreconcilable differences, we – the publishing world and I – were simply not good together.
Still, I have no regrets. I haven’t for a moment regretted my decision to leave publishing, nor do I regret the fact that I entered in. The fact is, as Parker Palmer so astutely says, “There are no shortcuts to wholeness.” I learned a lot about myself through the ups and downs of that journey. I am closer to knowing who I am. And still I am learning, learning to recognize and embrace the whole of me – shadows and light, flaws and gifts. I am learning where I fit best – where I thrive and where I don’t. I am learning to live as my best self, the person God created me to be.
What a great post, Michelle!
Yes, I continue to learn that even the things that feel like major failures, somehow God uses to teach me things I needed to learn, while drawing me into a deeper trust in Him!
Thank you for sharing your experiences in such a transparent honest manner.
So glad to see you here, Joe! And yes, yes, yes to the trust part – that has been an unexpected gift along this journey.
I LOVE this post, Michelle!! Thank you for always being so honest and vulnerable in your writing. I feel like you were one of the first bloggers I read who was so transparent about such important things—I’ve always looked to you for wisdom. I’ve loved your books, and I love your posts—thank you, friend!
Thank you, Sarah. This means so much to me. I still remember the first time I met you in the airport on the way to Allume. I liked you right from the start. 🙂
Beautiful.
Thank you, Shawn. I’ve learned a lot about wholeness from watching, reading and knowing you. 🙂
Just kind of thinking out loud . . . I wonder if the nature of the publishing industry in light of social media has been what makes this so difficult for you. It has affected things like how authors are found (through blog posts rather than finished manuscripts), and I remember one author talking about how much they are pushed to be “out there” in social media (through blogs – even if they didn’t have one before, facebook, instagram, etc.) . I know that book tours have always been a thing, but it seems that in the past it was possible to just publish and put the book out there. Now publishers want a social media campaign by the author to achieve a cult of personality of sorts. I can totally understand how that can feed desires in destructive way.
Yes, I absolutely think social media is a big part of it. Plus we have access to so much information. Not only do I get my own sales reports, I can see with a couple of clicks how another author’s book is doing on Amazon (by the rank), and while I don’t like to admit it, the truth is, having that kind of access fuels my tendency to compare and strive for more, more, more. The NYT bestseller lists have always been around, but that’s such a pie-in-the-sky kind of achievement it doesn’t even feel reachable. A “good” Amazon rank, on the other hand, prompted me to wonder, “But why that book and not mine?” Or “Why her and not me?” And that was a very slippery slope for me!
This post so resonates with me, Michelle, for so many reasons. Getting my books published elated my ego, having them not go “great guns” in the publishing world deflated it. I, too, had to step back and reconsider the whys of what I was doing: Was this for my glory, or for God’s? Yes, plenty of self-searching, but I feel I know myself so much better in the aftermath.
Blessings, my friend!
You have been such an positive and encouraging role model for me, Martha – truly, I am grateful for your example.
I appreciated the wisdom found in your last Back Patio newsletter – the quote saying how it is the act of putting your writing out there, no matter the response.
You may appreciate this quote from Nelly McClung’s book: Clearing in the West:
As I read and thought and marvelled, a light shone around me. I knew in that radiance what a writer can be at his (her) best: an interpreter, a revealer of secrets, a heavenly surgeon, a sculptor who can bring an angel out of a stone.
And I wanted to write; to do for the people around me what Dickens had done for his people. I wanted to be a voice for the voiceless as he had been a defender of the weak, a flaming fire that wuld consume the dross that encrusts human souls, a spring of sweet water beating up through all this bitter world to refresh and nourish souls that were ready to faint.
I could not tell Charley and Esther how I felt; I had no words to express the deep, poignant longing that swept my soul. I remembered the lines from Milton about fame being the spur that makes people scorn delights and live laborious days. Yet is was not fame that I craved. It was something infinetely greater. I wanted to reveal humanity; to make people understand each other; to make the commonplace things divine. …..I must go on, even if I went barefooted, for I had seen a bright light and caught a glimpse of a heavenly country. I found comfort in knowing that Dickens had only a meagre education too. Life had taught him and life would teach me.
Fantastic and helpful post, Michelle! Thank you.
Michelle—Thanks for sharing. As I struggle with social media, I’ve realized that publishing a book may not be the thing for me. Your honesty with yourself and sharing it with others has helped me honestly consider how to spend my time.
Excellent. As always written from the heart and head. Insightful.
Your writing has always been authentic. The journey to wholeness takes a lifetime. Thank you for continuing to letting us walk with you!
Well said. I do love your words!
Michelle, thank you so much for your transparency. The first book of yours that I read was “Spiritual Misfit”, which was a lifeline as I walked through a dark valley. Thank you for that.
Today as I read your blog I realized that, like you, I have a need for affirmation. But, I don’t need to feel shame about it or keep asking God to change that part of me! I will need to “chew” on this for some time. I look forward to going through “True You” in September.
I think of you as a writer not a publisher. You mentioned that you didn’t thrive in the publishing environment. But I disagree. You gained monetary rewards and you gained admiration. That can’t be bad, can it? And you don’t regret writing books. Perhaps you needed a change. Perhaps your career evolved, which we all experience. Finally, I don’t see your wanting recognition a “shadow side” as you do. I see it as something some of crave, some of appreciate and some of us can without, (think Mither Teresa). But it takes all kinds and we can’t all be like Mother Teresa. There is a notion (think Strengths Finder) that we should focus on our strengths and not try so hard to overcome our weaknesses (94 shadow side, as you call it). Perhaps that’s what you are doing. Good luck with whatever you do next.