Writers' Block—Writers Need to Step Out of Their Own Way, PART I

"We all have the ability … it’s just getting out of own way and asking for assistance.” –Sue Nordemo, RN 

I recently was seeking to find out about hypnosis for the main character in my novel-in-progress.  Talk about a great connection! A family member connected me to Sue Nordemo, a certified hypnotist and registered nurse. During our first conversation I felt like I already knew Sue, with her great sense of humor and calming voice.  Since so many writers I know talk about having writers’ block, I saw this connection as a great opportunity to pass along the wealth of information from my interview with Sue.  Enjoy!

1) What would you tell a writer in a couple sentences why they should do hypnosis to help alleviate writers’ block?  Hypnosis will help by-pass the critical thinking in the conscious mind and help access the subconscious mind in order to move forward. Remember, you already have the information you need, it's just getting past all that critical stuff!

2) What are the steps when a writer comes to you for this service?  It depends on what's going on for the person. If it's something that's been an ongoing problem, it's more than just the writers' block going on, and it may take more than one or two sessions. 

      I know the first time I ever used it was on myself, I was supposed to do an article on Reiki for my local nursing magazine, which went out to about 100,000 nurses.  I kept putting it off and putting it off because I got scared. I thought Oh WOW, I'm going to be writing an article, and all these nurses are going to be looking at it, what are they going to think? Then I sat down one day and thought "If you don't write it soon, someone else is going to write it, and they won't want your article."

      I thought, "Why don't you do what you tell your clients to do?"  So I just got into a very quiet space, turned phones off, put on relaxation music, closed my eyes, and got into a very quiet state and I said to myself, "OK, I need the title and I need this written in an hour."  I opened my eyes and stayed in that trance state and got the title instantly and had it written in one hour!  When they published it [article], they published it almost word-for-word, which was unheard of with nursing publications.

HYPNOTIC WRITING: I had actually taken a course in hypnotic writing; I can teach anybody to do that.  I have a class that I teach, a six hour program on how to do self-hypnosis.  So I can take that class and just turn it into a class of learning self-hypnosis to do hypnotic writing.

     Two examples that I always remembered, Mark Twain, all of his writings and humor came from his subconscious mind.  He would get into a meditative state, sit there quietly, and BINGO up would come all of his information he had written.  And Robert Lewis Stevenson he would do the same thing.  That’s where all of his novels and writings came from; for him I believe the story goes, every time his bank account got low, he’d say, “Oh, I need another novel, and he’d get into a meditative state and there it would be.”

     All it is, is a highly focused state [of mind] and letting go of your critical thinking; allowing your subconscious mind to take over because you have all the information stored there.  All your ideas, all your creativity, come from your subconscious mind.

     A couple years ago, I saw Paul McCartney being interviewed on TV.  This is very common for people who are musicians, song-writers, it comes to them in a dream state. Our subconscious mind works 24/7, so they asked him where did your song “YESTERDAY” come from and he said “I dreamt it.”  He said when he woke up, “I had the whole song written.” “Well, how did you come up with a title?”  He said, “When I first woke up I wasn’t sure if I dreamt it or thought of it Yesterday.”  And he had the title.

3) What happens then after the initial step?  After the interview, I have them fill out an intake form, I get a history from them, and find out exactly what they want to have happen [during the session], what is it they are looking for?  The more information that they give me, goes right into a script. 

Then I find out, how they take in information, do they tend to be a very visual person or audio, hearing or kinesthetic, which is touch.

We all have a certain amount of each but there’s usually one there’s more of. 

     Say they’re stuck on a Chapter, they can have the beginning and end all done but the middle they’re just so stuck.  I can take the theme or the content of what they’re looking for and put that into the hypnosis script. 

     For instance, depending on the person, I may take them through a library to get a sense of imaging themselves in a library; I do this with people with test anxiety.  And then they're sitting there and you can have them working on a computer, you can have them looking for books, you can have them look in the file system … there's all kind of stuff you can have them do, it's fascinating!

Sue Nordemo is a registered nurse with more than 30-years experience, a certified hypnotist, a Reiki master teacher, and a Meridian Tapping Practitioner.  She is the founder of Healing Crossways, which employs a holistic approach to help you achieve your goals.  Visit www.healingcrossways.com to learn more about Sue and what hypnosis can do for you!  She also offers hypnosis over the phone, 603-882-4944, sue@healingcrossways.com.