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.