Why I Was Creatively Blocked for 2 Years
(With regards to my writing & social media content creation, specifically.)
I add this caveat because there have been plenty of ways I’ve experienced powerful creative flow over the past two years:
I launched a new brand.
Acquired a new company.
Evolved our marketing strategies.
Completed 3 visa applications.
Entirely re-created my original course Viva La Vagina™ and turned it into a membership.
And a bunch of other things…
But my secret sauce and what started it all in business for me was my ⚡️writing ⚡️
My best writing has always been about sharing my journey of transformation, and transmitting real & raw wisdom about sexual & spiritual awakening.
Prior to launching my courses & shop in 2018, I wrote on my own blog for about 1.5 years.
Once I did launch my business, I became increasingly brave about sharing content on social media. Primarily, Instagram.
(I also created some Youtube content which still exists today - despite being a bit cringe to me nowadays… people still seem to get value from it!)
Mid 2018 to the start of 2020, I was traveling with my teacher and writing quite vulnerably about my transformation, in real time.
I shared about the wisdom I was uncovering via daily Instagram stories and through long(ish)-form writing in my posts.
This sharing was truly the catalyst for initial growth & momentum in my business - I wouldn’t have the audience, email list, and customer-base I have today without the boldness I began with.
After traveling, while I was rooting into Calgary for ~2 years, I continued writing & sharing.
But something big shifted when I came to the US near the end of 2021…
It no longer felt good to share so much of my life on social media.
I began experiencing such rich in-person community that online community felt less interesting.
But I ALSO felt stuck & contracted around my writing in a way I hadn’t previously experienced.
And it has taken me until the past few weeks to find my flow again!
It’s like a yarn-ball got untangled and I can now identify several of the “threads” of what had me feeling less connected to my original momentum & flow the past 2-ish years.
1 - VULNERABILITY HANGOVER
The first few years of sharing content, my inner world was majorly ON DISPLAY.
This allowed people to feel & connect to me quite strongly,
But it was also a big expansion that was majorly exposing.
And as we know - every expansion is followed by contraction.
My epic yet messy transformation had been witnessed through-the-iPhone-screen by family, old friends & colleagues, and people that have known me since school years.
As you can imagine, most of these people did NOT have context for the alternative path I was walking.
So while I attracted a lot of new people who were inspired by me, I shocked a lot of people with whom I had long-standing relationships.
The past few years, many of those people came full-circle and told me how they eventually began experiencing change & life circumstances where they could truly appreciate & admire my journey.
But there is still residual impact that lives in my body from being so open about such a vulnerable, ongoing process of awakening.
Leadership & riding the edge of what’s emerging in collective consciousness is vulnerable AF!
How did I overcome this big contraction?
Well, I had to feel it.
And then I learned from it.
I’ve become more sensitive to the edge of vulnerability that feels good to me.
I’m more discerning about how soon I share my processes, and I allow myself more time to digest before revealing.
It is rightful to discern with who & when we reveal certain parts of ourselves.
And our body discerns that difference.
So now I determine with more specificity what gets shared with my teacher, partner, certain friends, outer circle, social media, email audience, and so on.
2 - JUDGING MY WRITING THROUGH THE WRONG LENSES
At one point, my posts got ridiculed publicly by a teacher I respect.
(Or, used to respect).
She went to town, recording an entire hour-long Live Stream ripping my content apart,
Asserting her assumptions about my intentions for sharing what I share…
The whole thing was rather unkind & unprofessional.
This experience, combined with internalizing some perspectives from a couple other teachers,
Led me to start evaluating my writing through the lenses I believed other teachers would see it through.
Without realizing, I had begun analyzing my content from third-party lenses that were actually NOT representative of those who connect deeply with my work.
I fell into a kind of “perfectionism” where I constantly looked for holes & flaws in my own content,
Which had me experiencing less access to my authentic voice.
This was actually a really hard trap to free myself from!
Yet once I took myself through a process of identifying exactly how & what I want to share,
And recognized that there has always been an audience that appreciates my voice,
I became majorly re-inspired to write.
(If you want to know more about the process I went through to somatically “untangle” this in myself, I recorded an audio describing it which is available at the bottom of this article.)
3 - CAN VS. WANT
As people are drawn to my work, they come with their own experiences & troubles.
As such, they bring their opinions & requests for what they’d like to see me speak to.
This is great! And often provides inspiration.
But it can also be a slippery slope into writing on topics that I CAN offer value on,
Rather than topics I WANT to offer value on.
“Can do” is much different than “want to do.”
And “can do” has often led me to a place of feeling like I’m working rather than creating.
Creating feels alive, expansive, AND of service.
Working tends to feel more obligatory.
Discerning what I want to write about is an ongoing practice of sensing what actually feels alive, inspiring, and at my edge.
When I abandon this commitment, writing quickly becomes heavy-feeling and that ultimately leads to serving no one.
There were a few specific processes that led me to not only seeing these limitations, but finding my way through them.
The breakthrough with all of this actually happened very quickly.
The yarn-ball untangled itself within only a few days,
After which I found myself writing 3 long-form pieces in the span of 48 hours.
(Each around 1000+ words).
And if you’ve been on my email list the past few weeks, you’ve seen all the others that followed!
This has been more written output than I produced even in the early days of my business.
After 2 years of stagnancy!
If you’d like to learn more about one of the significant processes I took myself through, listen to the audio below where I describe it for you :)
Note that you can certainly take yourself through the process described in the audio, AND the process tends to go deeper when you have a witness who can skillfully invite deeper inquiry & vulnerability. To inquire about receiving 1-1 support, contact us here or check out how you can get text message & voice-note support directly with Courtney here.