Regina Leffers, Ph.D.

The process of writing this most recent book: “My Darling: Memoirs of a Buddha Girl” was the most ecstatic experience of my life so far. And so, my darling, I miss that process terribly.

It was ecstatic because during the entire process of writing it, I was in an intimate collaboration with the Big Love that I experience in the cells of my body. That’s the closest I will come to assigning a name to my collaborator because any name I try to give it makes it smaller–puts it into a box that eliminates the Mystery.

When I would sit down to write, if the words were there (it felt sort of like dictation), and if I felt Big Love in every cell of my body at the same time, I would write. The words were given to me as a gift, yet this was a description of my life.

During the entire months-long writing process, I was always automatically in the present moment. I was addressed as “my darling” always by my collaborator; and at the same time, I realized that I was addressing all readers as “my darling”. The experience was so divinely intimate! And the intimacy happened between all of us, all at the same time. Exquisite.

During that entire process, I also felt Big Love in every cell of my body as an effortless gift–something that I simply receive and feel grateful for in each moment.

When the process of writing the book, “My Darling” was complete, the “dictation” simply stopped, and oh my gosh, was that feeling ever lonely! For a few days, I simply felt that loneliness. When I told a friend about the lonely feeling, she reminded me of an older book, written by Jack Kornfield: “After the Ecstasy, the Laundry.” The title is so apt, it makes me laugh!

The entire writing process was absolutely ecstatic, and now it’s time to do the laundry!

So my darling, this is the laundry that I am doing: I am doing all the things that were an automatic gift of being immersed in the collaborative writing process. I bring my mind to the present moment whenever I’ve slipped out of it. I notice the Big Love that I feel in the cells of my body and feel grateful for that. I stay conscious of connectivity, the underpinnings of materiality. And maybe most precious to me, I stay foundationally anchored in love with the Mystery. Oh, and I call myself my darling once in awhile.

If you have read “My Darling”, I hope you loved reading it as much as I loved writing it.