I'm posting this because I am in some sort of self sabotaging, mental blocking, near panic inducing emotional state right now and I can not seem to get myself into a coherent state of mind. I literally wrote over 50,000 words on one single writing project last week in 6 days. Something that I have been excited to start and finally had all of my 'ducks in a row' so to speak. The project goal is to write somewhere around 80,000 words, but for some reason I froze in the middle. I guess I did end up getting horribly sick and that kept me from accomplishing anything for a few days, but STILL.

I was on a roll and the words were just flying out of me, I knew where I wanted the story to go, etc. and now... I've written, deleted and rewritten 3,000 words over and over for the last few days. I can NOT seem to get past this block. It is sending me into a weird state of mind where I am doubting myself in SO many ways (yay! ANXIETY!) and turning this block into an overpowering, mindnumbing complete and utter freak the fuck out kind of thing.

Now I can't seem to write anything. The more I try to go back to writing on my project, the more I stress out about it. I've decided to just let it go for the day. I am determined NOT to even attempt to write anything on it at all. I've been struggling to write anything at all today. I can't seem to do any of the fun challenges I'm seeing, I can't even get a freewrite out today! That is really bad.

That thought has been spinning me in vicious circles, thinking, "Well, what if I just can't finish ANYTHING?" and if I do, What makes me think that I could ever write anything that people would spend money on? I think start to draw in the external stress about money and start thinking that I should just kick ALL of this writing shit to the curb and go get a job making $9.00 an hour at the grocery store, because of course I haven't worked much outside of the house for over twenty years and few people put a value on being a stay at home mom when it comes to hiring you.

And that of course just spirals up and up into utter panic.

I'm wigging OUT man!

I have to find my chill. I am letting my emotions run away with me and I need to NOT do that. It's time to let it go for now. I tend to just take the hits of stress and tamp them down, because there are just so many things that I can't fix myself, that I have no control over. I have to rediscover my own 'center' I guess you could say, and I always feel like I'm drowning during times like this. I can't seem to focus or remember how to calm myself down. It's quite ridiculous in some ways, because I've been through this so many times in the past and I KNOW that looking back I'll say, "Gee, I wonder why I was so stressed out!?"

What are your DE-STRESS routines? How do you get a handle on it?

For me, right now, I'm going to grab a silly little romance novel and go soak in a hot bath with some calming essential oils.

I could really use some positive vibes.