My client sat down to her novel. Having blocked out the time to write, she was determined to honor that commitment to herself and her book. But she didn’t have a clue about what she was going to write that day.
“In the past, that would have freaked me out,” she admitted during our subsequent writing coach session.
This time, instead of allowing that uncertainty to hijack her creativity, she asked herself two questions:
- “What if writing was easy?”
- “What if I wrote 1,000 words?”
“I’ve been using that approach for a year,” she told me. “It works. It puts you in a better mindset.”
I asked her where she had learned to neurtralize the negative self-talk that so many of us–myself included–can’t seem to quiet.
It turns out that she’s been taking classes from Marie Manuchehri, RN, an energy intuitive and psychic from Seattle who in addition to teaching, has written books, hosts her own radio show, and posts videos on her YouTube channel.
In an article on her website titled “What If,” Manuchehri writes:
What if you could change anything in your life, including your health, simply by training your mind to ask curious questions based in positivity vs. fearful questions filled with worry?
The human mind is capable and powerful. Its influence can be far reaching. Stretching into your cellular memory, including the cells of your immune system.
Despite the obvious potential of the mind, humanity continues to align with worry and fear, invading our world and creative abilities with negativity. The addiction to negative thinking may seem impossible to separate from. However, negative thoughts are habit forming. Habits, though obsessive, can be and are broken every day. Dissolving an inclination to think, feel, and speak adversely is a practice. A practice that begins with the mind.
Manuchehri goes on to discuss the transformative power of reframing how you think about your life. I can’t vouch for that, though I’m sure willing to give it a go. But I certainly have experienced the difference between approaching my writing with a sense of possibility instead of a sense of dread.
I invite you to try that for yourself. Ask yourself, “What if writing was easy?” I bet you wind up visiting your book more often and that those visits are a whole lot more enjoyable.
