Is it true

that when you are filled with doubt, it means that you are on the verge of growth?

I can’t quite remember where I heard this, but as I pull out my hair on this third novel, I am choosing to believe it. I like the idea that doubt is just the door to something new, bigger, more expansive. It makes the feeling—something a bit jittery, like we are on the verge of free fall—more doable somehow.

Doubt applies to so much of our lives.

Doesn’t it?

Will I ever publish this thing? Will it be any good? Was it worth the five years of my life? Am I a real writer? Or, on the health front, will I ever be well again? Will my body handle years of inflammation? Will I run again? Do hot yoga? Grow old?

The dictionary definition of doubt is to hesitate to believe.

To distrust.

Is it a coping mechanism? A way to shield ourselves from the possible pain of failure? To anticipate the pain? I guess the answer is yes, and yet we must go on and do the hard thing, which is to try and write that novel and to breathe into our deepest parts and repeat, I shall heal over and over, while doubt continues to dance all around us.