I Want to Write

I want to write. I want to write so much! I want to express myself. I have things to say and what stops me is, I'm afraid I will not be good enough. I can't spell and not the best at grammar. The desire to write is stronger than my fear of failing or making a mistake. I also know that the best way to get good at something is to do it over and over and keep coming back.

 I watched a documentary about the musician Prince on YouTube about what habits made him a prolific writer of music. If he was awake, he was creating art, making music. He recorded each song in one session preferring the raw emotions that came with the first recording over buffering out the mistakes with rerecording. He went for quantity over perfection.

 I am writing all the time in personal journals and lately I've been participating in a new writing group that features stream of conscious writing, both have given me the space to write freely without judgment and teaching myself to trust the words that flow out of my pen and really say what is on my heart by just letting the words flow onto the page. I want to write every day. I want to publish it on my blog. My heart flutters a little at the thought, I hear my inner voice ask, every day? public where everyone can see? How about we write everyday but only post your favorites my inner voice says but this project is not about perfection or about showcasing my best writing. It's about giving myself permission to speak and do it widely and freely. It’s about if I am awake, I am speaking my truth, playing and making art. Publishing it online is about allowing myself to show up as I am.

Writing, speaking my truth and truly showing up authentically scares me and gives alot of anxiety about the what ifs and how this could flop. I had an idea recently about areas of life that give me anxiety. It has been my habit to avoid the activities that cause me great anxiety, it wasn’t completely conscious more like an electric fence that shocks when I get too close to a topic that is filled with high expectations, shame and inner beratement.  It is my belief that in these areas where anxiety hums and discharges a shock, it indicates a live electric internal fence…these fences were created by either someone making us feel insecure or alternatively we were not given the space to explore and grow in some areas, maybe we were not given the encouragement, or someone told us it was a waste of time.

 My approach has always been to avoid the things that give me anxiety or where I feel insecure because I didn’t want to attract both external or internal shame or beratement that came from going into these areas but avoiding these areas also didn't help because it was making my world smaller. I love life and I want to do everything; I don't want to be limited by anxiety or insecurity. Every time I have figured out a way to get around my anxiety charged electric fence I have been met with relief and an expanded personal freedom.

I had an idea that came to me, it was that I have an obligation to myself, to do all the things that I was made to feel anxious over, all the things that made me feel insecure and do them while being the parent, teacher and mentor I needed when I was younger. It sounds like giving myself permission to do the things the spark interest. It sounds like encouraging myself to do the things that I am unsure about or scare me a little bit.  It sounds like talking to myself, into my dreams, instead of out of them. It sounds like talking to myself, through my dreams, to the expanded world beyond anxiety.

It begins with writing. It begins with listening to my heart say I want to write. It might sound weird, or backwards but just letting myself write free I find the words to speak my truth. It begins by writing wildly, freely, letting my pen fly and seeing what comes with each topic. It begins with letting go of trying to plan and control what I write about. In a short amount of time that have been in my writing group I have been amazed at how just letting myself write, without any plans, without an outline, I manage to say what I have been dying to say. I find the words and finally feel satisfied.

  I want to write more about the insights that I get through facing my anxiety and emotions. I have been afraid of many things. I have felt deep sorrow and emotional pain. I have felt deep joy and renewing of spirit that comes from healing from hurt and sorrow.  I want to write about all of it. I want to write about what has helped me. I want to write about joy. I want to write about laughter. I want to write about play. It all begins with waking up and deciding to write and create or do whatever it is in my heart to do and do it.

I have begun many times before only to be frozen by fear, unable to take the next step, after the first. When doing something new or something that scares me, I have learned to be conscious with each step, slowing down, breaking down each step into micro steps, paying attention to my physical sensations noticing where I am getting jolts of anxiety and worry that I am doing it wrong, that I should retreat and stop and instead breathing into it and encouraging myself that I am doing great and to move forward. I use to think that beginning something new was equivalent to leaping off a cliff, I don’t think so anymore in fact if it feels like a cliff I now think that I am doing too much at once and it is a clue that I need to break it down smaller focusing on each small step forward. Each new step might be scary, but I can offer myself steady support. I am both the one taking the next steps and the one offering steady support and encouragement. This way makes each step forward, each pause, each breath a part of forward movement and with each step I gain self-confidence which is a new beginning of its own, walking past anxiety into the open expanded world of dreams begun.