Working with Daphne Kingma has been both a gift & a privilege! I have been truly inspired by her book, The Ten Things to Do When Your Life Falls Apart (10 Things), & have been motivated to feature her book over the next 10 weeks! Here's Part II of our interview:
SIU: Who inspires YOU? Which writers have most inspired your work?
Kingma: What a lovely question! Thank you! The poets James Wright, ee cummings, Dylan Thomas and Pablo Neruda, the philosophers Andre Gide, Andre Malraux, and John Stuart Mill, the novelists William Styron, Marguerite Duras and Earnest Hemingway. I was deeply influenced by my father's very well written letters, and I was strongly visually influenced by the beauty of my parents' garden and the many works of art to which, starting from when I was a child, I was frequently exposed.
SIU: What lies on the horizon for you as a writer? What projects are you working on NEXT?
Kingma: Another fabulous question! Well, as you might imagine from my previous answer, I, too, am a poet and writer of fiction; and I am moving in the direction of completing many literary works-in- progress and performing them. In terms of my life at large, after an extremely busy year of promoting my book I'm preparing for a life with more time for my love and my personal writing, I'm also looking forward to presenting the teachings from THE TEN and the relationship books I've written--as well as the emotional healing work I've always done--to much larger audiences. Basically, I'm looking forward to a more balanced combination of what we usually call a "professional" life and the pursuit of my own creative and heart-endeavors.
SIU: Finally, what do you do when life falls apart personally & what advice do you offer for when times get truly tough?
Kingma: I have a practice which I call: The Smallest Change That Can Make the Biggest Difference, and this is what I recommend to people going through agonizing times. When my house burned down I made it a practice to drive downtown and buy a glass of fresh vegetable juice every day and then sit in a quiet place and drink it before returning to the ongoing fray of the re-construction. This little practice sometimes took only twenty minutes, but it gave me a sense of well-being, joy and perspective. At other times my change has been taking a walk, meditating or writing quietly for a few minutes at the beginning of every day. And so I would ask you: what is the one little, self nourishing thing you can do every day even though it may seem that your entire world is falling apart: taking a walk up and down the hospital halls even though you're there because your best friend is dying, listening to some beautiful music in your car before you go in to work, making a list of what you're grateful for each night, or turning off the TV and reading a poem before you go to sleep, Any act performed consistently becomes a practice, and, as such, will provide a steadying rudder during chaotic times. You will be amazed at the large amount of equanimity even one of these simple practices will grant you.
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