Feel free to fill in the blank. Conscious _____ (eating, spending, working, etc.) is helpful in a variety of ways and this post will apply to all of the above.
Have you ever driven somewhere and not known how you got there?
No, it wasn’t an alien life force that took over your mind and drove your car. But your thoughts got ahead of you and your body took over.
The same thing applies when you’re writing/creating/shopping, etc.
- Sometimes there is a deep reason why we push away conscious thinking. We could be attempting to deal with a difficult issue we’re not ready to deal with. Maybe we’re afraid of what we might discover if we were to think about. It could be that we’re not conscious of the reason why or perhaps we’re just tired.
- But being unconscious when doing any activity, doesn’t serve us or the people we’re trying to serve in our lives.
In fact, it might sabotage it.
How do I mean?
For the longest time, I wrote unconsciously. I wrote because it was something that felt natural to me. I wrote because it helped me to process life. But I wrote with my eyes facing the computer and my mind looking the other way.
Why?
I was afraid and ashamed of what would come out of it. What if I wrote and nobody read it. What if the thoughts and ideas I had in my mind were better left there than for anyone else’s eyes.
Even though I committed to working as a freelance writer, I still had yet to release the being inside of me who didn’t believe I could really do it.
So although outwardly I was doing it, inside I was writing with my eyes closed. Blindly putting one word in front of the other, but still not letting out my true spirit out of the fear of the consequences. {Rejection, failure, you name it.}
Is that what you’re doing too?
Are you ending the show before it even started?
The first step towards being more conscious is learning to be more aware of the things that are bothering you.
1. Write down your fears in a journal.
2. Practice being present in every day activities.
3. The next time you write practice being conscious of your thoughts.
4. Talk to your fears. The more you acknowledge them, the less scary they become.
Do you have any tips for being more conscious? Share them here.
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2 responses to “Conscious Writing”
Great post, Brandi! Battling fear and writing honestly can be so difficult. There’s a terrific book that addresses this called, “Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within.” Have you read it?
Aw thanks Dina! I just begun to understand how what you think affects everything in your life, including your writing. I have read that book as well. It’s a great resource for the topic.