When The Problem Isn’t You
Photo by name_ gravity on Unsplash
For the last few weeks, I’ve been struggling to tap into flow state.
I’ll show up in the morning and put my fingers on the keyboard, eager to tap into the trance-like state that accompanies my morning rituals, but it doesn’t always come.
Some days it does. Those are the mornings I publish. But others, I just write myself in circles.
The mechanics are there, but the magic isn’t. The soaring, energizing, gleeful state that’s my favorite part of this practice–it just doesn’t always show up.
Now, I have a question for you: do you think I should be worried?
Do you think I’ve lost the spark? That I’m encountering writer’s block? That this was something that I enjoyed for a few months but now it’s going to fade into the dust?
In other words: do you think there’s something wrong with me?!
I’m asking because of the usual reason: I’m setting up an analogy and I want to make it sticky.
I can tell you right now that there’s nothing wrong with me. I haven’t lost my spark. I’m not encountering writer’s block. I haven’t lost my interest in morning musings.
What’s going on is far simpler than that: I’m living in environments that aren’t conducive to accessing flow state.
I’m traveling almost constantly and other priorities have taken precedence. I’m visiting with family, soaking up niece and nephew time. I’m enjoying watching everyone roast Shrek. And, during this phase, I’m not particularly disciplined. Some mornings I show up to write. Others I don’t.
So, it’s not reasonable for me to expect to experience the soaring, energizing, gleeful state that I usually get when I write…because nothing about how I’m currently writing is “usual.”
Now let’s turn to the analogy.
Once upon a time, when I still dutifully swallowed a daily antidepressant and generally wandered through the world feeling drained, depleted and miserable, I had unrealistic expectations.
I thought that I should be able to spend nine hours a day at a job I didn’t particularly care for, then go home and work on my full-time degree program, then do some consulting gigs on the side and still enjoy radiant, effervescent, high-octane energy.
When I tossed and turned at night, unable to sleep because my cortisol-filled body had spent 15 hours sitting in a chair that day, I thought it was insomnia.
When I woke up drained and depleted, dragging myself out of bed 5 minutes before I had to leave the house, I thought it was the exhaustion that accompanies depression.
I didn’t exercise. I didn’t spend time outside. I didn’t have deep, rewarding, fulfilling relationships.
I woke up. I went to work. I pounded coffee. I survived the day. I ate something. I logged in for a few hours of classes. Then I designed websites and built marketing plans before trying (unsuccessfully) to sleep.
Are you shocked that I was miserable? That I had no energy? That I felt perpetually drained and depleted?
I’m not.
But, back then, no one talked to me about environmental factors. About human needs. My doctors gave me pills to take and wished me luck in sorting out my imbalanced brain chemicals.
So now I write about it because it’s a message that’s worth sharing.
If you are in an environment that’s not conducive to human thriving, please do not expect to thrive.
Please don’t assume you’re broken or flawed or defective for floundering in an environment when floundering is the appropriate response.
For a creator to access flow state, certain conditions have to be met. For a human to access radiant well-being, certain conditions have to be met.
I hate it when people walk around thinking they’re flawed, defective or otherwise unworthy when, really, NO ONE would thrive in their circumstances.
And sometimes there is internal work to do. Sometimes you have to resolve trauma or regulate your nervous system or fix your gut – but please (please, please, please) factor your environment into the analysis too. It’s such a big part of the equation.
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