It's sure easy to feel like you're failing when you just can't get that one scene right, or when the word count just doesn't want to get high enough. Today I'd like to encourage you to change the way you view things from failures to MESSAGES. Specifically - messages from your nervous system.
Creating things is never just about the creation itself. It's also about our experiencing, emotions, thoughts. It's about a relationship we have with ourselves.
Let's have a look at fight-flight-freeze-flop-fawn of writing. Those are known as trauma responses, and I've made a separate post about them already. But if we take these reactions and put them in the context of our writing struggles, a lot of things may start making sense.
You sit down to write, but soon find yourself feeling frustrated. Nothing you write sounds right. You see flaws in every piece of your text and keep criticizing your creation. That's a fight response in writing.
You start writing, but instead of actually doing it, you keep checking email, cleaning space around you or start reorganizing your bookshelves instead? That's flight response.
What about freeze response? It's staring at the screen, unable to get anything down. Your fingers won't move. You feel numb, and no words are coming to you.
Flop response would be feeling utterly defeated. Your body and mind feel heavy, everything is "too much". You give up eventually.
And the last one, the fawn response? That's when while writing you shift your focus to others' opinions, obsessing over whether your writing will be liked or approved of.
As you learn how to recognize your own reactions to writing, you could try breathwork or other calming excersizes before sitting down to work on your stories. Grounding could also be helpful. And for removing any kinds of inner blocks, I strongly recommend you try out the method known as EFT tapping - you can find videos on YouTube that show you how to do it. Outside of that, I invite you to check out my post about a writing check-up.
Let's now move on from trauma responses to your inner critic. What if it's not just a mean voice in your head, but a scared part of you? In IFS therapy (Internal Family Systems) we learn that inner blocks of any kind often come from protective parts of ourselves trying to keep us safe.
Next time you hear that criticizing voice, try to understand where it could be coming from. Perhaps by saying "This is written so poorly!" it's trying to protect you from rejection. And perhaps that part saying "This is too much, you can't include that" is scared of being seen too clearly.
Try to talk to those "inner critiques" instead of criticizing and banishing them. Thank them for looking out for you. Make them feel seen and safe - and perhaps they will quiet down.
Another concept from psychology that we can use in context of writing are attachment styles. Also something I already made a post about - feel free to check it out.
Attachment style is the way you bond with others. Since writing is like bonding with an idea or a concept, attachment style can be observed there as well.
Secure attachment is when you trust the process, even if it's messy at times. You accept both critique and compliments.
Anxious attachment would be feeling you're never good enough, and therefore - your writing isn't good enough. You may edit over and over again, and search for reassurance in others.
Avoidant attachment would be resisting to edit or to get a feedback. Distancing yourself from your writing or abandoning specific stories could also be a picture of avoidance.
And in disorganized attachment, you could feel both a deep desire to write and intense fear of it. You might love your work one moment and be ashamed of it the next. Writing can come in chaotic patterns of productivity and withdrawal.
By continuing to write, celebrating small victories and having a safe space for creating you can heal your attachment to your stories. Approach it with compassion - you're doing some deep psychological work here!
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