Journaling to clear creative blockages
Yesterday, while I was working at my desk, I was getting distracted and procrastinating more than usual.
I felt like I was forcing myself to work. I had something that I needed to get done, but I wasn't enjoying it.
And I just felt kind of bleh.
In my body, it felt like bloat or indigestion. Like I had something stuck in my throat. Like my pores were clogged.
This morning, I took a Moleskine journal to the coffee shop, ordered a green tea, and sat down. I've been writing for almost two hours.
I started by writing about my emotions, then I wrote about my goals, then I wrote about my plans to achieve those goals.
Now I'm just writing about whatever comes to mind. And I'm feeling a lot better.
It makes me think that my body was trying to tell me something.
I had all these thoughts stored somewhere in my system, but I was ignoring them while I worked on the other thing that I needed to get done.
As soon as I opened my journal and put the pen down on the paper, it was like I turned on a faucet. And it felt effortless. Like the words were falling out.
But what’s more interesting to me than the feat of writing for two hours is how I felt better physically as I was writing.
It’s like my body was conspiring to get me to create what I had bottled up inside.
There’s a natural flow from experience to thought to expression.
For me, I mainly express myself in words.
But it can be anything—fashion, painting, business, cooking, fitness, music, politics, landscaping, whatever.
You have an experience and you get inspired. Your gears start turning. You start thinking. The energy builds up inside of you.
And then you have to let it out.
But we don’t always let it out. We’re too busy, distracted by something else. Or we’re not even aware that the inspiration is there. It’s still forming.
Perhaps journaling is particularly effective for me because I’m a writer. There is already a trodden path in my system for the thoughts to become words.
Journaling is just one form of expression.
The general flow is experience to thought to expression.
I even wonder if thought is an unnecessary middleman.
What does it look like to go directly from experience to expression?
You see something beautiful, you go toward it.
You’re hungry, you find food.
You’re tired, you find a comfortable spot and sleep.
Life itself is art. Living is creative.
Like video footage of animals on the Discovery Channel.
Just being animals.
Fly traps catching flies.
Mountain goats climbing mountains.
Humans …
What do humans do?
We create.