I'm Alive

Writer’s Block Revisited

So I have not written anything and posted it on my blog in months, attributing it to “writer’s block.”  If you look up the term in Merriam Webster’s website, it says writer’s block is “a psychological inhibition preventing a writer from proceeding with a piece;” this managed to provoke me into deep reflection.  Am I prevented from writing by a psychological inhibition?  Somehow that does not feel right.  So what is it then?  Lack of time, laziness, work stress, desire to do other things instead, lack of motivation…  It is too easy to pick one “excuse” and use it to not write.  Do I lack ideas?  Sometimes, but I still come up with a gem or two every week, so I have the ideas.  They often come to me while running or walking outside and then escape me when I get back to a pen and paper.  Still an excuse – I can always write an electronic note on my phone.

So why don’t I write?  My writing days, well at least not work or school related, started rather late in my lifetime, about 9 years ago.  I wrote to process feelings, of which I had many back in the day.  I wrote for recreational reasons.  I wrote to share with friends that appreciated my pieces.  I wrote in search for meaning.  Later, I wrote to express opinions and worked up the courage to post my pieces in social media and blogs.  Many pieces I posted on my Facebook page to help others heal, find insight, and to discover all the amazing things we have on our planet and in our lives, developing quite a readership back in the day.  However, when Facebook went public, they started to view these pages as revenue sources and cut back sharply the number of page followers that would see a given piece, which was discouraging.  I also tried to see if publishing firms would take one of my pieces, but no success.  As I have a day job and other demands on my life, the writing tapered.  Well, not completely as I continued to journal in my electronic diary.

A week ago, I went to my favorite journaling location and opened my laptop.  Journaled a bit.  Had a major revelation.  I was most motivated to write when I wrote from the heart.  When I was centered in the heart, I was able to stream poetry and pretty much anything I set out to write.  I was looking over my journal writings over the last two-plus years and saw that most of the time I was writing from my ego, not the heart.  Ego is the opposite of the heart.  Ego stands in the way of just about every creative ability.  Ego stifles relationships.  Ego stops growth.  Ego deludes us into thinking we are in control when we are not.  Ego deludes us into thinking everything is fine when it is not.  Not surprisingly, in 2017, I posted on my blog a grand total of two, yes, two articles.  Compare that to having three original posts in July 2018, when I was processing a major loss.

In my last post, which was six months ago, it was clear I was writing from the heart.  I was processing the feeling of being blocked, uncertain on which direction to go, but not being able to stay in place.  I wrote in that piece “…Therefore, the most important thing for me right now is to find those blockages and remove them…  Awareness is the key.  More importantly is the realization that The Universe has my back, as well as how important it is to stay awake to the messages.    We all have the power to remove the things that make us feel stuck in place with no clear direction.”  I know intuitively that I will remove writer’s block by writing from the heart and not the ego.  This removes the first barrier; then others I have not already discovered will come into awareness.  Writing may not work for everyone, but we all have activities, exercises, or creative outlets that will help discover these barriers.  Knocking down the walls ultimately leads to improvement in every aspect of our lives.