Have you ever been all charged up to write, ready to plow in and get something written (a newsletter perhaps?), yet find when you sit down words come but they’re somehow… flat? You write a sentence and it’s dry, as lifeless as the skin life behind by a snake. I’ve done that – still do sometimes as it’s all good and all part of the process – but now I have more insight on how to shift when the words aren’t what I want. And my recent reminder of this process came from trying to heal some pain I was dealing with.

A few months ago, I started getting some shoulder and arm pain. I went to a physical therapist, who promptly showed me what exercises I needed to do. He spoke plainly and said to do X number of reps with the yellow exercise band, Y times a day, and assured me that in a few weeks I’d be fine. I’d go home, follow his direction… yet the pain continued getting worse.

For two months I did this, until finally I realized I needed a different path. I got on the phone with some of my wise women friends, they recommended some alternative practitioners, and I found myself in a small house off the beaten path with someone I hoped would help me. I showed her the exercises I’d been doing. She smiled, then gently showed me a way of doing them where instead of mindlessly moving my body, I fully engaged. I breathed deeply, stretched my arm very slowly, let my intuition guide me, and suddenly it all clicked.

Rather than simply following directions with my head, I was pulling together mind, body and spirit towards my healing. Rather than following the more masculine form of only “doing,” I was pausing long enough to integrate my “being” into my doing. It made all the difference.

So, what does this have to do with writing? Sometimes things don’t click because we simply start writing, going through the motions and so focused on the goal of finishing it that we don’t go along for the ride. We approach our writing the way we would closing a business deal or buying a car. That may provide momentum – a good thing! – but it doesn’t flavor our work with who we are.

That’s the more traditionally masculine way of approaching things. When the feminine energy is called in, however, our intuition kicks in. We start feeling into a writing project and letting it flow the way it needs to. We pull our minds into the present and integrate that with our bodies and our wisdom to write from that deeper, more effortless place.

If I hadn’t integrated this more holistic approach with my health, I’d probably still be sitting there pulling on exercise bands while my mind imagined when it would be over. Now I have a luscious, challenging, and incredibly exciting process that is growing all of me, not just my arms and shoulders. When we write like that, the benefits go far beyond what we’re writing as well. Like the snake with its new skin, we move through life with more vitality, presence and ease.