Effective Writing Help: How to Deal with Writer’s Block

A Journey of Truth, Transformation, and Self-Discovery

You don’t feel driven to write.

You tag the experience as writer’s block.

And you’d be right.

The search for help to overcome the writer’s block curse begins.

You hate it. Annoying isn’t it?

Check this out:

What if you look at writer’s block as a gift, and love it.

The process is a beautiful mess.

Even though it’s a wonderful gift, it’s simple, but not easy to deal with what writer’s block brings.

What’s This Post About?

The purpose of this article is to help you make expressive writing and self-inquiry a habit. Thus, you’ll overcome the writer’s block because you have gone to the root of the situation and face it.

We are going to cover:

– What Causes Writer’s Block?
– What Expressive Writing Can Do for You?
– How to Get Rid of Writer’s Block
– Why Does Expressive Writing Work?

This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy for more information.

What Causes Writer’s Block?

Writer’s block, easier to identify, shows up as a lack of skill and there’s no other way than to learn the craft.

More difficult to identify is the writer’s block that has nothing to do with our writing. It blocks our creativity and forces us to dig deeper into our subconscious mind.

According to Dr. John Sarno, author of Healing Back Pain, the subconscious mind processes written and oral language.

Dr. Sarno explains the subconscious as “the place where all sorts of feelings may reside, not all logical, not all nice, and some of them downright scary.”

Don’t be scared.

Laraine Herring, the author of On Being Stuck, states writer’s block is a “safety belt, keeping you from crashing through the windshield.”

Here is the point:

Whatever is causing your writer’s block begins and ends in the subconscious mind.

How to deal with it?

Janet Conner, the author of Writing Down Your Soul, explains we have an individual and a collective subconscious.

So we have to deal with our personal history and also the starving artist portrait for so long in our society.

Meditation and writing journaling give us access to the subconscious mind. Writing journaling includes expressive writing and self-inquiry.

You have to ask lots of questions to retrieve the information from the subconscious mind. Moreover, questions that lead to other questions with no right or wrong answers.

As you can ponder the process is endless, it’s up to you to make it a habit.

– How to Develop Self-Discipline: 7 Simple Ways

What Expressive Writing Can Do for You?

Mark Matousek, the author of Writing to Awaken, conveys expressive writing has boundless amazing positive benefits that improve physical and mental health.

– Psychological empowerment
– Emotional healing
– Social Intelligence
– Increased well-being
– Creative growth
– Spiritual awareness

Expressive writing helps us heal repressed emotions in a safe environment. Dr. John Sarno advised his patients not to repress their emotions especially anger. He affirmed tension and unexpressed emotions could cause back pain.

Word of caution:

Expressive writing is therapeutic. It helps to deal with anxiety, depression, stress, etc.

But severe cases should consider professional advice. Some professionals use writing and/or art journaling as a way of healing trauma.

Writing to Awaken: A Journey of Truth, Transformation, and Self-Discovery by Mark Matousek

How to Get Rid of Writer’s Block

Expressive writing allows a safe environment to deal with emotions.

Free-writing and self-inquiry help expressing repressed emotions without hurting ourselves or somebody else.

If you are looking for a muse:

Matousek refers to the subconscious mind as the muse.

Guidelines for expressive writing according to Mark Matousek:

– Don’t pay attention to grammar, syntax or elegant prose.
– Tell the truth.
– Bring the desire to transcend your story.
– Maximum one-thousand words per response, “to help distill the writing and train your mind no to wander too much.”
– Breakthrough resistance. Stick with the practice even though you feel discomfort.
– Write in the same place and at the same time every day, at least five consecutive days a week.
– Enjoy your solitude.
– Use meditation, yoga, or any practice to help you to settle the mind. Five minutes is enough.
– Show up. If you can’t write, write about not being able to write.

In Writing to Awaken, Matousek shares 48 writing prompts for you to check what’s blocking your life and your writing.

To start, you can use the first writing prompt “The Creation Myth.”

Mark Matousek’s father left him when he was four years old. In the sake to fill the gap that’s an absent father, he hired a detective. He didn’t find out what happened to his father. But he wrote the book The Boy He Left Behind based on his experience.

In ‘The Creation Myth’ Matousek explains it doesn’t matter how much it’s true; what’s important is how we remember it.

Exercise:

Imagine the moment of your own conception. “Describe the atmosphere in detail, including your parent’s emotional, spiritual, and physical lives.”

Look into your parent’s relationship, “How has your parent’s legacy impacted your story? Do you see yourself as a product of love? Accident? Obligation? Confusion?

Do you identify more with your mother or your father? If it was possible for children to choose their parents, why might you have chosen yours?”

The story is in our subconscious mind even if we are unaware. Furthermore, to cover our story, our memories and the labels we associate with it have an impact on “who we believe we are and place limits on our potential.”

When we uncover our story, we “become the story-teller, not the story.”

Why Does Expressive Writing Work?

Writing forces you to slow down and allows your mind and heart to open.

Mark Matousek and Janet Conner wrote, talked and shared their experience. But, they remarked you don’t need to share your story to receive the benefits of expressive writing.

When you are ready, you’ll have the right people around you to understand your predicament.

By practicing expressive writing, we’ll get the gift of being more us and to live fully in the present moment.

You could have setbacks. It’s OK. It’s a sign of progress. Matousek acknowledges “the nearer we get to insight, the more our shadow will rise up to stop us.”

“You’ll see positive as well as negative stories concealed there, gifts as well as destructive elements,” Matousek recalls.

Listen:

The subconscious is part of ourselves. So we are dealing with it no matter what. It’s better to access our deepest self and make friends there.

One effective way to overcome writer’s block is to work on your shadow self. If you refuse to deal with your psychological shadow, a projection will take place. You’ll end marrying, working or befriending it. There is no way to avoid inner work.

Summing Up

“As writers, we must learn to enjoy our own company.” Writes Matousek. Free-writing is cathartic and powerful to change our lives if we make it a daily practice.

As Matousek states, “you can always write your way back to centre.” After all these practices, we find a long-lost friend.

What’s important to accomplish?

Heal your subconscious mind.

I have used three techniques with amazing results:

Meditation, expressive writing, and forgiveness.

Now you are ready to say bye to writer’s block.

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Author Mark Matousek
Writing to Awaken: A Journey of Truth, Transformation, and Self-Discovery
Published by Reveal Press; 1 edition (July 1, 2017)
ISBN: 978-1626258686

ARC by NetGalley