Creative Stress Disorder

What writing my book taught me about surrender

Have you ever danced with doubt or resistance in the face of a creative invitation?

Years ago, a psychic friend told me that within six months, I was going to start writing a book.

I remember an inner voice lashing out in defiance.

“No way!” she cried. “I NEVER want to write a book!”

But one morning, six months later, I was walking down the hall from the kitchen to my office with my hands wrapped around a warm cup of tea.

Compelled by a force unforeseen, I found myself in some sort of divine auto-pilot mode: Teacup on desk. Settle into chair. Open laptop.

Maybe it was the blinking cursor on the screen, but I went into a kind of trance, and my mind turned off as my fingers flew across the keyboard. Two hours later, I “came to.” I had no idea what I had typed, but when I read the pages I was surprised to see that they were filled with ideas for a book.

I didn’t know it at the time, but in hindsight, I realized that my book-writing journey triggered what is known as “creative stress disorder.” While not an official clinical diagnosis, it’s a phrase sometimes used to describe the specific kind of anxiety that can come from the creative process itself.

While confronting and uncomfortable, it changed me in profound ways. And through the experience, like Hansel and Gretel, I would find breadcrumbs to guide me along the path. Except in this version of the story, there was no wicked witch waiting in the forest…instead, I had only myself and my own fears to face.

Hide or Shine?

When I was a little girl, I was taught to be quiet and shove down my feelings. I would escape to my bedroom closet to hide in my safe place. Ignoring the sharp odor of cat pee where my boy cat Sandy liked to spray, I would sit silently on my toybox in the dark.

But there was one person who saw who I was, and who encouraged me to be myself and express my emotions with her. She had a gap between her two front teeth and I called her Aunt Lillian, even though she was not a relative. She came to our house every weekday to clean and iron and watch after me while my parents were at work. I remember one day when I was about three, dressed in a T-shirt and pink skirt, twirling around the living room with my arms over my head. She put down the iron to clap her hands, smiling “That’s my girl!”

All these years later, I found myself returning to that little girl twirling in Aunt Lillian’s living room - the one who felt seen, safe, and free to be herself. Now, as an adult, the question I was confronted with was: Will I sit in the dark closet or will I step into the light and speak my truth?

Maybe you can relate to the battle of self-doubt that was raging between my ears at the time:

“It’s all been said before.”

“I don’t know how to do this!”

“How can I make a difference, when I’m so wounded myself?”

BREADCRUMB #1 - SELF WORTH

Despite those deafening critics in my head, there was a part of me that knew it was time to stop hiding. A little voice inside kept nudging me to just go for it. I believe it was Aunt Lillian’s wise voice of unconditional love. So, with the support of her encouraging words, I was able to continue on and write the rest of my book.

What our wounding reveals

What is the story you tell yourself about your ability to create? Maybe some of these sound familiar…

“They will say I’m foolish for even trying.”

“I can’t find my voice.”

“If I do it, they’ll find out I’m a fraud.”

These anxious thoughts echoed in my own mind, too, but as I continued to write, month after month, I learned that by turning toward my wounds and surrendering to the grief I’d been avoiding, I could begin to soften. The truth that had been locked in my heart began to come out. And as more of myself emerged on those pages, I came to understand that the truth of our own wounding is what allows us to feel compassion for the suffering of others.

BREADCRUMB #2 - THE HEALING POWER OF SPEAKING OUR TRUTH

By following the breadcrumb messages – each one delivered like a gift wrapped in sandpaper - I was invited to let go of my fears, one by one.

I’ve come to realize - that as creatives - the hardest part is believing we have something valuable to offer. The special flavor of your story, your song, your poem, your painting - can only be expressed through your eyes, hands, voice, and heart. Our creative endeavors and acts of art are like kaleidoscope images: it’s as if all the creative ideas swirling around within us are the flakes of color inside the kaleidoscope. With one slight turn of the cylinder, an entirely new image is revealed. Infinite unique configurations are possible.

The tight grip of perfectionism

As I continued on my book-writing journey, I proceeded to knock on the virtual doors of agents around the country. Rejection emails and letters piled up. Still, I kept showing up - and then, in one of those mysterious twists of fate, a friend that I happened to sit next to at a party introduced me to her husband. He offered to introduce me to his old friend - the acquisitions editor at one of the Big Five publishers. Finally, I was going to be discovered!

I took my carefully crafted first chapter, printed it on nice vellum paper and wrote a brief yet compelling cover letter. I slid it into a professional-looking navy blue folder, said a little prayer, and delivered the bundle to FedEx. After waiting a few weeks for the publisher’s enthusiastic reply, I tracked the package. It had arrived on the publisher’s desk on March 19, 2020…day one of the COVID-19 lockdowns in the United States.

I remember the crushing weight of his cryptic rejection - this time on a postcard - revealing how my attempts to force and control the process weren’t actually serving me or my book.

BREADCRUMB #3 CREATIVE LIBERATION

Though the world was suddenly at a standstill, my own journey was quietly unfolding. Slowly, steadily…the path was becoming more clear. Instead of digging in my heels and insisting on my way, I began to practice saying, “show me the way.”

So after searching diligently for a publisher for three months and being told repeatedly, "You don't have enough followers," and "Your platform isn't big enough," I decided to self-publish.

That decision was incredibly freeing, and I felt as though I had turned a corner in the process. Even so, I was soon faced with a new challenge I hadn’t anticipated.

I hired an editor for her expertise with independent publishing. Halfway through the book, she and I began butting heads over the bibliography. The process of compiling endless references (all those rules, commas, and semicolons!) had me in a loop of obsessive stuck-ness, ready to give up on the project.

As a recovering perfectionist, creating a bibliography felt like Dante’s seventh circle of hell, reserved for those who enact violence on themselves. I found myself in a major meltdown that literally brought me to my knees.

In that moment, I decided to roll over onto my back to meditate and see if I could find some relief. So I closed my eyes, put one hand on my belly and one on my heart, and took some slow, deep breaths.

As if from a dream, a woman with long black hair appeared in my mind’s eye, wearing a bright red dress with a silver-tooled belt. She was carrying a woven basket overflowing with fruit and she turned toward me and said, “Speak to the women’s hearts.”

Her words echoed deeply within me, revealing a sudden awareness. I knew that I had two choices: surrender, or suffer.

Can you guess which one I chose?

Letting it fall away

“True freedom is the internal surrender to the unfolding of life.”

- Jiddu Krishnamurti

As I began to let go, the self-imposed limitations that once held me back started to dissolve. Over the following months I finished the bibliography, completed the manuscript, and orchestrated the cover and interior design. My book, Radiant Wise Woman: Breaking Free from the Myths of Menopause and Aging, was published on March 19, 2022 – exactly four years after my psychic friend had predicted it.

I wasn’t afraid anymore.

When everything inside me was screaming, “Never!” It took saying yes, again and again, to see myself as Aunt Lillian saw me.

I can still see her with her hand on the doorknob as she was leaving our kitchen to go home one evening. Somehow at age four, I sensed it was the last time I would see Aunt Lillian. I wrapped my skinny arms around her leg in a baby-bear grip as I sobbed, “Don’t go, don’t go!” She gently pulled my arms away. What I didn’t know at that time was that she was terribly sick. She bent down and kissed the top of my head. As an adult, I learned that a few months later, she died from kidney failure. Her guiding light has been with me throughout my life and I often sense her presence and her gentle whisper, “That’s my girl!”

This journey has been one of unraveling fears, releasing control, and discovering the beauty and blossoming that comes from surrendering to the creative flow. I had to keep showing up, even in the face of doubt and resistance.

Creativity asks us not to be perfect, but to be present.

Tell me, who in your life has seen you through eyes of unconditional love? Who has recognized the true you quietly hiding inside, hoping to be seen? A teacher? A grandparent? A wise older woman? May their presence inspire you to follow your own breadcrumbs, one step at a time.

In service of truth and love,

Lee

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