It’s called a practice for a reason

Truth time: I hate that I am being called to write.

Today it feels like I could write an entire book convincing anyone that no-one is interested in what I have to say. It’d feature chapters on why it's a profound waste of time to write, why I’m glad other people do it but clearly am unqualified, personally. I’d site every single grammar teacher who marred my paper with red ink as reason enough to leave such pursuits to the professionals. Can you relate?

It’s dreadful, writing.

And yet… my soul is over here, all, “You gotta. Sorry ‘bout it.”

Fellow writer, is your soul also a perplexing jerk? Insisting you do something that leaves part of you racked with doubt and serious fear of being forever cringe?

Here’s how a writing day sometimes goes: I sit down to write. Instantly, I am greeted by the breadth, depth, girth and weight of my self defeating belief structures. Humble brag warning: mine are massive.

Somedays they sound a lot like the narrative featured above. Other days, I sit there, pen in hand. My desire to write something charming and delightful bubbles to the surface. Then, like a tsunami of suffering, created by a seismic shift in the depths of the ocean, my own criticisms, limitations, doubts and fears come barreling toward me. They threaten to engulf me. Dare me to try to out swim them and not die. I brace myself for impact and wonder when I’ll be able to enter the writing flow without fear of drowning in my reasons not to.

For a lot of us, this is why developing a consistent writing practice can feel so daunting.

The younger generations openly call this a “trauma response.”

I don’t care what you want to call it. It is not pleasant or easy to manage. Cultivating community, where we normalize artistic doubt/process, has been my greatest strategy in weathering this routine experience. It doesn’t eliminate the onslaught, but helps me feel less alone with it.

Writing, for my money, is the brave practice of self discovery. As a writer working to organically grow her own writing practice, there are days I don’t want to have to face all of myself. Especially those pesky inner protectors who think it is their job to discourage me before I even begin. Somedays, my protectors win. I can’t summon the will to prove them wrong. I choose to remain blocked and frozen. I choose to hide from myself and call it safety, even though it is in defiance of my soul’s deeper calling for knowing and embracing all of us.

Being a blocked artist holds its own perils. Prolonged disconnection from our own life force can be deadly. What if there was another way?

Using the AWA method, I can choose, instead, to not focus on my ego’s desired outcome, but allow myself to simply begin writing for the sensation of getting words down on the page. Once I share those words back to fellow writers, and hear from them how resonate and interesting they are, I build trust in my own voice and the act of writing itself. Writing starts to feel like a conversation between me and the unknown instead of a way to prove my worth and value because I’m such an accomplished word putter-downer.

My soul gets revealed to me, slowly over time and satisfaction comes from having the courage to face those doubts and fears, if only for the time I am actively writing. AWA gave me the tools to practice using the muscle of beginning. I learned I can practice freaked and my fears diminish the more often I set out to write anyway.

How have you been feeling about your own writing practice lately? Are you thinking about joining us for a fall workshop?