Unsubscribing from PUSH energy

I've been unsubscribing. It's not personal, it's busy-ness.

WRITERS

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I’ve been unsubscribing. If your newsletter or emails didn’t make the cut, I’m sorry. It’s not personal, I’m just trying to remove some of the PUSH energy in my life.

As a recovering perfectionist (right in the middle of recovering, as in: I’m not there yet) this energy doesn’t serve me. I get swept up in the ‘rah' rah’ of it and go beyond the place I’m ready for into busy-ness.

Don’t get me wrong, as I’ve said in this post, push energy has it’s place (like when you’re trying to wrangle a sh**ty first draft into something that readers might actually want to read) but this year I want a softer energy, more ease and allowing, holding my goals lightly and letting them bloom rather than forcing them like rhubarb.

Now BEGINNING energy, that’s an altogether different kettle of salmon.

Starting something new… a book… a creative project… a substack… that’s like growing your first baby. Pregnant with juicy possibilities, plump with dreams and in complete denial of the challenges that will jump into your journey along the way.

Take the new book I’m outlining at the moment (or I should be, you know if I wasn’t here). The excitement is palpable. I’m on the cusp of something unformed. It could become anything! Ok, I know it will be the third book in my middle grade adventure series but it’s still in that lump-of-clay moment. The anticipation is gorgeous as I pull all the beginning energy around me like a rainbow cloak, delighting in its many colours and hues.

Put when PUSH energy arrives, I know the project will take a turn.

My ego will wake up, remove the rainbow cloak, folding it carefully and storing it in a drawer. Because now ‘we’re getting down to business’, now we’re doing this thing. Static electricity will spark as nervous energy seeps through my veins, erasing the warm, comforting anticipation and replacing it with calculation. Emotion enslaved to perfection. Waiting and allowing becomes planning and deadlines.

In a way creative beginnings feel all the more enticing because of their otherness. They’re a rebellion against control, a step away from polish towards play, and I’ll cling to them even as I start to track my wordcount, chapters and character arcs.

And of course I will need PUSH energy in this and every other project this year. The push to edit when I’d rather create. To market and promote when the introvert inside me would really rather not, thank you.

But for now, I’m just starting. So excuse me while I unsubscribe some more and drink in all the beginning energy while it lasts.

Michelle x

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