Your Emotional Air Mask On First: Why Writers Need To Learn To Love Themselves

I have been working with writers as a writing coach and writing mentor for over a decade and we share many common challenges.

A lot of folks don’t like to discuss writer blocks and creative anxieties, but I’m not afraid of the topic. This is well-traversed ground for myself and other writing coaches.

I’ve learned how to address many challenging situations in my own career and I have helped countless others address blocks, anxieties, and hang ups over the years as a writing mentor to many over the years.

Like monkey mind, which I discussed last month, this is not a one-time fix. It’s not like you can say, “Okay, set the timer for sixty seconds, I’m going to love myself and then all my problems will go away.”

But actually the premise of loving yourself in the short run to find a cure and prevent a slew of evils in the long run, is right on the money.

If you can love yourself for sixty seconds, then you can remember what it feels like and can probably apply the same cure—self-love—when you are under stress or suffering any time.

This is a valuable tool because when you are under stress or suffering is when you are least likely to remember that you are not all that bad. And some writers have been raised to believe many false things. Things like they are inherently bad or shameful or untrustworthy, etc.

Of course this self-love cure does not merely apply to writers. But self-love wounds seem to be prevalent in writers, which may explain the prevalence of alcoholism and addiction in the profession historically.

But most of the writers I work with are not alcoholics or addicts. You might think, then, that this would mean that they would be very self-loving and self-accepting and would feel, you know, peaceful and free most of the time.

Excuse me for a moment while I die laughing!

The people who are working with me are looking to bring more creativity into their nice calm lives (if they are calm already). And creativity is typically as disruptive and unbalancing as it is inspiring and expansive.

So, if you think you are going to bring a bunch of creativity into your life and everything is just going to be perfect and hunky-dory, you are dreaming, my friend. Because this is not how creativity rolls, not by a long shot.

Your increased creativity is very likely going to cause you upsets, frustrations, and challenges before you get to have another temporary period of integration and peace. If you are perfectionist, you are going to struggle with creativity in its essential form, because creativity does not want to be tamed by your rational mind.

Growth is messy and this applies to creative growth, especially when there is a lot of it. So, therefore, an increase in creativity in your life necessarily requires an increase in self-love and self-acceptance and self-awareness.

Times this by ten if the person is ambitious at all.

Ambitious people are often one thing: impatient. They don’t like to wait for results. And unfortunately results come from deepening your creative process. Which is going to potentially do what?

That’s right. Rock the boat.

So, long story short, creativity—real creativity, I mean, not some safe, staid formula we can all follow—but more like viewing your life as a creative adventure IS going to cause turbulence. And don’t be surprised if it not only rocks your boats but the boats of those in proximity to you, as well.

Living your life as a creative adventure is going to shake things up. Your creativity is also going to do its best to wake you up. Your creative process wants to wake you up to the person you are meant to be, a person who is actualizing her full potential and loving herself along the way.

So, be creative. Be an adventurer. Go ahead and let things get a little messy.

This is not your mother’s life. This is your life. And when life gives you bumps and bruises and disappointments—and it will if you are risking anything—let them go and give yourself more love. Set the timer for sixty minutes if you can’t remember how.

You will be so much more likely to love others in the long run, if you can love yourself through your creative growth now. Then you can become your most alive and awake self, and can model not conformity and compliance but self-love and bravery for your kids.

So if you are out of whack for any reason, and it is throwing you off your creative path. Get a timer. Set it for sixty. And spend those sixty seconds loving yourself. Then dare to do something that only a loving person can do. Dare to be your bravest self.

~ photo by ewwhite