Creative blocks, fear, and acceptance
An in between week of dealing with a big block with acceptance
I have a story I need to tell, but what I’ve discovered this week is I’m not ready to share it. That is really annoying because I’ve spent hours talking about this situation in therapy and part of me feels like I should be able to write about it too. But that day is not today and I’m more or less at peace with where I am emotionally about it. I’m angry and frustrated and scared and all of that sucks. But I also need to deal with those feelings to get to a place of safety within my body to be able to deal with what I haven’t fully dealt with. I know that’s vague, but that’s all I’m comfortable writing here today.
I had an entire post written about my fear that me writing about my ex is punishing him. I came to the conclusion it isn’t because I haven’t shared his name, I have shown him compassion, every example I’ve used of choices he made that hurt me was in service of me figuring out my own shit, and I have a right to tell my life stories, even when they cast others in a negative light. I don’t think I’ve shamed him at all, and my biggest hope for him is that he loses any shame he has about himself that lead to, what I consider, poor choices. I truly hope that if anyone who has read about him through me happened to learn who he is, that they would show him compassion and give him grace, even if they agree with me that his reason for ending our relationship was gross.
I came up with my own ethics of writing about others, which was more difficult than I thought it would be. I’m going to read a bit more about the ethics of memoir writing in the coming weeks. But writing all that was me trying to work around my fear of what I want to write, but so far can’t. I was more or less ready to publish on Monday, and instead I spent the day researching e-ink devices, which I cannot afford at all! I put like, 5 different ones in shopping carts and thankfully stopped myself from purchasing them, but still. Destructive and potentially dangerous behaviour. That continued today with wide toe-box, no drop shoes and I even have an email from a company asking why I’ve abandoned my shopping cart. I went as far as giving them my email account! Ahh! I thankfully realized that I was using shopping to avoid my feelings before spending any money.
I’ve started The Artist’s Way course again this winter with Molly Knight. Week one deals with creative blocks, so it’s fitting that I’ve discovered this massive one that has really derailed my life a number of times. I apologize again for writing around it. Probably I’ll get to it someday, but this is a situation that deep down has me believing I don’t deserve success. I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop and that really terrifies me! I think I just need to put the story out there myself, in my own words, and let whatever happens happen. I imagine some people might be angry at me for writing about it and others might be angry at me for not writing (or speaking) about it sooner. But for me, it’s a wound that has never properly healed and I need to cut out the rotting edges. I need to analyze it under this paradigm of apologizing and forgiving, or not, with the goal of fulfilling needs and respecting boundaries.
In my self-compassion group this week we discussed acceptance, and how acceptance doesn’t mean one is happy with the situation, but instead seeing it clearly. Once it is accepted, it can be dealt with. I have come to accept that this experience from my past still has me trapped. I’m living in a net of fear and I don’t want that anymore. I don’t want to numb my feelings with shopping debt. I don’t want to be afraid to finish and publish a novel because I might get well-known and have this situation brought up at an inconvenient time. I don’t want to keep waiting to find out that the worst case scenario came true and then punish myself for not stopping something out of my control. I can’t control what others do and I can’t control how others perceive me, but I want to start accepting what happened. I want to see what my life could look for if I stopped punishing myself.
I’m really tempted to apologize for this newsletter, but I’m not going to. I want to show the messy in between steps. I want to honour that what I’m doing isn’t easy, and that if you have any bottled up emotions or memories, it’s okay to let them unfold in steps. It’s okay for me to accept that I don’t like my mental state right now, because accepting that means I’ve found the ladder that will take me out of this pit of sticky despair and fear. Somewhere down hear is a fallen headlamp, and once I’ve got that firmly in place on my head, I’ll be able to safely climb the ladder out. That’s my plan and hope.
My picture of Seffi for this newsletter is also true - she wants all the attention in the morning, so I’m working on figuring out a new schedule that incorporates her needs. I am also, as I mentioned, doing the 12 week Artist’s Way group and we meet on Mondays. Since my brain works to deadlines, I’m going to switch my publishing day for this newsletter to Thursdays so I can do last minutes exercises for the course on Monday and not feel overwhelmed. I hope these accommodations help me out and aren’t a bother for you.