Ugh!

The villains who’ve ravaged your sanity and triggered your questioning of your core creative nature, pummel you into uninspired oblivion. You sit in your chair behind glazed eyes. The bad eyes. Not the good eyes where you’re intricately involved in silent conversations with your characters. Not the good eyes where you’re staring at a tree but developing a world. Not the good eyes where your mind and heart race to catch up with your wild-horse imagination running pall mall into chaos.

No. The glazed eyes where you question everything you do. The bad eyes where you cannot force your fingers to stroke the keyboard. The bad eyes where you run projected conversations in your mind with those who would do you ill. The bad eyes where your heart races out of fear. Anger. Frustration. Then depression follows like a sugar crash after too many bowls of ice cream.

We allow our minds to rule us. Plain and simple. My take on this is that highly creative people become so accustomed to accessing their imagination that they allow their life to be controlled by inner voices without exerting control. I should speak for myself. I’ve come to realize one of the major blocks to my creativity are these projected conversations in my mind which I seem to allow to go on and on and on until acted upon by some external interruption. This is not healthy.

Would you like to hear what’s worse? Here goes – POSITIVE projected internal conversations are just as harmful as the negative. Believe it! I discovered this after one of my exes’ horrendous, aggressive, agitating emails. I read the words and the usual projected conversation blossomed like a mushroom cloud in my mind. I willed myself to sleep, but at 3:00 am I awoke to a heated conversation between she and I. My emotions ran ahead of the cloud which was still rising as though I had not slept a wink, rocketing into the stratosphere.

Fortunately I have been disciplining myself to get out of these useless, stressful monologues and allow them to pass me by. As I diverted the conversation out of my mind, I noted the tenseness in my jaw and hips. I noted my clinched fingers and tightened face. I noted my accelerated heartbeat.

I love realizing this stuff! I quickly settled down. I rid myself of the useless conversation which was never going to happen. I replaced the negativity with a wonderful waltz with a tall, lithe blond-haired woman. We floated across the floor. My inner smile could not have been brighter. We paused mid-floor. Our faces drew near to each other in slow-motion passion. The imminent kiss mere nanoseconds from bliss.

I awoke again with a start. I awoke to a clenched jaw. Tightened hips. Accelerated heartbeat. Clinched fingers and a tightened face. OMG! Epiphany! I realized I was projecting a scenario. A conversation in dance. The same physiological responses I’d experienced with the negative scenario repeated themselves in the positive realm. This owns serious ramifications about how I run my mind and by proxy, my life.

Projecting conversations, good or bad, yield the same stresses. So much of writing, for me, becomes a pressure release valve. An escape from the assault of the world which would have me join it in its abject insanities. Hell, I’ve been living in the realm of insanity for decades. I’ve always labeled this morass of stress as the fuel for my writing.

Truly, the stress does fuel my creative drive. I’ve discovered, thanks to a decent relationship, the ability to fuel my writing from a positive perspective. I simply did not recognize the stress levels the positive relationship dumped on me. I get it. This is my issue. I need to adjust how I deal with stress. I need to recognize that positivity may deliver the same unhealthy stresses.

On the upside, I’ve noted that I have trained myself to dive into creative-mode nearly at will. I know and trust that as soon as my fingers find the keys, they will fly along with my creativity. I do not require these lifelong stressors in order to dive into passion. When writing dialogue, I am “projecting conversations which will never happen in real life” between my characters. Just as in my internal projected conversations in “real life” which deliver stress.

Again, fortunately, I own the ability to access my emotions freely. I believe whole-heartedly that writing from emotional passion is a benefit to the manuscript. I simply no longer wish to “live” projected conversations throughout my day. I can do without that kind of constant stress.

The key for me comes down to two major items. 1) quick realization of the narrative happening in my mind and consciously jettisoning the projected conversation to the universe. This should be easy but I’ve discovered I’m already deep into a conversation in my head before I even notice. I’m getting quicker at discovering the insanity and regaining control of my mind, my health, and my life. 2) Writing. The simple act of writing allows me to play in the land of projected conversations and life scenarios. My imagination may go crazy. In effect, I am able to vent this internal narrative malady. I free my life up and I feed the projection issue to my voracious-appetite-imagination.

One of my action steps becomes making sure I do what I am presently doing – keying. You will receive this after the fact. I will have packed away the laptop, driven off from Starbucks, and nestled into a quick edit at home before striking the “Publish” button. I’ve vented well! When I do not allow myself “venting time” aka “writing time,” I invite the conversations to happen in my daily life more frequently. I sure would have loved to have known this a long time ago!

I am therefore writing myself sane. I will not allow these stressors to agitate my life and bring undesired trouble to my mind and body. I’m finding my incentive to write heightened dramatically. One thing I’ve learned in my decades of writing, if I’m struggling with something, someone else is as well. If you’re not, then I suppose this post was not for you, eh? For those who can relate. practice dumping those unproductive, destructive narratives in your mind throughout your day. Save them for your creative monster – the good monster who eats up all the bad shit going on and cranks out incredible work.

I’m feeling more sane already. And remember, in an insane society, the sane man will appear insane. Get out of the crazy-life-internal-narrative which is only making you more crazy. Write yourself sane! 🙂