Collaborating With My Darkness

The mind thinks thoughts we don’t plan. It’s not as if we say, ‘At 9:10 I’m going to be filled with self-hatred.’ -Sharon Salzberg.

For the past twenty years, my professional life has revolved around scientific writing and marketing. But a few years ago, I decided to expand my horizons and revisit the creative writing that started me on my professional path back in my 20's.

Confident and excited to bring the personal, youthful side of my talent back to life, I told friends of my intentions before even picking up a pen. Yet when I finally sat down to write, I was sidelined by a killer case of writer’s block. My mind was a complete blank. Try as I might, not a single word hit the page.

I asked myself, “How could this be?” I’ve visited fourteen countries and held every job possible — from bartender to scientist to marketer. I manage people on three continents, along with juggling parenting and household responsibilities, and I have a laundry list of interests and hobbies. I’ve experienced tragedy and triumph, grief and joy.

But I was frozen. Instead of ideas, all I heard was my dark inner voice — the critic within me. She told me there wasn’t anything of value for me to share with the world. Worse still, she told me I was dull and unworthy of anyone’s attention. Just another suburban, working mom. Who should care about that?

Yes, these are the horrible things I tell myself.

Deep down, I know the voice is bullshit. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to move past it. And I have moved forward despite that inner shadow, more times than I can count. But in my weaker moments, even with my successes to prop me up, I struggle to find my stride. In those moments, I tell myself horrible things — and then I stop doing. I stop expressing. I shrink and freeze, and that dark, critical voice is happy.

But I’m not.

Thankfully, my life experience has taught me that in these moments of self-doubt, I need to side-step the darkness and “do” anyways.

But I’m always prepared, because I know that even successful action won’t make the voice disappear — not for good. I can hear her darkness screaming in the background right now. But I keep on typing at the keyboard. I keep on putting one word in front of the other, building sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs into stories. Then I send this written part of me off into the world. Sometimes my words succeed, other times they fail. But I continue on, despite the horrible voice in my head.

The reason I keep going is that I’m old enough and wise enough to know that I don’t need the heavens to shine down upon me like I’m a literary miracle. I don’t need to produce life-changing content. I just need to pick a random idea out of the air and see what happens when I put it on paper.

I’m writing because I have to write, and I don’t know why that is. If you’re nodding your head in kind, then you know what I mean. Writing is not a choice for all of us. For some, it’s a part of life that must be. A siren song that’s so much louder than the dark voice that it will not be denied. Not even by her.

How do you turn the inner critic off, you may ask? How do you shift to a mind full of positive, self-affirming thoughts?

Sharon Salzberg says that “when we direct a lot of hostile energy toward the inner critic, we enter a losing battle.” I can confirm this to be true. Fighting the darkness in my head and trying to kill it was a fruitless effort that made the voice stronger and crueler.

It was Mindfulness that finally saved me. The simple act of paying attention to the messages I tell myself, acknowledging that the voice is there, and then continuing on with my plans has made all the difference. My dark voice thinks my writing sucks, just as she’s convinced there’s a monster in my closet at three in the morning. Both thoughts are the same: untrue, ridiculous, and vacant of perspective.

But the light within me has perspective. I have mindfulness, and therefore I have moments throughout my day when I can accept my flawed darkness for what it is. I don’t fight her, follow her, or fuel her. I simply acknowledge her with a wave and get back to work.

I’ve learned to offer love and acceptance to her and the horrible things that she tells me. In return, she begrudgingly steps aside and allows me to create. I haven’t had a day of writer’s block since I learned how to coexist with my darker thoughts. And sometimes, on the very magical days, I can pull her forward and turn her into something special (like this post), so she can shine.

Jaeda DeWalt summed it up beautifully by saying, “I embrace my shadow self. Shadows give depth and dimension to my life. I believe in embracing my duality, in learning to let darkness and light, peacefully coexist, as illumination.”

In doing just that, I can look upon everything I write and know that all parts of me are present in my words. My lightness and darkness are here, on this page, and with that, my whole self is brought to bear within my calling to write. How could it possibly be complete any other way?