Don't Get Stuck in the Weeds

Don't get stuck in the weeds like Ullr.

Signs you may be overthinking your writing:

• You write, then delete. You write, then delete.
• You can’t stop researching details.
• You’re still staring at a blank page determined to find the perfect start.
• You make no progress.

You may think overthinking isn’t an issue for you. But be honest with yourself, how many times have you written a sentence only to delete and rewrite it over and over? Hello first sentences! 

The trick is being able to acknowledge what your brain is doing. If you’re not aware of how it’s operating how can you change it? And also…how do you change your brain?

For me, overthinking is the drive for perfection. It’s the inability to leave a sentence alone because it’s not conveying the exact emotion or action I’m looking for. Have you ever heard of there’s more than one way to skin a cat? Same applies here, there’s more than one way to describe a specific emotion/action/what-have-you and there is never one perfect way.

Once I realize I’m stuck, because yes, overthinking can be a type of writer’s block, I like to reset my brain. A short breathing session or yoga session, because yoga literally means to unite the body and mind. This helps me get back to alpha brain waves which is where creative thinking happens.

Think of brain waves this way, beta is when you’re actively speaking or exercising. Beta is worked up. Take a step down to alpha and you’re relaxed. You’re walking in a garden without having to concentrate or your sitting in meditation. Another step down is theta. Autopilot. That’s why you can have those ah-ha moments while you’re taking a shower or driving your car. You’re in autopilot which frees your mind up to wander and find solutions. 

Next time you find yourself overthinking, maybe give resetting your brainwaves a try! 

Listen! You Smell Something? A Sensory Exercise

 

Photo by Emily Bauman on Unsplash

While “Listen! You smell something?” is a brilliant comedic line in the 1984 film Ghostbusters, it also hits a home run in the way lines like that engage our brain. Confusion is king. I’ll talk about that at the end. 

Engaging all five senses is a powerful tool in writing, but today I’ll talk about the benefits of using them to calm anxiety.

Writers? Anxious? Nah . . .

Let’s start with 5-5-5 breath. Pick a spot ahead of you, ideally just above your comfortable line of sight but no neck craning, just slightly above straight ahead. Focus on that spot. Breathe in for five, hold for five, exhale for five. Repeat until your body is calm and relaxed. Then return to normal relaxed breathing for this next section. 

Keep looking ahead and use your senses to pick out:

● 5 things you see (either in your mind or peripheral vision)

● 4 things you feel (your feet on the ground, pillow underneath your head)

● 3 things you hear (electronics, or maybe just ringing in your ears)

● 2 things you smell (hmm, what did the cat just do?)

● 1 thing you taste (thinking of a taste may be simpler)

It may be more comfortable to close your eyes after you’ve picked out things you see. That’s perfectly fine. It can help you tune in more to the other senses.

Warning, you may doze off before you finish. Still, if you don’t, those heart palpitations caused by your nerves will have stopped by the time you get to the end.

 

If not, try 7-11 breathing to start. In for seven, out for eleven. It’s another terrific breathing technique that calms the body. 

Once you’ve found yourself in that super relaxed state, allow yourself to stay there a while. Make note of what else you’re sensing. Tune into your body and your surroundings. 

When you are ready to come out, simply wiggle your fingers or toes to bring your body back to a more conscious state. Get up, stretch if it feels good and move on with your day. 

Try that any time you feel anxious or simply want to tune into yourself and relax. What you come away with may surprise you.

You can also use a modified version of the above to do self-hypnosis. 

First, set an intention. What are you asking of your subconscious mind? Are you re-programming your mind to overcome a bad habit? A feeling? Pain? Our minds are powerful, you’d be amazed what you can accomplish. 

Set that intention and then a time frame. Tell yourself to come out of it in, say 15 minutes, or whatever works for you. 

Instead of 5-4-3-2-1 with the sense we’ll focus on three of them.

● 3 things you can see

● 3 things you can hear

● 3 things you can feel

Next repeat with 2 of each and then one of each. If more is needed, then repeat, this time from the bottom up--all the while focusing on that spot in front of you. Your eyes should feel tired. Do it until your eyelids just can’t stay open any longer. Then relax and enjoy the trance while your unconscious mind makes all the necessary changes.

Can you make lasting change in one session? Yes. 

Does it often take multiple sessions? Also yes.

Each one of us is different, so there is no “perfect” way. 

Whether self hypnosis or a simple few moments to calm an anxious mind, both techniques will help shift your mindset and leave you in a better frame of mind.

So what about the confusion I mentioned earlier? 

Confusion stops someone in their tracks. The downward spiral is interrupted. My hypnosis instructor told a story of confusing a client by pretending to smell his own watch every time she started her downward self-loathing spiral. She’d stop, ask him what he was doing. It would start a conversation that redirected her thinking. 

So, say you feel okay but you’re dealing with someone who is on edge, obsessing about something and heading into a spiral. Try “Listen! You smell that?” and see what happens. 

If they don’t laugh, they’ll still stop the downward spiral with a “What?” which may be enough to get them to stop.

You’re welcome.

Vee R. Paxton, your friendly neighborhood paranormal romance author and certified hypnotist.

Vee R. Paxton is a transplanted Midwesterner living in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Portland and New York City are her two favorite places she's lived (although she loves her hometown in Missouri too!) 
She's passionate about storytelling and reading amazing stories. She's guardian to a sweet Bengal kitty cat, she worked in NYC theater, taught martial arts and also is trained in Reiki and hypnosis.

A Writing Habit That Works for YOU

Amazingly enough, it's already May - which means THE PROMISED QUEEN, the third and final book in the Forgotten Empires trilogy, is out in just two weeks. That comes as a shock to me, I can tell you! 

It also makes this particular graphic quite apt and goes well with our topic this week: "When Life Gets In The Way: dealing with a schedule for writing when the world wants to go off the rails."

Nothing like a global pandemic and the attendant chaos to shake up the world a bit, huh?

I've been fortunate compared to many of the creatives I know - so many people have struggled to create art during this extraordinary time of upheaval - in that I've maintained a consistent output of words. In fact, I wrote nearly 120K more words in 2020 than in 2019 (recall that I am dubbed The Spreadsheet Queen for a reason), which I largely attribute to the fact that I didn't travel in 2020.

So, why was I able to stay on schedule when others couldn't?

There are a lot of reasons for that - including that I am blessed with happy brain chemistry and I'm not prone to anxiety - but I think the number one reason is that I've built a consistent writing habit. That's the foundation that keeps me stable and productive.

Martial artists like to poke at practitioners of yoga and meditation by saying, "But what happens when someone knocks you off your pillow?" The jibe is meant to shame those not into the fighting arts by implying that meditation is fine and all, but if you're attacked, it's fundamentally useless.

Believe me - I know this is exactly what they mean, as I used to train with martial artists fond of saying that very thing.

Whenever someone asks me about this topic, about work/life balance or maintaining creativity through upheaval, I think of that quip. 

What happens when someone knocks you off your pillow?

The answer is pretty obvious: You get back on.

See, the whole point of meditation (or prayer or self-care or whatever works for you) is to discover a solid, peaceful foundation within yourself. That's why it's called a "practice." It's something that you develop over time by doing it repeatedly. Nobody ever said it was in order to spend your entire life on a pillow in a meditative state. Once you discover that foundation, that silent core of peacefulness, then you know how to find it again. 

No one ever promised us lives where everything is perfect all the time. Things are going to happen to derail us - and the best we can do is find our way back to that foundation again, rather than being tossed about endlessly from one crisis to another.

A writing habit provides that foundation. The great thing about habits is we default to them. Bad and good, habits drive our unconscious decisions. Why not build a writing habit that works for you instead of against you?

Then, when the world knocks you off schedule, it's easy to get right back on again.

Life doesn't need a filter...only Peace

 Happy October 1st! Here in Minnesota it smells like fall and I love it! 

I also love our topic of the week: what’s on your mind. Frankly, there’s a lot on my mind, as I'm sure it is with you since our world's on fire...literally and figuratively. And it's October which means I’ll be hiding out in my editing cave—busy busy—but with so much uncertainty it’s difficult to concentrate. Maybe the post should be what isn’t on my mind…hmm.

C’est la vie, and so the most important thing on my mind right now is finding peace. 

I did a brain retraining class in the spring and one of the key points that stuck was the need to settle/calm the mind each day. Step one was breathing. Breathing! Easy…right?

Take one hand and place it on your chest and place the other hand on your belly. And breathe.

Which hand moves? My chest hand was the one going up and down…and it should be the hand on your belly. Chest breathing happens when your body’d limbic system is stuck and keeps you in stress-mode = not good.

Ever watch a baby sleep? Their bellies move, not their rib cage. Babies don’t stress, they sleep…like a baby. 

Seriously, who breathes wrong?! Me, that’s who. I had to consciously breathe from my belly, and it wasn’t easy to consciously breath differently, but after a week or so I’d only catch myself chest breathing here and there. And it definitely made me more calm which made that whole calming the mind easier and also helps with yoga. 

One step at a time. Now that I’ve done my yoga for the day it’s time to EDIT!

For those a step ahead of us chest breathers, coffee cheers to you! And tell me—how do you relax?