Barriers to speaking and writing
Nov. 1st, 2009 09:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sasha_featherI want to talk a bit about barriers to speaking and writing. I'm not particularly fond of the term "writer's block" because what does that really mean? It's not very descriptive. I'm going to talk about things that might prevent us from writing and speaking, from expressing ourselves with words. I consider this emotional work, and emotional work can be very difficult and challenging, so I'm putting it under a cut.
1. "I feel that my words will be used against me/I feel that speaking is unsafe." We stay silent sometimes out of instinctive need for self-protection; this can be very good in certain situations, but it can also go too far and work against our need to speak for ourselves.
2. "I fear that my words will hurt others." My current thoughts on this are to try my best not to hurt others; to be open to being called out on it; and to know how to apologize.
3. "I have so much to say that I don't know where to begin." My proposed solution for this is to make bullet points and lists. Do quick summations, rather than getting lost in the details.
4. "I have nothing to say; no one wants to hear what I have to say; my words are useless; people know this already; no one cares." This is devaluing one's own voice, and I think it is something that women in particular are trained to do.
There is something called Cognitive Defusion in which one can attempt to gently deal with negative thoughts like these, to interrupt the tape that is running on repeat. But the first step is noticing that one has them.
I think that challenges, prompts, team writing, community support, conversation, all are ways of encouraging people to use their voices. But, if words aren't working out so well, I think that art, icons, vids, dance, singing, cooking, exercise, photos, stitching, crafting, and costuming are wonderful forms of self-expression.
1. "I feel that my words will be used against me/I feel that speaking is unsafe." We stay silent sometimes out of instinctive need for self-protection; this can be very good in certain situations, but it can also go too far and work against our need to speak for ourselves.
2. "I fear that my words will hurt others." My current thoughts on this are to try my best not to hurt others; to be open to being called out on it; and to know how to apologize.
3. "I have so much to say that I don't know where to begin." My proposed solution for this is to make bullet points and lists. Do quick summations, rather than getting lost in the details.
4. "I have nothing to say; no one wants to hear what I have to say; my words are useless; people know this already; no one cares." This is devaluing one's own voice, and I think it is something that women in particular are trained to do.
There is something called Cognitive Defusion in which one can attempt to gently deal with negative thoughts like these, to interrupt the tape that is running on repeat. But the first step is noticing that one has them.
I think that challenges, prompts, team writing, community support, conversation, all are ways of encouraging people to use their voices. But, if words aren't working out so well, I think that art, icons, vids, dance, singing, cooking, exercise, photos, stitching, crafting, and costuming are wonderful forms of self-expression.
