Bestselling author Dixie Gillaspie talks about her new book, the critically-acclaimed “The Truth About Winter.”
“The Truth About Winter” is a semiautobiographical account of how one’s early childhood traumas are transformed to create a joy-filled future life. She has also authored “Just Blow it Up – Firepower for Living an Unlimited Life,” and “Doses of Dynamite – Firepower for Capturing the Inspiration in Everyday Things.”
She is a coach, consultant, and co-founder of Return to Your Power, where she shares the message and process for returning to our personal truth and power.
Gillaspie has nearly 30 years of experience in this field of work and has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs and business leaders.
Presently, she resides in the Midwest with her partner, Philip, and their family of cats and dogs.
Q & A interview
Aside from being an author, you’re a woman who has been given many labels, some of them a little unusual, such as a muse, Firestarter, and a blast through artist. But one theme that’s obvious is that you’re someone who is always inspired and on fire. Who is Dixie Gillaspie really and how does she stay fired up?
Ask anyone who knew me even as a toddler and they’ll probably tell you two things, that I was always observing, always noticing the oddest little things, and that I was always delighted by things I noticed.
So, I guess that’s a pretty good indication that that’s just my nature. But it’s also my choice, and you know when we grow up and get busy and get tired and get maybe even a little jaded we forget to notice and we think we’re “adulting” now so it would be silly to be delighted by little things. But so much of our power to create what we want comes from noticing and finding delight in what is right under our noses.
All of those labels just came from that practice, being fired up by the things I notice and then sharing that with others. Whether I’m being a “muse” to a thought leader who wants to share their most authentic message, or a “Firestarter” for someone who has let their passion get a little dim, or a “blast through artist” who’s blowing up barriers to creating whatever I choose to create – it all comes down to the practice of noticing and letting myself be inspired by what is already right there.
Your new book, ‘The Truth About Winter,’ tackles a difficult topic. What was the inspiration behind this story for you?
Yes, this topic is one that’s very personal for a lot of people. Because we’re used to talking about abuse as though it is an uncommon tragedy, when really, it’s terrifyingly common. But even people who have not experienced what we would describe as abuse have experienced trauma – playground taunting is traumatic to the child being ridiculed for instance, and that trauma gets coded up as beliefs and triggers.
Unresolved trauma becomes the foundation for more abuse, sometimes turned inward in ways that are harmful to our physical or emotional selves, sometimes turned outward in ways that are physically or emotionally harmful to others. We must learn to resolve our inner trauma so that it doesn’t cause us to harm ourselves or others.
I know many will think that the inspiration for the book was my own experience, but really it was that recognition that my experience was all too common and that the only way to make it less common was to talk about how to transform the energy and resolve the trauma.
The seeds of the events of my childhood were planted generations, even centuries, before I was born. And those ancestors may not have known what to do with their pain to keep it from being transmitted to others. But I know that we are all born alchemists, we can choose to transform the energy of the pain into the energy of love and generative creation.
That was really the inspiration for this story, the desire to remind the world that we don’t have to extend the suffering of our own experiences and we don’t have to transmit our trauma to the next generation.
Were there some parts of this book that ended up being edited out and didn’t make it to the final copy?
Any writer soon learns two important phrases, “drown your darlings” and “put it in the cut file.” In the case of The Truth About Winter, my cut file, which is just the document that holds everything I cut from this book, is almost as many words as the book itself.
Even when you know you’re not really “drowning” them, they’re not dead, just kind of put on ice, it’s hard to take them out. Some were really darlings, characters, scenes, descriptions, phrases that I loved on the page and just wanted so much to leave in. But you’ve got to be your own best critic, right?
I knew they didn’t belong in this manuscript because they just didn’t add anything to this story. Some weren’t great yet, but they could be, maybe, in another book.
Some will get resuscitated for the next book, the working title of which is The Truth About Holy Water. Some may never be read by anyone but me. But they were all worth writing. No words are ever wasted.
Can you recall an early experience where you first learned that language has power? Probably my first realization that words had power was the word “no.” It had so much power when other people said it and I didn’t like that at all.
Then I learned I could create quite an effect by using it and it’s still one of my favorite words, right up there with “yes” and “I can too just watch me.”
Seriously though, the first language that had power for me was the stories I told myself. Being raised as an only child in a small town where there were very few kids my age, I spent a lot of time observing and I discovered that everything had a story.
The growing things, the animals, the people, the houses… everything could be made into a story and the story was different depending on the language I used in my mind. That was a fun kind of secret power to have as a kid; to have the power to change the story I was in without anyone knowing I was doing it.
What is your favorite way to spend some downtime relaxing?
My bio says I’m addicted to story. That’s really more of a confession than a description. I love physical books. If I fall in love with a book, I have to own it and hold it in my hand. But I’ve finally given in to reading a lot of fiction on my Kindle.
One little device and all I can say is, “Had we but world enough and time!” I read almost any genre; history, fantasy, mystery, you name it, because I always find inspiration and learning and just pure pleasure in books.
When I’m not reading, I’m hanging out with my partner-in-all-things, Philip, and our family of two cats and two dogs, or getting out to the country or a park for some nature time or out with friends for live music or good food. If I have good company, open spaces, and music or a book I’m happy.
Her bestselling book, “The Truth About Winter,” is available on Amazon by clicking here.
