Today\u2019s Guest\nPost spotlight shines on Lara Zielin. When I first read her post (below), my hand\nwent to my chest. I recognized those feelings. I felt those feelings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last summer I experienced\na similar situation that Lara describes. The difference though, is that while\ngiving my presentation, I knew I was \u201coff\u201d and I couldn\u2019t get back \u201con.\u201d I felt\nlike a runaway train took off with me barely hanging onto the caboose. I so\nwanted to do a great job. Someone recommended me to this group as a presenter.\nI wanted to make her proud. At the end, I was afraid I embarrassed her and I\ncertainly embarrassed myself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And when I read\nwhat happened to Lara, I took a deep breath. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lara wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several\nyears ago, a colleague and I gave a presentation to the board of a national\nmuseum.
\n
\nIn the moment, the presentation felt amazing. I had practiced, done truckloads\nof research, and I felt like I was on my game.
\n
\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But late\nthat night in my hotel room, I sat up in bed from a dead sleep, feeling like I\ncouldn\u2019t breathe. My brain was re-playing the meeting in slow-motion,\nhighlighting all the things that had gone wrong, all the ways I\u2019d been\nrejected, all the mistakes I\u2019d made.
\n
\nI began crying, recoiling from this terrible movie in my head. I was hardly\nable to endure the shame.
\n
\nI remember thinking, \u201cWhat do I DO? How do I handle this?\u201d
\n
\nToday, if I could go back in time, I\u2019d have an answer for Lara. I\u2019d be able to\nhelp her.
\n
\nI\u2019d remind her this was just an old story rearing its ugly head. This old story\nwas pissed off and scared, because Lara had just done a big, brave presentation,\nand that didn\u2019t fit with ideas of who this old story thought Lara was.
\n
\nI\u2019d counsel Lara to write her way into a better place. I\u2019d help Lara generate\nwarm, positive feelings for herself based on what she wrote. I\u2019d give her the\ngift of getting through this awful place in an hour, instead of it taking a\nyear.
\n
\nToday, what gets me out of bed in the morning is the realization that there are\npeople out there doing bold and brave things, whose old stories are rearing up\ntrying to stop them in their tracks.
\n
\nSpecifically, I see people trying to finish writing projects and getting\nstopped again and again, whether it\u2019s finishing a book, or starting a writing\nbusiness, or launching a blog.
\n
\nMy dear authors, if we don\u2019t do battle with our old stories, they win. And we\ncan\u2019t have that. Because the world needs to read what you have to write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
~ Sent as an\nAuthor Your Life email from Lara on December 10, 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Note from\nMarlene:<\/strong> I know what went wrong with my presentation.\nOr, I should say the many things that didn\u2019t go right. I decided to be grateful\nand use it as a learning experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The lesson I\nlearned from what I considered my less-than-stellar presentation: Be gentle\nwith yourself. Sometimes you are on top of your game. Othertimes, not so much.\nBut mostly, cut yourself some slack. You did the best you could. The next time\nthings get derailed, pause, take a breath. Look around. Fix or change what you\ncan. Smile and carry on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Like Lara wrote,\npeople are doing bold and brave things. Are you one of those people? I am, even\nwhen I\u2019m not sure I\u2019ll conquer the challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lara Zielin<\/a> is a published author, editor, and the founder of Author Your Life. Her debut young-adult novel Donut Days<\/em> was selected to the Lone Star Reading List, and her romance novel And Then He Kissed Me<\/em> (written as Kim Amos) was nominated for a Romantic Times Reader’s Choice Award. Her magazine articles have appeared in Writers Digest, Culture, Medicine at Michigan, and more. Her nonfiction book Author Your Life<\/a><\/em> is about using the power of writing to create a better story for yourself. She lives in Michigan with her husband and dog, and her goal is pretty much to eat all the cheese.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today\u2019s Guest Post spotlight shines on Lara Zielin. When I first read her post (below), my hand went to my chest. I recognized those feelings. I felt those feelings. Last summer I experienced a similar situation that Lara describes. The difference though, is that while giving my presentation, I knew I was \u201coff\u201d and I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[104],"tags":[1359,1358],"class_list":["post-9127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-bloggers","tag-author-your-life","tag-lara-zielin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43Dj8-2nd","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9128,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9127\/revisions\/9128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}