Whoa! I just had one of the most illuminating free-write sessions EVER in my history of doing my 750 Words type-y, type-y, writing about writing as fast as I can, as I try to heal my years of writer’s block sessions. It is glaringly obvious to me that one of the reasons that I was able to
1.) write something
2.) write something illuminating (to me)
is because I spent 30 minutes doing a somatic nervous system lesson (involving using my own neurotools like self-massage, impact on the bones, standing regulation, breathing stuff, etc.) bringing myself not into regulation (that’s not really a thing, only a misleading marketing term) but bringing my nervous system into SAFETY.
I think that as an AuDHD woman in perimenopause, my nervous system is pretty much stuck in FREEZE more often than I'd like to admit (because I'm soooooo in touch with this stuff, I get all like, What? I still have to pay attention to this shit and get unstuck EVERY DAMN DAY?) I gotta admit that the act of writing the two big things I'm working on right now; a script, and stories for my show at Joe’s Pub in NYC on August 28th (please get tickets) is difficult for me because my nervous system doesn’t feel safe writing.
Intellectualizing it does not help. The work is in integrating what I might suspect is going on inside of my head, and allowing my nervous system to get moving, allow feelings, sensations, to be present, felt, moved through, and then that fucking relief.
I belong to this monthly membership at an incredible resource called The Rewire on this website/company called Brain Based. There are daily classes, all of it archived for on demand viewing, and I’m making a commitment to doing a class per day. I must proselytize for just a second. I had a moment of being open to doing something that my brain suggested before rebelling and I jumped at it. During a physically uncomfortable bought of writer’s block this morning, I stopped writing (not writing) and chose to address my nervous system which I suspected, based on all of the psychoeducation I've had around ‘this stuff’, that if I’m feeling this uncomfortable, I have to bring my nervous system into safety.
I was right. Thirty minutes later, I was FREE. It felt as satisfying as dipping a finger in a jar of Vaseline and twisting off a ring. I got so unstuck that I sat and wrote. And wrote. Andwroteandwroteandwrote. It looked like what writing looks like in the movies. You know, the kind of writing when someone actually sits down and types, instead of the other way to write which is to organize ice cubes in the freezer.
I wrote a rough draft, (and not too shitty either!), on a story I have been trying to crack. I figured out a way in, which is going to be the style of writing instead of the inciting incident, and even how to connect the end of that story to the beginning of a seemingly unrelated story.
BUT before all that writing, I committed to doing my free write first which left me staring at the page (screen), facing a realization about what needs to be set on fire. Had I not gotten unstuck in my body first, I'm not sure my brain would have revealed itself to me.
Here is today’s free-write:
