Bruce L. Bair Physician’s Assistant and Wellness Coach, interviewed me for his radio show, “Ask an Expert Anything.” This interview aired November 4th and I’ll publish excerpts of the transcript in several parts, edited for readability.
In this segment, I explain the different resources that Create Write Now offers to help you get over your resistance and put the pen to the page.
B: Bruce Bair M: Mari L. McCarthy
B: Now Mari, one of the things you talk about, as we’re discussing these things here at the end, you said the words “get out of your own way.” You also said the words “get to the page.” So, how does someone go about getting out of their way and getting to the page? What do they do at home to get out of their own way?
M: I would like to offer a couple of avenues. On Facebook I've set up a Create Write Now / Journaling for the Health of It! TM business page. It's a community of journalers where people discuss their challenges and things like that, so sometimes reading what's going on for some other people may help the process. I also publish Weekly Journal Writing Cures (JWC) Journaling Tips that they can find there (under the Journaling Tips tab) and there’s also Create Write Now’s inner healing journaling website.
On my web site I have a Journal Therapy Cures blog that talks about all different aspects of the journal writing inner healing process and dealing with issues such as “page fright” and inner critics and self-sabotage. I think one of the more recent articles I had was “Five Steps to Start Journaling for the Health of It”. Also on the web site, I have a department called Journaling Tips that has all kinds of articles, websites, books that are available. One of those resources might help journal writers get to the page more often.
To answer the question of getting out of our own way, it's a lifelong challenge, but it gets better as we go along. We must work on it.
So I think the best thing to do is to be kind to yourself. One of the things that helps is just sitting and doing some meditating. I mean, not heavy duty, you know, the whole process, but taking a few minutes and just really reconnecting with yourself and (asking), "Okay, what's going on? What's happening?" in an understanding, soothing tone of voice.
Another recommendation is sometimes just to get to the journal. I know a lot of people have the (intimidating) experience of a blank page, but just take the pen and just say, "Okay, I'll take this page and just write whatever." So that's another way. I think it's again just tuning into ourselves and just having to continually have discussions with ourselves in a lovingly compassionate way.
I think we're always so easy to beat ourselves up and to really trip ourselves up. So again, it's just a relearning, a behavior change. And it just starts with taking one step at a time and just say, "Okay, let's pick one thing," or “Let's do one page.” That way you are meeting your fears head on and showing them who’s boss. With a lot of practice, and practice with your inner healing journal, you manage and master your fears.
What do you need to help you get to the page?
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