WRITING DOESN’T HAVE TO BE PAINFUL
Photo by Ivana Cajina on Unsplash
When I found out that a friend of mine got engaged this past weekend, I didn’t just smile politely. Joy rose through me like champagne bubbles. My whole body lit up. I wasn’t anywhere near her when this happened, yet hearing about it made me feel lighter and more radiant as I honored her and the beautiful energy of love.
I brought this joy into my writing, and that’s why I’m here to tell you that your writing or art doesn’t have to come from sadness and suffering as you may have been led to believe. That doesn’t mean that something magical has to happen every day for you to write, because you can use joy you experience in small things such as a cup of tea or a morning walk or a smile from someone, or even secondhand joy of a happy event happening to someone else.
Writing From Joy Is Not Shallow
You hear about writing from pain, but almost never about writing from joy. Why do we assume that depth must come from agony?
What if some of your most creative writing could come from joy, bliss, expansion, and liveliness?
Joy is not the absence of depth. It’s not an extravagance or a silly emotion. It’s the experience of being fully present and alive.
Your attention is more focused and your senses are sharper. Think about the last time you experienced joy. Maybe it was a small thing such as seeing a hummingbird or a big thing such as falling in love.
Did you feel activated and energized? Now, imagine creating under the influence of that feeling. Imagine if pharmaceutical companies were able to turn that into a drug with no side effects. Well, you can create that yourself.
The Myth that Art Must Come From Suffering
For generations, writers have documented their darkest times such as poverty, heartbreak, addiction, grief, and loss. Their stories are compelling because they reveal something deeply human, and their suffering sometimes became intertwined with the work they created.
But somewhere along the way, we turned this into the belief that if they suffered, we must suffer for our art as well. We started believing that pain was the price for authenticity and that a person must sacrifice everything for their work.
We no longer need to inherit that story, and can create our own. That chapter has closed and we can write a new, evolved one. Writing doesn’t have to come from torment; it can come from bliss.
Use Joy to Activate Creative Flow
We may think of creative flow as something hat happens to us sometimes when all the right conditions are in place, but there are things we can do to create conditions that make flow more accessible.
One of those things is changing the emotional state from which we're approaching our creativity.
If you approach writing from a place of frustration, doubt, and insecurity, and treat it as if it’s one more thing on your task list that you don’t have time for, you’re burdening yourself under the weight of obligation and making it harder to access flow.
View Writing as Play, Not Punishment
We may have forgotten that writing can be fun. It can be a form of play instead of another chore we have to do that day. When we view writing the book as another stressor, our excitement dies down and so does our creativity.
What if you changed the relationship between you and your book? Instead of viewing it as a burden, what if it were an adventure?
You don’t know everything that’ll happen when you start writing even if you have a pretty good outline. You discover more about your characters and plot as you go along. That’s the magic of creating.
Your writing time is your playground. Your imagination gets to have fun. Let yourself experiment and write that strange scene or ridiculous dialogue. Give yourself permission to write something awful. None of this is etched in stone. You don’t have to be married to it.
Creativity isn’t an unruly child that needs to be controlled. It needs room to play.
Depth Doesn’t Require Pain
Pain is one way we become self-aware, but it is far from the only way.
You don't have to reopen every wound to be creative. You don't have to tap into sad feelings when you sit down at your computer because you've decided those emotions make you more creative.
Use the lessons you’ve learned and the experiences you’ve lived. You don’t have to drop into a dark emotional state to write even the darkest themes.
You can write betrayal, murder, distress, and grief while remaining anchored in your own bubble of bliss, because the emotional state you're creating from doesn't have to match the content you're writing about.
Writing from a light place can make it easier to handle difficult themes because you aren't drowning in them. You're the witness and the guide as you shape those themes into something meaningful.
Access Joy on Demand
Instead of trying to think yourself into a creative state, run joy through your body before your write.
1. Recall a moment that genuinely made you happy.
It doesn't have to be a big thing. It could be something that happened that day or at another point in time: a nice meal, a hot shower, a song you like, a sunset, a hug, a funny conversation, being silly with your pet. It’s a moment when everything else melted away and you could be fully present.
Close your eyes and bring yourself back there.
Don't just remember what happened.
Remember how it felt.
2. Notice where the joy lives in your body.
Where do you feel it?
Do you find yourself breathing easier?
Maybe you smile.
Maybe you feel warmth in your stomach.
Don't analyze it. Just feel it.
3. Let the feeling expand and take over.
Imagine the sensation spreading through your body.
Let it move through your chest, your shoulders, your arms, your stomach, your legs, your face. This isn’t forced happiness or manufactured cheerfulness.
You're simply unlocking and expressing the happiness that's already available to you.
4. Let your nervous system register the feeling.
Stay in the present moment for a few breaths.
Savor this experience of having your heart be open and feeling lively and present.
5. Then write.
Use the joy as you create within it. Let it become the environment your creativity grows in.
You may be surprised by what becomes possible when you stop demanding that your creativity come from struggle.
The Side Effect
The more often you practice accessing joy before you write, the more you’ll notice it throughout your day. You’ll start savoring small moments of delight and creating joy intentionally, and your life will become more vibrant and creatively nourishing. As joy becomes a familiar, natural state to return to, you’ll slip into it faster, and the line between work and play will begin to blur.
