Using What You Have

They always tell us to write what we know.  This doesn’t mean you have to know everything about something to write about it.  You can always find out.  But the truth is, the more you know, the better the piece.

Good writing requires that you put some of yourself into it.  The more integrated the writing is with who you are, the more a real person can shine through. When you write from what you have, what you’ve understood and internalized, the more wholeness, integrity show.  It’s always more believable when it’s coming from a place of knowing.  From a person you can relate to, or find common ground with.

Using what you have  – whether that’s writing, expressing love or tapping into supplies – you are sending messages of abundance to the universe.  You are saying that you are not afraid of running out of ideas, love, or pens.  Abundance principles teach that this simple act of using, multiplies.  The more you think you have, the more you have.  Ideas, in particular, are of a group which increase as you use them.  Muscles – body and mind – increase with use.

Objects which stay hidden, on the other hand, and are not used, create a drain. That creates a clog of some sort. In your mind or your life.  Things that are not used, not only take up physical space, but also psychic space.

If we are stingy with ourselves, we will be stingy with our writing.  Use what you have.  Give stuff, writing, love, time, ideas and whatever you can freely, and watch it increase.

Waiting Here for You

Sometimes I find myself waiting for inspiration. I don’t know what to write, what to say about what I’m preparing to write.  It’s almost as if my mind goes blank!  Where has my muse gone?

Now, I don’t believe in the term Writer’s Block.  For one thing, it’s not something that happens exclusively to writers. (Though writers may be more sensitive to it than some, we also carry effective tools for dealing with it.)  Secondly, I don’t like imagining it as something as solid as a block.  I’ve found it a lot more malleable.

The opposite of waiting is flow.  So the best way to get things flowing again is to stop waiting and move in a different direction.

Sitting and suffering when things are stuck isn’t going to get the crops to grow again.  You don’t have to wait for everyone else to act, for all conditions to be perfect.  In some very difficult cases, taking action toward therapy may be what’s needed.  There are stories of those who sought to take action through drugs or drink, with less than adequate results.  But most of us can just get off our duffs and do something about it.  There are plenty of simpler, more healthy things that will do the trick.  The means are open to anyone, too, whether writer or not.

The key is to find something else to occupy your mind for awhile. Very often a walk, preferably outside, can open the channels again.  Just changing rooms could spark a few things. Anything which changes your perspective, can free your mind from the illusion of the block.  Taking action primes the pump for creative ideas to flow.   I like using music, especially live music.  Moving to music always inspires me!  Some may prefer a bath or shower.  Julia Cameron says that creativity is a spiritual issue.  It’s not about ego.  Anything you can do to ease your mind, find a place of peace in the situation, will support your creativity for whatever is needed.

As writers, we can bust through by putting pen to paper or fingers to keys and writing.  Anything at all.  It matters not what.  The physical act of writing can open lots of pathways. You don’t even have to be a writer to do it.  It’s perfectly acceptable to write that you can’t think of anything to write (or what to do about something), that you have no clue where to even start. In a few sentences you may be saying something like, “Well, I could do this …” and before you know it, you’re writing!  (Or painting, or composing, or looking into going back to school.)  I always support writing it out.

The lesson is that waiting does nothing to help the situation and there are a whole slew of actions you can take which do help.   Kristen Moeller wrote in her intriguing book “Waiting for Jack” asking, What are you waiting for?  It’s a study of why it just doesn’t pay to wait.  How many wonderful things you miss!  How not waiting can put you somewhere you’d never imagined.

In many ways we’ve become ingrained in waiting. Waiting in line, waiting for others to show up or do something, waiting for our favorite show to come back with a new season.

It seems to me that waiting tightens.  It interferes with free movement.  One could say, quite dispassionately, that they are waiting for a bus.  But more often than not our waiting is accompanied by feelings of anxiety.  Will the bus be on time?  Will I get a seat . . . ?  And therein lies the culprit.

The bad feelings we get around waiting do Nothing to open the way for the line to move faster, your friend to show up sooner, or writing to come. In fact, I would say, energetically, the more angst you produce, the more constricted the flow, and the longer you have to wait.

The quickest way to get over waiting is to just do it, if you can. When you’re able to move again, the anxiety slips away.  If you can’t do it, see if there’s some place to release the negative feelings.

Acceptance of where you are and what’s going on can eliminate plenty. Very often the simple act of acknowledgment that words (money, solutions) are not coming jogs things loose.  If we can just stop waiting and take some kind of Action  ~ even mentally releasing the present moment to be what it is ~ we are surprised by how things get going again.