Finding Your Flow – What Do You Need to Break Through Resistance?
I’m not a believer in astrology, but as I glanced over this week’s newsletter from the Omega Institute, I found this February horoscope for Virgos:
“Completion is a spiritual discipline. As a child, I procrastinated every time I had a big deadline or presentation for fear of getting something wrong. My mom used to say, "If you can do this, you can do anything." I offer this same message to you, Virgo. After February 3, all planets are going direct, meaning it's time to finish what you started. More importantly, complete what you most fear to begin. Every time we sit down at our desk, work out in the garden, or show up at the theater for rehearsal, we enter into meditation. So, think of what you most resist but what you know you need to do. Develop a disciplined plan for implementation.”
Hey, ouch. I feel called out here. After a strong start in January, I definitely feel like I’m waffling in a lot of areas of my life at the beginning of February.
This is a tough time for many of us. The energy and resolute enthusiasm we brought to the new year has faded. Winter, dark and cold for anyone in the north, is going to drag on for rather more than six weeks, whatever the groundhog may see. The holidays are long over, summer is forever away.
I’m trying to figure out a writing project I thought I had set in my mind. I’m putting together something big for Set Your Muse on Fire that I hope people will like. I find myself avoiding writing and business projects, because making decisions, taking action, means making a commitment.
I hate making decisions, partly from fear it won’t turn out perfectly, and partly from fear of missing out on all the other options.
Right now, my public morning writing hour on Zoom is keeping me accountable to my writing. I have no excuse. I’m not doing anything else but wrestling with this story. It’s keeping me from wussing out on writing – putting off until tomorrow and the day after, and the day after that, what I need to be doing today. Knowing there are other people there as well, wrestling with their own writing, is surprisingly helpful.
It’s common to feel resistance to writing. We are our own worst judges of our work – not just the writing itself, but our approach to it, how much or little we do of it, whether we have a right to do it at all...
Resistance, and the sneering judge that instigates it, come from the oldest part of the brain, the part that evolved first and foremost to alert us to real physical danger in the environment. It’s valuable to know when an actual tiger might be about to pounce on you.
However, the writing tiger is a paper one. We won’t actually die if we sit down to write. Our ancient lizard brain doesn’t know this, though. It treats all danger equally (if mine could be as alert to and avoidant of sugar as it is writing, I’d be much healthier). Danger=danger, as far as it’s concerned.
It’s only parts of the brain that developed much later that can sort through all that *Danger* stimuli and enable us to see what is truly threatening to us, vs. merely threatening to our ego. This is the part that allows us to plan, to strategize, to see projects through to completion.
If the energy that carried you through January is flagging, and you’re in danger of making February #Failbruary, now is the time to take action:
Before you write, sit in the chair and just be present in your body. Close your eyes. Breathe deeply. Feel your feet on the floor. Feel the textures of whatever your fingers are touching. Notice the sounds you hear. Notice how your body is feeling – where is it tight or sore? Pay attention to your breath going in and out of your body, even for two minutes. Grounding yourself in this way allows you to get out of your head and reconnect with your intention.
Revisit your writing goals, and your commitment. Do they need adjustment? Or re-affirmation?
Be kind to yourself. Don’t beat yourself up if you aren’t meeting your own expectations. (Don’t you avoid people in life who make you feel bad about yourself? You’ll avoid writing too if it becomes just another occasion to feel judged.)
Give yourself credit for showing up. Ask yourself what you need to do to be productive today. (Or do you need a day off, for real?)
Ask yourself what support you need to keep moving toward your writing goals. A class? A community? Daily inspiration? A buddy to check in with?
We can let resistance stop us, or we can simply find ways to work around it, like a river finding its path no matter what the obstacle. It’s that daily momentum, showing up again and again, that counts. Eventually something gives, the dam breaks, and we find our flow.
