I really don’t know what I am doing with this whole writing lark. Keep writing they say. Don’t worry about marketing, SEO, subscribers, unsubscribers, stats, blah blah blah… I have no idea what most of it means. I only know I want to write. I stop and start. I stop again. Fear impregnates my gut and stifles and paralyses me.
What did I say I would write about? What did I promise? Am I doing it right?
Photo by Paolo Nicolello on Unsplash
I look at my previous posts but no inspiration comes today. I said I would write this or that but today I don’t feel it.
All I know is I want to write and I want to do it to the best of my ability. I want to express what is hidden inside me. I want to be really free with expressing myself and yet something holds me back. Sometimes I realise, having half written a post, that I have included, as part of the story, uncomfortable things about others or my relationships with others. Then I have to pause and make a choice whether to post and share. Whether to risk hurting others. Maybe even risk losing a relationship or at the very least changing it. Even though that’s never my intention.
The passion to express is just so great. It wants to burst forth. Gallop on. Keep going and going and going.
It’s not straightforward this writing lark. What wants to be expressed is so personal. But it’s where my passion sits and where my interest lies. In the human condition. How we get stuck. How we get unstuck How we live a more truly satisfying life.
This week I have been reading a novel and found myself getting excited as the author described the flat that one of the characters was living in. He’s an artist and it sounded like there were many, many papers and sketches, hanging around the rooms. Disarray but in an ordered kind of way. His studio even more so. Being able to explore and play and never put things away. Having a project on the go and every note or idea being in that space until the project has been completed or abandoned. The freedom to have that space thrills me!
I imagined what it would be like to have a space like that for myself. A shed in the garden. Insulated with a small log burner and lots of windows for light. Paints, brushes, pencils, charcoal. Where making a mess didn’t matter. Getting paint on the floor didn’t matter. My ideas pinned to the walls and in note books. I could feel the joy in my bones. I could see sketches of people’s faces. Colourful landscapes. Piles of rejected papers. Not wasted but research. :) And lots and lots of colour.
In the past I wouldn’t have noticed it. That feeling of longing.
Are you willing to FEEL ALL THE FEELS?
I let it linger. Let it grow. Warm and knowing. It felt so good to imagine myself in that space. To be doing something I love to do with no interruptions. Just playing and exploring and getting down on paper or canvas my feelings, my emotions and what it is that wants to be expressed Through me.
I remember… Receiving is feeling. Feeling is receiving.
To receive the juicy stuff we need to be willing to receive the unpleasant stuff too.
Following the nudges. Noticing the impulses.
I started to have ideas for how I might create that space for myself to be a real artist. Then I started to listen to a podcast. It’s one I’m familiar with but the format was slightly different this time. A real artist being interviewed and sharing her giant enthusiasm and confidence that has grown in just 5 years. And she has school age children! I could feel her energy. Her voice, ‘I am an artist.’ How she makes it a priority. How she’s setting up her life so that when the children grow up she has this phenominal career to focus on and challenge her.
But after these two things coincided, (Oh and another I forgot. An interview with Alanis Morisette! How self expression is a core value for her -as it is for me) and I KNOW once again, I am SURE once again that this is what I must do whether I fail or succeed.
We need inspiration and three times in two days I got it. We need to follow the clues, the impulses that others have told us to ignore. They don’t come as big passions for most people but breadcrumbs we must notice and follow.
I was doubting you see. I was doubting that writing and sharing here was worth it. I was telling myself that people aren’t really interested in what I have to say. I was telling myself that I don’t really have anything of value. I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself but was having a real drop in confidence. I noticed how I tried to suppress that uncomfortable feeling. The pang of fear that wanted to dominate.
And I tried to deny the warmth and passion of meeting the energy of my True Self. My true desires.
For it is the doing of it that I most enjoy and is most important. I KNOW that. Today I know it with every fibre of my being. And I must do it more and more and more. I must write. I must paint. I must create. It is the very essence of who I am and who I want to be in the world. It is what’s going to make my life vibrant going forward. What DOES make my life vibrant right now!
I am fired up. Warmth literally in the centre of my body. A yearning to share all I have. No one telling me anymore not to be so silly. Not to make a fool of myself. Not to waste my time. Not to make a nuisance of myself. That people aren’t interested in what I have to say. Of course those voices are still in my head. From my childhood. From my teens. From all the years since of being responsible and practical. Sod that! The children are grown up.
What do I have to lose? What do you have to lose?
I flit from one thing to another. So many things I could write. What do people want to hear. What do people need to hear? The old programming slipping in. Shutting me down. Making me work out in my head how to please everyone else.
Instead of following my gut. My passion. Pleasing myself. Filling up my inner well of creativity. Making me want to leap for joy. Splash in puddles. Have belly giggles whilst rolling on the floor.
What I want you to know (about me/about you)
I just want you to know that I am unfurling. My body is unravelling from being shut down. From being in freeze. From hiding my True Self so I can keep myself safe.
Most of the trauma I have kept a lid on has been tied up in my middle. This area of my body locked down for years. Still being functional, I was unaware of this for most of my life. The unfurling is not particularly comfortable and sometimes even physically painful. In the past I have tried to push it. To speed it up. This time I have more patience. I am careful, as my body re-adjusts, to take care of myself. It’s fragile right now and needs time even though it’s stronger in many ways. I don’t want to set it back again. I breathe into the dull places making a little more space. I listen with my hands. My muscles ache but I know they’re getting stronger bit by bit.
The solar plexus holds the third chakra. I don’t know much about chakras but I do know that this third one is about boundaries and willpower. My will has been what’s kept me stuck in many ways. I have used it to internalise my feelings and turn unpleasant experiences on myself. Like a pressure cooker lid keeping it all in.
With an iron will I shook with the tension of holding it all in when I met the driver who caused my son’s death 15 years ago. But that’s not the only time. There have been many many times when I have done this without realising. I have held on to my true feelings to protect others. And I didn’t realise that I could have expressed myself safely in other ways. Could have got it out of my system. But I didn’t and it’s no use beating myself up about it now as I have been apt to do.
Instead I notice, I notice, I notice. I feel, I feel, I feel. I allow. I wonder at it. Sounds sometimes come out spontaneously. A growl or roar. A hiss. A scream. Sobs… It doesn’t go on forever as I had feared. It stops spontaneously. No drama. No need to analyse or tell anyone.
It might be followed by a chuckle at myself. Playfulness helping me stay curious. Curiosity keeping me sane. Stopping me judging myself.
It might be followed by nothing of interest. Just quiet. And then getting on with all the practicalities of life. Because there are always things to do. Things that must be done in order to live. Things we choose to do in order to live well.
I want to tell you that it is possible to live a more free life. To feel more alive. To feel satisfied and contented. Wholesome and full of heart.
I want you to experience what it’s like to follow your own inner compass. To feel the deep pleasure that brings. I want to see that light that beams from your smile knowing this. Feeling this.
I want us to feel what it’s like when a whole community comes together and expands the energy of fulfilled people. The confidence it brings to be part of a Tribe a Community that are all singing from the same page. I want us to go about our lives, go out into the world with that Radiance. A rebellious, defiance if you like but soothed with an inner knowing of how things can be. And not to conform to a way of life just because that’s how it’s always been, that’s what we have to do, that’s what we’ve been told, that’s what suits...
Do you want that too?
Over the next few weeks I want to share some resources to help you unfurl, to alleviate the trauma, the suppression, repression, fear and anxiety. To help you begin to follow your own intuition and start or continue to expand into your True Self more and more and more.
I might forget. I might not feel inspired. I might need reminding. ;)
Hold meaccountable if you like. If you’re interested. If something’s sparked in you today. Ask me a question. Tell me your story. Hit reply and email me directly in confidence or
Read this with great empathy.
I realised when I finished reading that I was holding my breath, realised because you describe the tension in your stomach during the awful, traumatic events that you have faced.
Then I remembered to breathe. I then thought about the chronic, isolating insomnia I had during my first pregnancy, triggered by the appalling attack on the Twin Towers ( I discovered years later ) I subconsciously needed to stay awake until my baby was safely born. Other instances come to mind
where I’ve felt panicked by not being able to breath and not realised why and how that was a response to fear, but also anger and outrage.
Thank you for that enlightenment Karen and your honesty and commitment ❤️
I felt all of this to my bones. And I’m truly sorry you lost your son.
My youngest is about to go travelling - I am excited for him and also, it will feel like a big hole. I cannot imagine what you went through and this has helped me put my situation into perspective.
I want to create, write, paint but rarely do. When my middle son starts travelling too next year, there may be more space to embrace my creativity. I loved this piece, thank you.