How Freewriting Helped Me Escape the Shoulds
You Should Read This
Published in
Mar 4, 2022
In 2015, I started freewriting to fill a lonely year abroad in Saudi. 3 pages of stream of consciousness text every day.
After a few weeks, I noticed a pattern. I’d think of something in my life that I wasn’t happy with (there were many), tense up, then write “I should…”.
I should …
be somehow better.
Multiple times a page, in endless forms.
Freewriting helped me break free from the shoulds because it showed that they were there. I hadn’t realized that I was running away from who I was.
I’m still on this journey but since then, I’ve gone from “I should”s to “I want”s to a few “I am”s.
I am happy to be writing. I needed to overcome my shoulds to get here. What shoulds are holding you back?
