On Writing, Blocks, and Pushing through the Pain

I don’t get writer’s block. I know people do, but that’s not ever been a problem for me. Sometimes I’m paralyzed in the writing process because there are topics about which I want to write, but can’t, due to confidentiality issues, or inappropriateness or the fact that it’s just not blogworthy. That doesn’t happen often either, but sometimes what’s weighing heaviest on my mind is exactly what I can’t share online.

Today I have a client situation that is bothering me. It will work out, I’m sure, but when I’m concerned about a client’s success or when I feel they are at risk, that overtakes the focus of anything else.

The other day I was headed to my umpteenmillionth physical therapy appointment and subsequent workout and a friend reminded me to “push through the pain.” I did, and have been, over and over.

Pushing through the pain is beginning to reap rewards — no one said it would be easy; we’re not pretending it doesn’t hurt, here (my knee lacks the appropriate amount of cartilage and grinds upon every weight-bearing movement.) I am working to strengthen what’s above and around it, to release the pressure, and lessen the grind.

So today I’m thinking about my knee, and the physical work I’m enduring, in an effort to distract myself from my client worry (about which I can do little at the moment). I’m thinking about how even with client work sometimes we have to push through the pain; about how sometimes focusing on the other work, work that surrounds the particular issue, strengthening it, flexing those muscles, may help the situation that at the moment, seems quite impossible.

I can’t write about what’s on my mind, but I can write about the block, and getting through it.