INFJ Writer's Block: Embracing the Feeling

                           Illustration by Kris Di Giacomo from Enormous Smallness

Hello my Deep Digging friends.



I'm here to apologize. Who am I apologizing to? Well, maybe you all. Maybe myself. Maybe both. I feel like I've let all of us down. So, here goes...

I'm realizing on a very deep level that I've really gotten away from the writer that I am at heart. I'm at my most comfortable and passionate when I am writing from a free flow of my innermost thoughts and feelings. That's where I hit my creative vein and really feel the art. And I haven't been doing this. Instead, I've been reluctant to open up and let it all out like I used to.

A lot of the problem has been all of the ideas I've had that I'm just not quite able to flesh out. It's one thing to have this awesome conceptual light bulb moment. It's another to convert it into a cogent thought and transform it into words.  And this process is often highly frustrating to an INFJ. Grasping and experiencing an idea or concept on a deep level and then getting bogged down in the facts and details of conveying it to others can be quite debilitating for the INFJ writer. This often leads to a horrible version of writer's block in which the inspiration is there but becomes paralyzed and fruitless. Or perhpas even worse, there is output but it feels mechanical, phony, awkward and disjointed.

This, in turn, leads to another issue that INFJ's struggle with: We really dislike leaving anything unfinished and often consider the endeavor a failure until it is completed. For me, this means that it is extremely difficult to leave a blog post unfinished and dormant and move on to something new. Inevitably, this causes me to start a post and when I can't quite get across what I want to convey, weeks and sometime months go by while I keep coming back to the same post and trying to force it to work. Forcing it feels very disingenuous to me so the whole process just feels horrible. And this causes me to say things like, "I'm not a writer. Obviously, I'm not a writer because I am not writing.  I can't even finish this blog post I started." Thankfully I'm coming to once again embrace that writing is more about feeling than producing a "completed work." 

There is a myth that being a writer means that you can always put something down on paper that is clear and concise whether it be bad or good. That a writer is always producing an end product that is accessible and "valuable" to others. It seems that the same myth exists in all art: A person is an artist only if a product is produced and it is validated by others. I've long had the opinion that the most satisfying art is that which is done for one's own enjoyment regardless of how other's receive it or even if others receive it at all. However, it is easy to believe this and more difficult to live it. I'm only now realizing the part of "art for arts sake" that embraces the feeling that engaging in art brings. I've had help realizing this from a few different sources including my partner Christina and a fellow INFJ writer named Lauren Sapala who writes a lot about the difficulties that INFJ writers come up against. Lauren Sapala YouTube Channel.

The message I'm receiving and embracing is this: Feel. Create. Write.  Just let it out, forming and shaping the words as you go. It doesn't matter what the end result is whether it's a few lines of gibberish, several meandering paragraphs of deepest, darkest fears or a self-perceived masterpiece. The experience of writing, creating and sharing myself and the way I feel is where my passion lies. And passion is a gift.  One far greater than "talent" as deemed by the masses.     

And so, my promise to you all and myself moving forward is this: I'll continue to write and I won't hold back.  I'll allow myself to open up and feel the process and let it all out. It may not always be pretty, palatable or even readable. But it will be heartfelt and it will be genuine.  It will be me.

Peace to you my friends!

"Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself...

If, at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling, you find you’ve written one line of one poem, you’ll be very lucky indeed."  E.E. Cummings