IM HAVING THE BIGGEST WRITERS BLOCK

what am i doing about it? nothing.

the cycle I’ve been in lately:

just going about my business, do da do, and I’ll have thoughts that I jot down to write about but nothing feels very inspiring at the moment

i’ll get this burst of feeling in the flow, or i’ll be chatting with my partner and i’ll be on a roll

then I go to sit down and write and it’s like everything shuts off

nothing is in my brain and i, all of a sudden, have no clue what to write about and i feel blank

or all of the sudden i’ll get super sleepy and have the full body sensation of, “i just can’t”

and it’s been really frustrating

and i know, for me, there are definitely trauma responses actively playing a part in this around feeling like my voice doesn’t matter, or i have nothing interesting or of value to share…in which then my nervous system is actively protecting myself from feeling

but even with all of that, i think i’m embodying something that i never quite have before

the question i’d usually want to quickly ask myself is, “so what are you doing about this?”

and the thing i would now answer, that i’m newly embodying, is that i’m not forcing myself to do anything…soooo i’m not doing anything about it, guilt free

i think about my life as a whole and how manyyyyy times i’ve forced myself to do things that i either didn’t want to do or felt like i should because it was good for me

the list would be 1,000 pages long!

we’re talking about the things that are good for you and not so good for you - in both ways i’ve lived a life of forcing myself to do things

and when that is present, there’s not much room for choice

and trust me, i understand that part of life is sometimes doing things you don’t want to do - but that can also be overdone (in my case it was) to where my point about choice still stands. and then you’re living a life made up of things that you have no clue if you actually want to be doing or not

or if you are someone, like me, who has always experienced anxiety…when i was younger i experienced crippling anxiety around making decisions and it would take me a really long time to make decisions. “too long,” according to family members, to where things were decided for me by other people. if i couldn’t decide what i wanted to do, one of the options was decided for me and i had to go along with it, even if it caused me more anxiety.

it didn’t feel like there was ever time to let myself naturally figure it out

so when it came to learning how to make decisions for myself, the conditioning i was used to was just forcing myself to do things even if i didn’t know if i wanted to do them. the thoughts would be, “just do it, you’ll be fine once you get there” or “you’ll be fine once you start” or “oh my gosh gabrielle, just hurry up and pick” - the exact words that were told to me growing up

but nowhere in there did i ever know if i really wanted to do any of it

everywhere in there was a lot of forcing myself to do things

nowhere in there did i truly know my choice

as i’ve been in a season of engaging in healing around my identity and reality, and cutting myself out of the narratives and beliefs that were put onto me to start to learn how to really live in my own system, it’s been interesting to experiment with not forcing myself to do things and being in this place where i don’t really know what things i really want to do yet

even something as simple as writing a substack post and experiencing the blank shutdown when i go to write…it’s been interesting to allow that to be there and honor it vs. what i have historically always done in overriding myself and force myself to do it anyway

it’s teaching me how quickly i want to know the answer of what to do next and how conditioned i’ve been to look like i have it all together rather then take my time and sit in the discomfort of not knowing

it’s teaching me how uncomfortable i have been to let myself exist as i naturally do or want to

it’s teaching me how often i’d rather disappoint myself than disappoint others

it’s teaching me how i never really developed the skill of how to tune in, know what i want, and make choices for my life

and it’s teaching me how my body speaks to me and it’s actually safe to honor it

i hope this writer’s block/protection mechanism passes soon

and while it’s still present, i’ll be here not forcing myself to override it and continue being open to what it’s teaching me

and hopefully we all can do a little less forcing, become a little more of a safe place for ourselves, and make room and space to get to know our choice