When Writing Feels Stressful

After all the talk about the health benefits of writing, you  think of it as something much like taking your vitamins or blood pressure meds, but more time-consuming. “I guess I’d better sit down and write now,” you may think, although you have ninety other thing you’d rather be doing and nothing in mind to write about. “But it’s good for me,” you mentally sigh. “It will make me healthier.”

You pick up your pen or sit at the computer. Your stomach knots; your muscles clench. You stare at the blank page or monitor. This is not writer’s block. Perhaps you really are pulled in ninety directions at the moment, or maybe you are experiencing burnout.  You may have built up a huge pile of expectations and allowed writing to become a burden rather than a joy. It’s easy to begin to perceive anything as a burden when you “have” to do it. Burdens can become crushingly heavy and fill our lives with stress.

Let There Be Peace on Earth

Let there be peace on earth
And let it begin with me.
Let there be peace on earth
The peace that was meant to be.
With God as our father
Brothers all are we.
Let me walk with my brother
In perfect harmony.

This song, written by Sy Miller and his wife Jill Jackson, has been one of my favorites for decades. (View full lyrics here.) Unlike other popular music, I don’t recall when I became aware of it, but I do remember sitting at the piano playing it over and over again in the seventies.

Let peace begin with me ... That was a thrilling thought, even forty years ago, but the only way I knew to bring it about was “turning the other cheek.” My understanding of turning the other cheek was limited conceding and stuffing my rage to achieve a sort of unilateral cease-fire. Quite predictably, this often led to war-like eruptions later, not the peace I sought.