Yes, This Will Be On the Test

Writing, Reading, Laughing

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Stressor Stacks


Do you ever feel your life is a game of Jenga? If you pull out the wrong block the whole works is going to thunk down on your head?

If so, it's time to manage your stressor stack. We all have a tower of obligations that conspire to squash our creativity. The trick is knowing how many you can juggle at once and still have brain space to be creative.

Lately my writing brain has felt like cold oatmeal. 

Writer's block? No. A gazillion unfinished projects still rattle the bars in my noggin. 

Fear of rejection? No. Rejection is an expectation along the yellow brick writing road.

So what gooped up my process? Yep, you guessed it
 STRESS.

The human brain had a finite capacity to deal with stressors. When we overload it, we are zapped emotionally and the first thing to go is creativity.

I ignored and mismanaged my stressors, allowing them to shut down the creative factory between my ears.

So how did I solve it and jump back in the creative saddle? 

I identified and validated each stressor to keep them from immobilizing me. We all have them, and they're not going away. By ignoring them, I'd allowed mine to grow fangs and gnaw at my brain. Once I put a face and priority on the blocks in my stack, I could strategize, assigning each a fair portion of my consciousness. The stressors didn't disappear, but they no longer run wild, wantonly slurping up my mental time and emotional space.

I assigned importance to relaxing. I'm terrible at finding contemplative, peaceful moments, but I'm working on stillness to give stress an outlet to leak out of my ears and blow away on the breeze. 

More importantly, I re-validated the place creativity has in my life. It is a "have to" for me. By letting the stressors take the lead, I had passively relegated writing to a lesser priority. *slaps hand* I re-committed to treating my creative life as if I were an athlete in training. I focus on healthy eating, exercise, and not compromising the time my writing muscles deserve each day in order to tone and build.

And guess what?

The creative channels in my brain unclogged. The energy and drive to sit down and write came flooding back. Once again I'm surrounded by spiral notebooks overflowing with ideas and bullet points, and my laptop needs charging everyday.

So get out your whips and tame those stressors. Don't let them sneak up on you the way I did. 

Writer's have a right to write no matter how high your Jenga stack grows.

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34 comments:

  1. Wow, this couldn't come at a better time for me. I'm trying so hard to blog and comment and it's Camp NaNoWriMo. I have about 2/3 of a novel done and lots of ideas crawling around, but feel like I have to comment and blog post every day. I spend hours doing this. Meanwhile my ideas slip away. I don't give priority to the one thing I said I'd give priority to this month. Okay, back to writing. Blogging is done. See you in a month.

    Heather

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  2. Excellent...excellent post! I find that when I stress out I hit a wall and shut down, and when that happens its not just the final straw that suffers, but all of my projects! :)

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  3. I have to admit, I'm not very good at relaxing. Sometimes the stressors really build up.

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  4. I hadn't thought of my build up as a Jenga pile, but that's a perfect metaphor. I'm waiting for the top of that pile to lean, then crumble. Does that mean I get to start again? Hope so. Super post, Leslie Rose.

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  5. You're so right, we have to take care of ourselves to take care of our writing. Keep it up! A wise writer told me, it's a marathon, not a sprint. You need the fuel for the long haul.

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  6. Oh yes I can really relate to this!

    How come creativity always winds up at the bottom of the pile (as in your illustration)?

    Why don't we treat it with the same urgency that we treat work or family issues?

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  7. This is such a good post! Stress can completely overtake me at times too - life is chock full and chaotic much of the time and I love it that way... but when it overwhelms me I have to take that step back too. Glad you got it all sorted out & the flow is back!

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  8. I need to do this. I need to do it SO much. It seems like a cycle for me. I realise I've taken on too much and so I deal with things, I give things up, I reduce my pile and things go along great for a while. Then slowly my pile builds back up and up and up and it's time for another purge. Someday I'll learn to balance things nicely without this binge and purge cycle of stress/responsibilities but that day is not today LOL

    ~ Rhonda Parrish

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  9. I no longer feel bad for relaxing. Those times when I'm doing little or nothing--like napping or watching Youtube--are necessary.

    A ridiculous amount of stress can make my creativity and drive suffer.

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  10. We've all been there. Sometimes we get stuck there longer than we should. Glad you recognized the problem and remedied it, Leslie!

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  11. What a great philosophy. Thanks for sharing!

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  16. I need to get out the whips! I have been feeling overloaded lately. I had to laugh though because I always compare my stress to Jenga. :) Thanks for this timely post!
    ~Jess

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  24. Awesome!!! I think I need to work on that too. My life's been too crazy lately!! I need a good block of just ole fashioned writin' time!

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  25. Too often I let stress take over everything. Not good for creativity OR health!

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  26. Great post Les. Just happened to be be reading "Is Work Killing You?" Corporations have crossed the line with the amount of stress put on employees. It's time to dial back.

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  27. Thanks for all the thumbs up, everyone. I think we need t-shirts that say, "Dial Back," Art.

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  28. How has your new method been working? I hope your writing is going well.

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  29. I like your Jenga analogy; it's a constant re-balancing act, isn't it? You're doing a great job, Leslie.

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  30. Creativity is a have-to for me too. I've been feeling a bit stressed myself juggling blogging, writing a new story, work, family, etc. I have to simplify and dole out priorities or else I crumble. lol
    Glad you got yours in check!

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  31. Oh man stressor stacks is such an apt metaphor! Put emotional upheaval on the top for me! Most of my other stressors I've learned how to handle so they don't flatten my creativity, but when my emotional balance gets out of balance, I don't know what to do with myself!

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  32. Oh my, but I do need to tame some stressors in my own life. Actually, I have an anxiety disorder, so stress is kind of par for the course for me. While that stinks, it's also forced me to learn how to cope and how to prevent the worst of it by learning how to manage my time better and being kind to myself (and avoid those situations that will cause the most stress). I love that Jenga metaphor. Life can definitely feel like that at times.

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  33. Good for you, Leslie! That is wonderful. It's great that you were able to evaluate what was stressing you out. Sometimes identifying the problem can be harder than finding a way to fix it!

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  34. It's hard for me to handle stress, because I truly am completely neurotic, which basically means that I obsess over everything. But like you, exercise helps me to deal with that stress; often, when I finish a workout I end up feeling better and more prepared to handle what I was obsessing over before the workout. I've found that reading my favorite books can be soothing too.

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