What To Do About the Stress
That Keeps You From Writing
Many people feel a formidable and puzzling stress these days, and for many writers it is affecting their ability to write.
I work with lots of writers, mostly in an online course called Magical Craft of Creative Nonfiction. To work with something as dear as a person’s dream of writing means that I find out many intimate things. By “intimate” I mean that I learn information that is beyond personal, “of a person,” that verges into information shared only with intimates.
Just this week from a draft essay I learned what life is like when your 9-year-old is suddenly a Type-1 diabetic. I learned what a prison visit is like when a close family member is incarcerated for child molestation.
Always a couple of writers in any given cohort are under extreme stress. The spouse of one of my writers, with four young children at home, at the moment is in treatment for serious cancer.
To this confessional of a relationship writers bring children with autism, brain cancer in remission, kidney disease, mental illness, self-doubt—they bring all the maladies, hazards, and man-eating dragons set loose in the world.
Not Your Normal Stress
This week, however, the stress my writers are bringing to the desk is different. It’s immediate, it’s gripping, it’s consuming. Who can hear that 42 people were killed in last week’s line of storms and not feel the stress? Who can read Michael Moore’s report of Mahmoud Khalil’s illegal arrest and not feel the stress? (Trigger warning with that.) Who can hear that another child has died under circumstances of parental drug usage and remain unscathed?
How the Body Reacts
When you are in pain or stressed, adrenaline increases, followed by higher levels of the hormone cortisol. Excessive and habitual stress can destroy your health. The hormone that you want to encourage are the “feel-good” ones—dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins—that promote well-being and happiness.
A Reminder
How to tap into the feel-good hormones?
Doing things that bring you pleasure
Getting exercise
Spending time with friends
Enjoying nature
Sunning
Grounding
Resting
Sleeping
Eating healthy
My Advice Has Changed
I am one to preach Seth Godin’s advice in The Practice: Shipping Creative Work that says If you want to be a writer, then write. And, The practice requires a commitment to a series of steps, not a miracle. You have to show up. And, you can’t control the outcome. All you can control is the process.
However, these are not normal times. My advice is to be easy on yourself.
If you can stick to your process, by all means, stick to it. Write. But if stress and worry has dried up your creativity, your passion, and your motivation, then do more of the things on the list above.
Me
My life is easy. But I am feeling the stress in a major way. So I am responding.
Today, for example, I did 15 minutes of yoga while the baby played on a blanket beside me. I met my friend Stephanie for a walk, baby in a backpack carrier, at the state park in our village. I napped with the baby on my chest after we got home. I lay naked in the sun on the ground for about 10 minutes this evening while my partner, Raven, took the baby for a drive on the electric golf cart. While sunning I smelled fruit trees blooming in our little handmade orchard. I watched two bluebirds chasing each other. I talked to the mule, Tecumseh, through the wire fence.
What About Work?
Just in case you think I’m independently wealthy and don’t have to work, I’d like to list 5 things I managed to do.
At 5 a.m. I worked my way through 2 months of mail. (Before the baby woke.)
At noon I held Office Hours for the writers in my current course. (While putting a baby to sleep and then holding a sleeping baby.)
I responded to email. Made a receipt for someone who needed it for taxes.
I packaged & mailed 3 books that sold through my website. (While watching a baby.)
I planned next Sunday’s session of Journaling the Garden.
And I wrote this plea to you to go easy on yourself.
Winners of Free Books
During the Sunday Sessions earlier this year called Journaling the Way Forward, I said that I had 4 copies of Seth Godin’s book This Is Strategy to give away. Finally I have been able to put the names of folks in that course onto paper slips. I had the baby draw 4 slips. She put them immediately into her mouth, and sometimes by the time I got the paper away from her, it was slimy with saliva. The names she drew were:
Becki Clifton
Kate Ruble
Julianne Wilson
Anne Dillenbeck
I’m in the process of getting those books out the door.
You Are Invited To an Open Mic—Their Stories are Unbeatable
Journaling the Garden
The first session happened last Sunday, but these are stand-alone sessions. If you would like to join, you’ll have 5 sessions of garden journaling with me & other phenomenal guest artists plus access to the Google Drive, where you will find the recording from last Sunday & all the handouts. Handouts so far include a poem template, 2 pages of borders, a page of corners, a page of banners to draw, & a page for doing weed studies.
Let me know and I’ll get a link to you for registering. It’s by donation, so don’t worry about money.
Janisse. Thank you for this. I think a lot of us needed it. I know I did. Be well. Sending big mama love to you and the little one.
Crying and grateful. Thank you.