A Running List (But Not the Sweaty Kind) of "Intimate Interrupters"

In the Artist’s Way book, Cameron talks about all the ways we block our own creativity by engaging in self-destructive, self-blocking ways. Mary Oliver, the late poet, more kindly calls these behaviors, the intimate interrupter. Oliver was so much more gentle in her word choice but both are accurate in a main block to being creative and living how we want is our own behavioral patterns and brain thoughts.

This resonates with me greatly. Because I have come to recognize similar behaviors every time I sit down to write, journal, create, think, and just BE. Awareness!

I thought it would be fun to make and share a running list. Maybe you recognize some of these within yourself and your own behaviors. Or now you will start to see them or how they show up for you.

Many internal dialogues (in italics) below are taken directly from my journal over the last month. Every morning I wake up early to write my morning pages/journaling before my 6 year old gets up and the day starts. These make me laugh, and I work to approach them with curiosity and compassion regardless of what I say at the moment, haha. I share them for your amusement…

1. I have to pee. (Nah, just kiddin’, just avoiding what’s next).

2. I gotta go to the kitchen (But I’m not hungry or thirty. And I have water next to me.)

3. A running list in my mind of all the shit I need to do that day instead of write. Lots of those entries. Today’s included: submit that damn workload spreadsheet, start syllabus redesign, pick up windshield fluid.

4. Oh, let me google, “what’s the best white t-shirt for women” because I need one that’s v-neck, but not too high or too low, and is longer but straight across, and is good quality but not expensive…

5. Coffee. I think I free wrote enough. I’ll go make coffee now.

6. Of course my pen ran out. I get up, creaking ankles, now kiddo will wake up…fuck, I can’t find replacement cartridge. And why am I so creaky.

7. How do I spell _______?

8. G is grunting in her sleep….shit, now she’s moving around, is she gonna wake up? But I’m trying to write over here.

9. Tattoo, was that a new tattoo idea, let me go look at Pinterest for how other people have done that…(my list is up to: hawk, pine tree forest or branch, swallows, blueberry branches, mother earth, the Bird woman and more)

10. I hear G waking up and it’s only 6am! Now she’s banging her lovie jingle bell to get me up. I feel like she wakes up early because she knows I’m up trying to write.

11. Okay, I’ll just send this email for a new appointment request.

12. How did my phone get in my hand and flip open to Instagram again!

13. Stand up to walk to kitchen. Sit back down.

14. Let me just post this on Facebook or Twitter.

15. My coffee’s cold. I want hot coffee. I really like a good cup of coffee with nice flavor.

16. Let me just check if anyone’s commented or liked my post…

17. Oh, I could go post that on LinkedIn…

18. I wonder what Co-Star says my horoscope is for today. Funny, it says to “be my own wingmanwomxn today” and I think that means to stop sabotaging myself! See above.

“The reward for attention is always healing…attention is an act of connection” (Cameron, p. 53). In giving attention to my patterns of distraction, I am more compassionate and attuned to the ways that I self-destruct and self-block. In so doing, I can better be able to step out of my own way and open up to radical self-honesty and my true needs. Underneath all this is my true self…

What do you notice in your patterns when you try to engage creatively or mindfully? Do any of these resonate for you?

Hold on before you answer, I gotta go warm up my coffee….Oh, I wonder if my horoscope has updated yet….