From the archive: Stuck In Our Thoughts

As human beings in modern society, we no longer live in an environment where we are called upon to use our instinctual drives- to respond physically to danger, or to pro-create in order to survive.

We crave that sense of flowing energy, of aliveness. Unable to access this it, we try and use our rational minds as a substitute. They make a poor substitute. Human minds have a tendency to over-activity. They scroll repetitively through the same issues. They overanalyze, they worry, they are anxious. Imagine, for example, you are writing. Just as you feel the words start to flow, the telephone rings.

Instead of taking pro-active action to either answer the phone and deal quickly with the caller, or, to ignore it and carry on writing, the thoughts proliferate. I wonder who that is? Should I answer it? If I answer it that’s the end of my writing for the day. But if I don’t answer it, well, it might be Jimmy needing my help, or Gran, or it might be that new neighbour locked out of her house. I’m not sure what to do. Damn it, I’ve wrecked the writing now anyway! And round we go.

All this rumination uses up energy that could be channeled into the action of writing. It also keeps us trapped in a loop of hyperarousal that is not fulfilled. We freeze in body and mind. Energy is not released on the page, but remains trapped. The story cannot form itself fluidly and naturally. The words do not live on the page. Instead they mirror the state of our body and mind. They are static and lifeless.

The experience of being frozen is commonly referred to as ‘writers’ block’.

Some of us know the extreme form of this, when we unable to think, to get our hands to move on the keyboard, or when we stare for hours at the blank page. Many more of us, however, experience it in more subtle ways, as a sense of creative frustration, or just as an inability to get power into our writing.

 The Weekly Prompt

 Thinking of writers’ block as a physical, rather than a mental state can help us to address it. When you next write, notice any moments when you feel ceased up, frozen, or static in your body. Conversely, also notice any times when you feel movement, or flow in your body. This is the beginning of the process to free the wild words.

This article was first published on August 22nd 2013