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Stuck In A Rut
At 54, Elaine appears to have it all. She lives in a beautiful cottage deep in the English countryside with her retired husband and she sees her 2 grown-up children regularly.
She has great friends, is active in the local amateur dramatics society and a writer’s group. On top of that she spends a lot of time in Italy at their other home in Tuscany.
But, she feels unfulfilled and dissatisfied with life:
"Yes I am in a deep, deep rut! I was engaged (to husband David) at 17 and I have hardly worked all my life except for a short while in an insurance office before I was married.
I have been a stay at home wife and mother and while people say to me, well that is fulfilling, I have this deep void and pain inside me because I feel as though I have never known what it is like to be a success myself.
I would like to be helped to think that it isn’t too late to do something about it and be offered suggestions as to how to achieve my dream – whatever it is!"
Comfort Zone
Elaine reminds us a rut can lurk underneath even the most comfortable lifestyle. Indeed, such comfort can add to the unease, as we are likely to feel guilty and critical of our dissatisfaction, appreciating how fortunate we are compared to many others.
On top of that, Elaine is ambitious! And, an unexpressed ambition is a terrible burden to live with, which no amount of material comfort can assuage.
In fact, I would say that feeling stuck in a rut is a sure indication of an ambitious person failing to express that ambition.
Ambition
Elaine was shocked when I suggested she was an ambitious person. She has been a full-time wife and mother all her life and had never thought to factor in her ambitions and aspirations into family life.
No-one has stopped her. She simply always put everyone else first, feeling it would have been "totally selfish" to take time out to study English Literature at University or go to Art College.
Helping out in her husband’s business and being a busy "corporate wife" filled all her time. The fact that she lives with a palpable sense of irritation (she has a skin rash!) is proof of an unexpressed ambition crying out for expression.
Passion
We got to the heart of Elaine’s suppressed desires very quickly; the truth is often just below the surface. Elaine’s great ambition and passion is to be a novelist.
Her lifelong love is writing and she already has a full novel almost finished! Seeing her own novel published would give her a feeling of success that she feels cannot come from anywhere else. This would allow her to shine for herself, in her own eyes.
Once we had identified what success looked like to Elaine, we looked at her self-doubt and lack of confidence. Then we came up with a practical plan to carve out 2 hours a day writing time to get the novel ready to be shown to an agent and publisher.
