Why Writers Struggle to Find Flow

Welcome to Writing Your Resilience, the podcast for writers who want to write and live the story that sets them free. I’m your host, Lisa Cooper Ellison, a writer, transformational and trauma-informed coach, story alchemist, and fellow traveler on the winding road of healing and creativity. Each week, I’ll share tools, practices, and conversations that will help you let go of what no longer serves you as you create stories that change lives — especially your own. Together, we’ll explore how to trust your creative voice, support your mental health and resilience, work with your nervous system and unique design, and stay connected to your deepest calling as a writer, even when life gets messy. It’s time, my friends, to write and live the story that sets you free. I’m honored to walk that journey alongside you, one story and one episode at a time.

Well, hello, everyone. I am here today with Lynn Shattuck and Sarah Chauncey for an Editor’s Round Table where we are going to talk about an issue that is really near and dear to my heart — definitely to Sarah’s heart, because she has lots to say about it, and I know Lynn as well — but it’s at the heart of what we do as writers, and that is getting into flow. But in order for us to talk about this and some of the laws around it, I want to first ask both Lynn and Sarah about experiences of constriction, because part of the way that we know something is by knowing its opposite. So, Lynn, what has been constricting your writing practice?

Lynn Shattuck [3:14] Yeah. About a week ago, I had a work situation that was very deadline-based and very time-consuming. All of a sudden, whatever margin I was kind of used to having in my days was gone. And I felt like — you know the scene in Star Wars where the walls are closing in, in the trash compactor? It was like that. And what I noticed is that because it was deadline-based, my nervous system was activated, and I was getting further and further away from flow. It did not feel good and was not conducive to creativity.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [3:54] Definitely not. Gosh, have I been there. I know that experience well. What about you, Sarah? What’s something that has created constriction in your writing life?

Sarah Chauncey [4:05] I moved to a new city about a year ago, and I am someone who really needs quiet. I’m living next door to basically a strip mall being constructed with two residential towers, and they’ve been doing foundation work. It is loud and distracting and activating. So that’s been a real challenge — figuring out how to do my work while that’s happening.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [4:35] I am feeling your pain. I have lived next to construction in the past, and I think one of the hardest things about it isn’t just the noise, but the randomness of it, right? Just when you think the noise is done —

Sarah Chauncey Exactly.

Lisa Cooper Ellison Well, thank you for sharing these aspects of constriction. Mine is going to feel very familiar as well, and that is the stories I’ve been telling myself about my writing. I have this piece I’ve been working on, and it’s funny because the pressure has been coming from two ends — a little like your experience, Lynn, with that trash compactor. On the one hand, there’s been a part of me asking, does this even matter? Is this any good? Is it meaningful? Does it belong in the book? I’ve had all of these doubts, and when I feel doubt, my creativity is like — if this were a video game and there was a life force, that life force is going down. And then, on the other hand, I have pieces in my book that feel channeled — not that I didn’t have to edit them, but they came out pretty well. So, it feels like there’s this bar for what “good” is, and I’m afraid I’m going to mess it up. I have these two opposing sets of feelings, thoughts, and stories that I’ve been wrestling with, and of course, what happens is that I can’t really write. That is one of the reasons I’m so excited about what we’re going to do today. So, Sarah, tell us about the law of increasing flow. What is it? What do we need to know?

Sarah Chauncey [6:28] This is something I developed after about 20 years of thinking about it. Twenty years ago, I went through severe burnout. I was in a very prestigious writing job, and I noticed that the more effort I put in, the worse the results — the harder I tried, the fewer words came out, and they were terrible. I eventually kind of gave up. Then I spent the next five years wondering what it would look like to have a law of increasing flow, because what I’d been experiencing was diminishing returns. The opposite of that came down to three core elements. The first is getting grounded — becoming present before we sit down, before we put the butt in the chair. The second is taking strategic breaks before we begin to bonk, working in small bursts. And the third is not pushing through but stopping when there’s still something in the tank. When you start to feel yourself slow down, or the words start to feel like you’re pulling teeth, that’s the time to take a break and refill your tank. This way, you’re always creating from a place of abundance. There’s a phrase — “serving from your saucer” — which means don’t let yourself get depleted. This is creating from your saucer. What do you guys think?

Lisa Cooper Ellison [7:55] I love that image — creating from your saucer. It’s so beautiful, such a nice visual. And I can say for myself that pushing is something that can be a real challenge for me. What about you, Lynn?

Lynn Shattuck [8:12] Similarly. It’s funny, because I feel like we live in a culture that pushes productivity and pushes pushing, so it’s a breath of fresh air to hear someone talking about stopping before you hit the wall. It feels novel, and it feels gentle and kind.

Sarah Chauncey [8:40] Can I add something, Lisa?

Lisa Cooper Ellison [8:43] I was just getting ready to ask you a question, but go ahead.

Sarah Chauncey [8:47] Historically, before the Industrial Revolution, walking and being in nature was the foundation for writers. Granted, those were also largely privileged writers — but the whole idea of the productive writer: yes, it matters if you’re a professional copywriter or if you have a series you need to deliver on, but I question the need for productivity in the industrial sense when it comes to creativity. What do you think, Lisa?

Lisa Cooper Ellison [9:23] I think that’s a huge issue. I even think about — this is post-Industrial Revolution but not now — Andre Dubus III’s memoir, Townie, where he describes his father’s routine, which to me feels just delightful. He would get up in the morning and write for three hours, then go for a run, then teach in the afternoon. He had this really nice rhythm, this expansiveness around his art. The way it’s described in the book conveys that expansiveness, and I don’t think we necessarily feel that today. I will say it doesn’t feel common. I have to work toward it in a way that maybe I didn’t when I was younger.

Sarah Chauncey [10:19] This is what I’ve been practicing for 15 years, so I am happy to help you. And by the way — I’m blanking on his first name — but Murakami and Maya Angelou both did similar things. Murakami speaks about running as his rhythm for creative flow. Maya Angelou used to go to a hotel room, write for four hours, and then spend the afternoon doing life things and letting ideas percolate.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [10:52] So it sounds like part of stopping while you still have gas in the tank is setting some boundaries around the work and allowing for some of the work to be percolation. Does that sound right, Sarah?

Sarah Chauncey [11:06] Oh, absolutely. In fact, I would say the majority of the work is percolation — learning to pay attention, with our observing circuits, to what is coming up. Our subconscious works so much faster than our conscious minds. What we call intuition, which a lot of people dismiss as woo-woo, is actually the logic of the subconscious. The subconscious takes all our research, all our memories — it has recorded everything we’ve ever experienced — and it just goes. Being present to allow that is the key. Did that answer your question?

Lisa Cooper Ellison [11:53] Yes, and I think that’s really important. I actually did an episode recently on intuition where I talked about this — that intuition is not, quote, woo-woo. There’s actually science around it. It’s not magical; it’s the fact that our minds and bodies take in information much faster than the conscious mind can process. They integrate that with what’s already there — what we’ve learned, what our experiences are — and offer us what feels like a snap decision, but one that is genuinely informed. I think one of the things that can happen with intuition is that we think it’s not informed because it happens so quickly. But that is false.

Sarah Chauncey [12:38] It’s another false construct of this post-industrial era — the idea that if it takes time and effort, it must be good, but if it’s too easy, it can’t be. Lynn, what do you think? Does this resonate with you?

Lynn Shattuck [12:55] Yeah, I’m just thinking about how to be in touch with that subconscious space. We have to have time and quiet, and we live in a really noisy world. I have to consciously make myself go for a walk without listening to a podcast, which sounds simple enough but can make me really squirmy in actuality. If I don’t do that, I’m not making space to touch base with that part of me that can bring up information that’s really helpful to my writing life.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [13:33] That makes me think about something we were talking about before I hit the record button — the issue of technology and distraction. Because if intuition requires quiet and stepping back to listen within, distraction is antithetical to that. So, what are you doing to deal with distraction, especially tech distraction? Lynn first, and then you, Sarah.

Lynn Shattuck [14:05] Probably not as much as I’d like to. It’s more of an issue than I’d like it to be. I have this silly merge game that I’ve just spent hours on — it’s not Merge Mansion, but it’s similar. Merge Star. Don’t get it, anybody. I do not recommend. But it’s like, what am I doing with my precious time here on Earth? And yet, at the same time, I feel like there has to be some time where we can just kind of zone out — which maybe in the past would have just been watching TV. So, I don’t have a great answer, but just practicing small moments, like sitting in a waiting room and not immediately pulling out my phone, noticing those urges and occasionally stifling them. What about you, Sarah?

Sarah Chauncey [15:02] I mean, I’m not perfect at it. I think people assume I’m totally Zen and never on tech, and that’s not the case. Since I’m an editor and I work on a computer — for at least the past 10 years, I keep my phone on Do Not Disturb and on silent with no notifications. For people I want to be reachable by in an emergency, I use what iOS calls Emergency Bypass, on a case-by-case basis. I don’t have a TV — I haven’t had one for a while. That’s not to say I don’t watch streaming, but I found that watching on my phone rather than a huge screen means I’m not quite as sucked in, and it helps me see that there is space around it. The other thing is that when I’m out walking in the forest, tech becomes irrelevant. The forest itself makes me so present that I just — yeah. I really think that’s probably true for everyone, once they get used to it. And I was hooked on Merge Mansion for a year, so I get it. I do check texts — I’m a big texting person — but turning off notifications was a game changer.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [16:36] I love that you turned off your notifications. I’ve done that on almost everything. I haven’t figured it out for Substack yet, but I’m working on it — it’s just a ding, but it’s not great for your brain. I definitely agree about the importance of going outside without tech. I’ve even committed to being a bad Instagrammer. It’s a conscious decision: I do not want to curate my life. So, when the most important things happen, I put my phone away. For example, I was at a walk for peace, and I watched the monks go by. I had this fleeting moment of, oh, I could take a video — and then I thought, no. They’re taking videos, and their videos are good. And to be fully present with the monks, I cannot be looking through my phone. So, I don’t have a video of it. Shutting things off is so important, and I think leaving your phone at home is sometimes the easiest way to do that, or putting it on airplane mode. This isn’t a conspiracy theory, but I sometimes wonder whether having the phone on Wi-Fi taps into something in the brain, because I personally notice a difference when my phone is on airplane mode — it just doesn’t call to me in the same way. If any listeners know more about the tech side of this, or have an article you’d like us to read, please feel free to share. But for now, just know that airplane mode might be worth trying.

Sarah Chauncey [18:40] That’s a great idea — I haven’t tried that. I do take my phone with me because my transit app and credit cards are on there, but I feel no pull toward it when my mind is experiencing awe, whatever that is. And that’s the irony — even a YouTube video of nature can do it. When I feel that sense of awe, I have no desire to pull out my phone.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [19:13] I love that. And I think awe is a really important emotion and experience for writers to have — for anyone, really. I am firmly pro-awe, 100% Team Awe. Let’s have it as often as we can. And what I can say for myself is that awe often comes from a place of peace rather than happiness. So, Sarah, I’m wondering if you want to say something about the difference between peace and happiness and which one you choose — and then I’ll ask Lynn the same question.

Sarah Chauncey [19:53] I always choose peace. Around 2010, I heard a line by Eckhart Tolle that has stuck with me: happiness requires conditions being perceived as positive, but inner peace does not. When I heard that, I didn’t have enough money to live — I was bartering for food with a coffee shop; I was below survival mode. And today, I’m not thrilled about the construction outside, but it’s not — I mean, sometimes the vibrations disturb my peace, but it’s a practice. Everything for me is a practice. If I’m not resisting the is-ness, as Buddhists say, then I can feel peace no matter what. I have a lot of stress, but I can still feel peace with it. Sort of. Does that make sense?

Lisa Cooper Ellison [20:45] Oh, 100%. Lynn, does something in that resonate with you?

Lynn Shattuck [20:50] Definitely. I would also choose peace. Happiness seems pretty fleeting and fluttery — and kind of the same as sadness, too, right? Those are things we just sometimes feel. I would rather be in a place of peace, which I think has something to do with some sort of faith — just trusting that things are going to be okay, whatever that means.

Sarah Chauncey [21:18] Can I add a little thing about presence? For me, I spent 10 years focused on bringing myself into just this moment, and I have found that with that practice — as long as I am committed to just this split second, not even five minutes — peace is there in the background. It’s not something we have to pull out. We have to let go of what isn’t peace.

Lisa Cooper Ellison Well said. I need to remember that.

Sarah Chauncey That’s why they call it a practice, right?

Lisa Cooper Ellison [22:02] Exactly. Practice, not perfection. For myself, one of the ways I get to peace is recognizing when I’m not peaceful and then knowing I can make a conscious decision. One of the ways I do that is to accept life on life’s terms — to accept what is now. A mantra I use is: Let everything that needs to go, go; let everything that needs to come, come. I’ll also say, at the beginning of the day or in meditations before a podcast episode, what Bhikkhu Paññākāra invited everyone to do during the walk for peace — take a few breaths, put your hands on your heart, pay attention to your heart, and then simply say out loud: Today is my very peaceful day. Simply saying those words is committing to a decision. I’m committing to being peaceful, and I can be peaceful and also upset or uncomfortable or anything else. I just have to accept that that is my reality.

Sarah Chauncey [23:10] It’s about putting space around negative emotion — just visualizing that this feeling exists as part of something larger, and that it will pass, like everything passes. And as the saying goes, it might pass like a kidney stone, but it will pass.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [23:31] Oh, those kidney stone experiences. We all have them. What about you, Lynn — is there a practice you use to help you stay in peace even when life is tough or giving you something you don’t want?

Lynn Shattuck [23:48] Yeah. If my nervous system is super activated and I’m feeling really panicky, the breathing practice where you do a longer exhale than an inhale — I think it involves pursing your lips, like you’re blowing out a candle — has been miraculous. Just on a physiological level, that will settle me and take me out of fight or flight most of the time.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [24:15] I love that you shared that, because there is something about pursing your lips and blowing out — it actually connects to the vagus nerve, which is tied to our fight-or-flight system. Your body is super wise. It knows.

Sarah Chauncey [24:29] Pressing the lower abdomen is also essential for me. I had COVID last summer, and ever since I’ve been in sympathetic dominance — I cannot get my body into parasympathetic. So, it’s a real exercise in how to be present and calm when my amygdala is on fire.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [24:52] So what’s your go-to when that’s happening?

Sarah Chauncey [24:59] Feeling my body from the inside — feeling my hands, feeling my feet on the earth, closing my eyes, taking deep breaths, and just feeling the energy in my body and allowing it to be as it is. And sometimes I scream to let out the extra. I’m a big fan of screaming when you need to scream.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [25:30] I am also a fan of that — and I love screaming for joy too. I had some friends in graduate school, a group of three of us, and we would have so much fun. I used to go to the car after class and say to my friend, “Would you like to scream together?” She’d say, “Yeah, let’s scream.” So, there we were on a college campus — just screaming as loud as we could, three or four times, and then dissolving into laughter. It was the best. I still do it at my house.

Sarah Chauncey [26:04] I had a grad school experience with two classmates where we threw prop plates against a wall. That was like the best thing. Yeah — grad school.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [26:17] Grad school teaches you all the good things — the growing things —

Sarah Chauncey Frustration, rejection —

Lisa Cooper Ellison [26:25] Oh my God, rejection. How to blow off steam. So many things that graduate school is good for.

Sarah Chauncey Creative excuse-making.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [26:34] Oh my God, just so much. Well, I want to get back to that exercise you shared about going inside, because I want to talk about something you wrote — that novels grow in the dark. That is so juicy for me. Can you share what you mean by that and talk about some of the practices you use for accessing that subconscious space where this work happens?

Sarah Chauncey [27:04] First, I wish it were my quote — it’s J.D. Salinger’s, someone far more revered than me, but I’ve found it to be true. Part of it for me is that I slowed my life down a lot. I realize there’s privilege in that, being single and without kids, but I schedule based on energy rather than available time, and that is a big part of creating that space. Meditation is huge — in order to notice what’s coming up, we have to learn to observe our thoughts, question them, and interact with them as something separate from ourselves. So many people, especially writers, identify with their ideas. Dream work is also great, because things will surface while we’re dreaming or meditating. I think it can be scary for people who worry about going into that inner space, but when I turned to face it, it was just a paper tiger. I thought there were dragons in there, but inside it was full of insight and even joy and guidance, and it just made my life so much easier. So, I encourage developing that self-awareness — which may include therapy and healing from trauma, because if you haven’t had the opportunity to heal, that space can feel very frightening.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [28:44] That makes total sense, and I love that you’re talking about the work we do in therapy. Something that happens for a lot of people who come from invalidating environments or have experienced a lot of trauma is that we divorce ourselves from our senses and from our own experience — especially if we grew up being told that what we perceive as reality isn’t real. That didn’t happen. You’re overdramatizing. All the things people say. We separate ourselves from what’s happening, and when we do that, we separate ourselves from our intuition. Unpacking those experiences and dealing with stuck emotions is so important.

Another thing I do is work with Human Design. Therapy is one way to work through these things, and I’m 100% for it, but the complement is looking at how we’re really designed — where our strengths lie — and trusting that we have these amazing capacities to read the signs around us and allow for divine timing. One of the ways I’m practicing this right now: I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that my constriction is worrying that I can’t make this chapter as good as some of the others, and also not knowing whether it’s too dark. So, I just started asking questions — not for the sake of getting an answer, just asking. One question I asked was, is there an aspect of this that could be funnier? And then I went for a walk, did some yin yoga — yin yoga helps a lot for me — and I wasn’t expecting an answer, wasn’t fretting about an answer, just letting it roll around. What I found is that when I let it roll around and did something else, the answers came. And so, I was able to get into the darkness.

Sarah Chauncey [31:06] Yes, this is why we need that look-away time and that percolation time. Walking is my key practice, but anything works. There’s a line — I’m going to mangle it — but something like, “Where water flows, ideas follow.” I had a client once who kept a whiteboard in her shower, which is a little too much for me, but — great ideas don’t happen when we’re sitting at the keyboard going, okay, I need to fix this. And as we learn to dialogue with our inner self and our higher self, asking questions, those answers will just pop up. Which is the other reason I keep my phone when I walk — I have 10,000 notes on my iPhone.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [31:58] I keep my phone near my shower too. And I have to say, your client with the whiteboard — if my husband would allow it, I would have one. Actually, one of my listeners sent me some waterproof notepads, so I do have those now. Amazing listener — I am just so grateful. That person and I are simpatico.

Well, this has been an amazing conversation, and I have absolutely loved being with the two of you and talking about flow — how it’s working in our lives and how it’s not always working in our lives. Because I think that’s the most important thing for you to hear, listeners. Whether you’re a writer or anything else, if you’re wondering, how come I’m not in flow? Why is this hard for me? — it’s hard for all of us. It’s just about practicing and showing up. If each of you had one takeaway — one thing you’d want that listener to know — what would it be? I’ll start with you, Sarah.

Sarah Chauncey [33:12] I credit this to Eckhart Tolle, though I’ve taken it to a whole new level: get the inside right before you take action, no matter what you’re doing. If you’re resisting what you’re doing, it’s not going to go well.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [33:29] I love that. Get the inside right. What about you, Lynn?

Lynn Shattuck [33:34] Kind of similarly — realizing that having a settled nervous system, being in flow, and nurturing and taking care of myself all work together in my benefit. Which is not the way I was trained to think growing up.

Sarah Chauncey [33:50] Looking at our conditioning — yeah, that’s a whole other topic.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [34:03] That sounds like possibly the next episode. I can see it forming right now. And I’ll just say that my one takeaway is this: let the practice be enough. Things will unfold when they are supposed to unfold. I know that takes tremendous trust, and I know how hard that can be — especially when the stakes feel high and you just need or want something to happen. Just keep showing up, one breath and one moment at a time, and allow that to be enough. Because that is how we get anywhere.

Thank you both so much for being on the podcast. It has been such fun and an absolute joy, and I look forward to next time.

Lynn Shattuck / Sarah Chauncey Thanks so much, Lisa. Was super fun. Thank you.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [34:58] Thank you so much for listening. If you’d like to learn more about Sarah and Lynn, please see the show notes for this episode. And if you’d like to take this topic a little deeper, grab your notebook and journal about what distracts you or keeps you from being present. Once you have your answer, come up with one new thing you could do to be more present in your life based on this episode. You can make my day by sharing your strategy in the YouTube comments, or by posting any questions you have about this topic. Bonus points if you also subscribe to the channel — likes, subscribes, and comments are how we spread the word about this show, and they’re one more way we can stay connected. I would love to hear from you.

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Until next time, remember that your story matters. As you write and connect with the truest, most authentic version of yourself, you become not just the writer, but the person you’re meant to be. And that, my friends, is the real freedom writing can offer you.