Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

True You

Why I’m Quitting Book Writing

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I tried to think of softer, more sophisticated title for this post, but the fact is, I’m quitting book writing, and there’s really no other way to say it. Turns out, I wrote a book about the journey toward uncovering your true self, and along the way, I discovered my true self does not align well with my work. This is knowledge I think I’ve understood deep down for a long time, and yet, I’ve held on, clutching and grasping with all my might, unwilling and afraid to let go.

Until now.

The truth is, working as a traditionally published non-fiction writer is a rough sea to swim in if you wrestle with a desire for success and recognition, if you grapple with a longing for approval and affirmation or if you tend to fixate on outcomes. Plenty of writers are able to navigate a smooth, steady course through these tumultuous waters without losing their whole selves in the process.

As it turns out, I’m not one of those writers.

I’ve learned the hard way over the last ten years of writing and publishing that staying whole and healthy in this vocation is, for me, not a simple matter of willpower, nor is it a simple matter of surrender. It’s not about trying harder or surrendering more. Believe me, I’ve done both. I can muster every ounce of willpower and surrender six ways to Sunday, and the bottom line is still the same: working in traditional publishing is not good for me. My tendency to seek affirmation and validation and my desire for recognition and success can quickly veer toward addictive behavior if I’m not careful. It’s a little like an alcoholic working in a bar. It might be doable for a while, but in the end, it’s probably not a wise choice for a long-term profession.

Last fall, two months before True You released, I stood at the curb with Josie on the leash and gazed up at a large pine tree in my neighbor’s front yard. The tree was wrapped round and round with a thick vine that snaked from the roots up the trunk, fanning out along the limbs and branches. I saw that beneath the lush and vibrant vine, the tree itself was dying, its needles crisped brown, its branches brittle.

Not long after that late autumn walk, as Brad and I sat talking on the living room sofa, he offered a quiet observation.  “Your work as an author in Christian publishing has brought you more sorrow than joy,” he said gently, as the snow wisped outside the windowpanes.

I knew the moment the words left his mouth that they were true. I knew I was the pine tree wrapped round by the vine.

In that moment I finally acknowledged that the culture of publishing is not a place I thrive. I can’t separate my self – my whole, true self – from the platform-building, from the push to attract and attain more followers and subscribers, from the Amazon ranks. I can’t separate myself from what often feels like a relentless drive toward bigger, better and more. I can’t separate myself from wanting to be known, affirmed and recognized by the “right” people.

That winter afternoon, sitting on the living room sofa with my husband, I finally understood that I can’t unwind the vine. And honestly, I’m flat-out exhausted from trying.

This has been a hard truth to face. There are the logistics, for one. I was contracted to write another book, which means I’ve had to withdraw from that contract and pay back the advance I had received to write the book. That is hard.

But even harder has been the unexpected grief that’s accompanied this decision. It’s painful to acknowledge that the story I wrote for myself in my mind and in my dreams all those years ago didn’t write itself the same way in real life. There have been joyful chapters, to be sure. But there have also been many, many chapters full of sorrow, disappointment, bitterness, resentment, anger and frustration. There is heartbreak in recognizing and acknowledging that my dream did not turn out as I had imagined and hoped it would. There is grief in letting go of the story I’d hoped would be true.

But there’s also hope in knowing the story is still being written. As Emily Freeman writes in The Next Right Thing: “Just because things change doesn’t mean you chose wrong in the first place. Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you have to do it forever.”

As Esther de Waal says in her book To Pause at the Threshold, “Our God is a God who moves and he invites us to move with him. We must be ready to disconnect. There comes a time when the things that were undoubtedly good and right in the past must be left behind, for there is always the danger that they might hinder us from moving forward and connecting with the one necessary thing, Christ himself.”

God is moving and he is inviting me to move with him. It’s time.

So I am sad, yes. But I also know, as Emily Freeman says, that I didn’t choose wrong. And I know this because of you. I am full of gratitude for you – the generous readers who have come alongside me – for your kind words, your emails, your comments, your hugs when we’ve met in person. I’m grateful for what you have taught me along the journey. I’m grateful for all the things I’ve learned – about myself, about life, about faith.

And I’m also full of expectant hope for what might be next. I’m confident that even though I can’t clearly see it yet, what’s to come will be different, but it will also be good. I know this because I know God, and I know that he is good.

For now I am content to continue my work at The Salvation Army. I am glad to do my small bit for an organization that does good work. Most of all, it feels good and right to do that work anonymously, without fanfare, without pushing for recognition or readers, without trying to attract attention, without trying to be known.

As Akiko Busch writes in her book How to Disappear: Notes on Invisibility in a Time of Transparency, it’s time “to reevaluate the merits of the inconspicuous life, to search out some antidote to continuous exposure, and to reconsider the value of going unseen, undetected, or overlooked. Might invisibility be regarded not simply as refuge, but as a condition with its own meaning and power?”

I think it might indeed.

As I walked Josie along our favorite path a few weeks ago, I noticed that the branches of the white swamp oak were bare. The leaves that had held on through the long, hard winter had finally let go. Beneath the tree’s naked limbs lay its desiccated foliage, crumpled, ripped and bedraggled from months of hanging on tight through tossing winds and stinging snow.

Standing beneath the bare tree, I tipped my head back and saw that each branch and twig were crowned with a tightly curled bud. Over the dark days of our long Nebraska winter, the oak tree had been slowly, quietly working undercover, preparing new growth that has, I see now, begun to burst free.

First the letting go, then the unfurling. As is so often the case, the trees have shown me what I needed to see.

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I wanted to let you know that though I will not be writing books, I still hope, God willing, to write in this space. After months of discernment I was relieved to realize that writing is still life-giving for me. And so, if you’re still game, I would love to still meet you here from time to time and monthly via The Back Patio newsletter. I am ever grateful for you.

How Counseling Can Help You Find Wholeness

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Late last summer I finally admitted to myself that I’d been struggling with low-level depression and discontent for a while, and so, I made the call I’d dreaded making. Honestly, I didn’t want to make an appointment with my counselor because I didn’t want to do the hard work I knew would be inevitable. I didn’t want to dig deep into past hurts, unpack my baggage, sort through the messy detritus of my life.

I’m glad I made the call. Though I was right — it has been hard to sit on the sofa and talk through my junk every other week — it’s been good…and necessary. Slowly my counselor has helped me name my disappointments and failings, my confusion and questions, my hopes and dreams. Slowly she has helped me begin to see that I can be me, even amid the demands and expectations of a book release.

As I wrote to my newsletter subscribers earlier this week, I’m not typically at my best when I am midwifing a book into the world. I worry a lot and try to control things that are beyond my control. The increased time on social media and the increased focus on numbers and outcomes isn’t good for my soul. I struggle to “come down” from the rev of constant interaction and communication. Over time both my body and my brain begin to hum with an agitated restlessness.

Beyond the busyness and hustle, though, releasing a book is also fraught with fear for me — fear that harkens back to the publication of my first book in 2014.

In spite of my best efforts, my first book, a memoir, was not a publishing success. In fact, it sold so few copies, the publishing house’s marketing board turned down my proposal for a second book, a decision based largely on the abysmal sales record for the memoir.

This was a major blow. Not only was I angry, bitter and disappointed, I see now that I was also deeply ashamed. In the aftermath of the book release, all I wanted to do was to hide. I daydreamed about quitting writing and publishing altogether and getting a job at the local greenhouse, surrounding myself with plants and flowers, thrusting my hands into damp dirt all day long.

Instead, I did the only thing I knew to how do at the time: I kicked my hustle into overdrive. I put all my energy into selling the book proposal to another publisher, and when that ultimately failed, I wrote a brand-new proposal for an entirely different book and started the process all over again.

I also focused on managing “my failure” (which, by the way, is like trying to manage outcomes, only infinitely more depressing). “You talk about your book’s supposed ‘failure’ an awful lot,” a friend, himself an author, gently pointed out. “You need to be kinder to yourself.”

I see now that publicly harping on my failure was my way of controlling it. If I acknowledged the failure publicly, if I deemed my book a failure first, I wouldn’t have to suffer the pain of others declaring my book – and me – a failure.

At the time I told myself I was calling a spade a spade. In actuality, I was trying to avoid the very real pain of disappointment, shame and sorrow that accompanies failure. I was trying to convince myself that I was naming, and therefore owning, my failure, but the truth is, I wasn’t naming it. I was shaming myself.

Even more detrimental was the fact that in refusing to acknowledge and process my failure, I refused the opportunity to let it teach me, to learn from it, and to allow it to shape me into a better version of myself. If I had truly looked deeply at my humiliation, shame, pain and sorrow, I would have seen there was a reason for it. I would have seen that my entire identity, my entire sense of self, was wrapped up in that book.

How Counseling Can Help You Find Wholeness

So as you can see, there’s been a lot to unpack with my counselor these last few months. There’s a reason I procrastinated making that initial phone call before finally picking up the phone late last summer. And yet, I know now more than ever that counseling has helped me heal in ways that’s allowed me to grow toward greater wholeness.

As I wrote in True You, the journey to wholeness and healing doesn’t begin with surgery or even with diagnosis. The journey to wholeness begins with admitting you are broken.

The phone call to my counselor was an admission that I was broken and in need of healing. And though it was difficult and often uncomfortable work, making that call and subsequently naming and shedding the shame and fear I’d held in my heart since my first book released in 2014 ultimately made way for a healthier book release this time around.

The truth is, sometimes we resist wholeness because, although it sounds lovely on paper, saying yes to the invitation requires a whole lot of hard work. But while saying yes to the invitation into wholeness is a risk, to be sure, it’s also the entry-point into a transformed life.

True You will be what it will be and go where it will go. I’ve done the work. I will continue to do the work. But I also know that my value as a human being is not defined by this or any other book.

Ring in 2019 with a Truer YOU

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Right around the start of the New Year I always like to read a book that I hope will help me grow in the coming year.

Sometimes my first book of the year is one that’s focused on my work; sometimes it’s one focused on inner growth. One year I might read Deep Work by Cal Newport or Essentialism by Greg McKeown (two of my favorites); the next year something by a contemplative like Henri Nouwen or Ruth Haley Barton.

I love this New Year’s tradition, which is one reason I am so thrilled that my newest book, True You: Letting Go of Your False Self to Uncover the Person God Created, is releasing today, the first day of the New Year!  As we look back to where we have been and look ahead to where we might like to go and who we might like to become, I would love for this book to accompany you along way.

If you find yourself exhausted by the pervasive do-more, be-more messages of society, this book will offer you a path toward rest, renewal and, ultimately, wholeness in Christ. Because the thing is, what I believe God desires most for us is not more pushing and striving, but simply for us to live in the spacious, light-filled freedom of Christ and to know ourselves wholly and deeply in him, through him and with him.

What I’m learning, slowly but surely, is that while our culture tells us that hustle, busyness and striving are the only ways to find satisfaction and success, our soul tells us something different.

Friends, it’s time we began to listen more closely to our soul.

It is my hope and prayer for 2019 that this book will help you begin to uncover who you are at the very center of your God-created self.

Thank you for walking alongside me toward the release of True You, friends. May God’s peace be with you in the new year and always.

Love,
Michelle

Why It’s Time to Declutter Your Heart, Mind and Soul

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On January 12, 2007, a young man dressed in a gray, long-sleeve tee shirt, jeans, and a baseball cap emerged from the metro at the L’Enfant Plaza station in Washington D.C., tucked a violin under his chin, and began to play.

The violinist performed six classical pieces in 43 minutes, during which time 1,097 commuters passed him.

Seven of those people stopped what they were doing to stand and listen for at least one minute.

One young boy craned his neck to catch a glimpse of the musician as his mother led him by the hand out of the station.

Twenty-seven people threw money into the open violin case at the musician’s feet as they passed.

Which means 1,070 people hurried by without as much as a glance at the violinist.

Turns out, most of the people who dashed through the metro station that morning on the way to work had no idea that the musician playing next to the trash can was none other than renowned virtuoso Joshua Bell, performing on his 1713, $3.5 million Stradivarius violin.

Bell’s performance was arranged by The Washington Post Magazine as “an experiment in context, perception and priorities.” Editors at the magazine were interested in one question in particular: “In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?”

Prior to the incognito performance, Leonard Slatkin, director of the National Symphony Orchestra, had predicted that Bell’s impeccable playing would attract people passing through the station, even if they didn’t recognize the musician himself.

“My guess is there might be 35 or 40 who will recognize the quality for what it is. Maybe 75 to 100 will stop and spend some time listening,” Slatkin told journalist Gene Weingarten. In preparing for the event, Washington Post Magazine editors were concerned about crowd control. They figured at least several people would recognize Bell, stop to listen, and then attract other listeners.

Turns out there was no need for concern.

When he watched the video of the experiment later, Bell said he wasn’t surprised he didn’t draw a crowd in the middle of rush hour. He was, however, surprised by the number of people who didn’t seem to notice him at all. It was as if he was invisible, Bell observed.

I watched clips from Bell’s Metro station performance on my laptop. Even on the choppy recording, the sound of his violin is lush and rich, and Bell’s playing is mesmerizing as he moves along with the music, like a reed swaying in a breeze.

I’d like to think I would have been one of the seven people who stopped to listen to one of the greatest classical musicians in the world play a free concert in a Washington, D.C. train station.

I’d like to think I would have been the mom who paused with her child for a least a minute or two to listen, entranced, before scurrying toward the exit.

But I know myself better than that.

I’m pretty sure I, too, would have hurried past Joshua Bell playing Franz Schubert’s “Ava Maria” on his 1713 Stradivarius violin. I might have cast him a curious glance, but I would have kept right on going, bent on arriving at my destination, tackling my to-do list, and accomplishing whatever pressing tasks awaited me that day.

The truth is, I am addicted to busyness.

More often than not, my busyness takes priority over beauty, over noticing, over being present, over just about everything.

As author John Ortberg has observed, this addiction to busyness is devastating to our souls. “Our world will divert your soul’s attention because it is a cluttered world,” he says. “And clutter is maybe the most dangerous, because it’s so subtle.”

Ortberg is right; clutter is subtle because it’s easy to justify: just one more item, more more thing, one more activity, one more errand, one more email. “More” comes one small thing or one small obligation at a time, until before you know it, it’s become more, more, more, and you are suffocating beneath the sheer weight of it.

This January, I invite you to begin to let go of the clutter you’ve accumulated in your own life. Maybe that’s physical clutter in the form of stuff. Or maybe, like me, it’s metaphorical clutter – all the many ways you fill your days with busyness and distraction.

The hard truth is, we often use both our physical and our metaphorical clutter as a way to hide; we use our “stuff” as a way to insulate ourselves from our own deepest selves. Our busyness and our stuff become part of our false identity.

And yet, this is not God’s desire for us. He does not wish for us to stand cloaked in a facade of false protection. Rather, he yearns for us to live wholeheartedly and truthfully as the unique, beautiful, beloved individuals he created us to be. God desires for us to live in the spacious, light-filled freedom of Christ and to know ourselves in him, through him and with him.

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This post is an edited excerpt from my newest book, True You: Letting Go of Your False Self to Uncover the Person God Created, which releases in just five days! I would love for you to come alongside me on this journey toward decluttering our hearts, minds and souls; letting go of busyness and false identities; and growing in our relationships, vocations, communities and in intimacy with God.

If you pre-order today (or before December 31), you’ll be eligible to receive a lovely collection of bonus gifts, including: the True You Companion Journal, a set of beautifully designed Scripture cards, and a guided audio meditation that will help you learn how practice intentional rest.

All the details about where you can pre-order True You and more information about the pre-order bonus gifts are over HERE. Thank you!!

When Hustle Hurts Your Soul

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“Hustle!!!” I hear my father’s voice over the clash of shin pads and the scuffle of cleats. “Hustle, Shelly, hustle!!” And I do, I hustle, springing after the soccer ball, challenging defensive opponents twice my size, refusing to flinch when the ball is kicked square at my face.

Truth be told, I hustled on the soccer field and off all through my childhood and young adulthood, and not just to please my father. I don’t know if it’s a product of nature or nurture or a combination of both, but I’ve been driven to produce, achieve and succeed for as long as I can remember.

“Make it happen” was a directive repeated often in my house when I was growing up, and it’s a mantra I’ve chanted in my head ever since.

Decades after hustling on the soccer field, in the classroom and in the workplace, my specific priorities have changed, but my overall end goal is often still the same: to succeed and achieve. And while it’s no longer the grade on the top of quiz, the score emblazoned on a board, or the next job promotion that motivates me, if I’m honest, my definition of success is still largely based on numbers.

In recent years I’ve turned my attention to growing my number of blog subscribers and website page views, as well as the number of social media followers, shares, and retweets my posts earn. Once my first book released I relentlessly tracked its rank on Amazon. I was still focused on “making it happen” – the “it” being success as a published author – and I was more driven, more obsessed, than ever.

I cringe now to admit this, but there have been seasons in my publishing journey in which I’ve monitored the Amazon rank not only of my own book, but of my peers’ books too, as well as stats like the number of times their blog posts were shared on social media – even writers I respect, admire, and with whom I am friends.

Subsequently I vacillated daily, sometimes hourly, between euphoria when I my numbers measured up and despair when they didn’t.

I was hustling daily, even, at times, hourly, for the numbers. I looked to the numbers to determine my value and worth.

Hustle, productivity, busyness and striving have taken up a lot of space in my soul over the years. I’ve hustled so long for my self-worth, I know now that it’s become a habit deeply ingrained in me. I’m also just now beginning to see how destructive this habit is to my sense of self, to my relationship with God and to the well-being of my soul.

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Today’s post is an excerpt from my newest book, True You: Letting Go of Your False Self to Uncover the Person God Created. It releases on January 1, 2019, and honestly, I think this book would make a great first read to kick off your New Year!

Our culture tells us hustle, busyness and striving are the only way to satisfaction; our soul tells us something different. God yearns for us to live in the spacious, light-filled freedom of Christ and to know ourselves in him, through him and with him. It is my hope and prayer for the New Year that True You will help you uncover who you are at the very center of your God-created self.

Pre-order by December 31, and you’ll get these fabulous FREE gifts: 

– a beautifully designed Companion Journal with insightful questions and ample space for reflecting

– a guided audio meditation entitled Learning to Listen to Your Soul

– and a series of beautiful Scripture cards.

You can find out about where to pre-order True You and how to receive the free gifts over HERE.