The untapped creative power of engaging what IS...

The secret to undoing writer/creator's block.

Xavier Dagba

Mar 17, 2025

There was a time when I thought inspiration was a fleeting thing, something that either blessed me or abandoned me.

When it was absent, I would wait, hoping it would return like an unpredictable visitor.

Last year was the epitome of this, especially when I was in the depth of writing my book coming out later this year: "scars of gold".

I had many instances of staring at a blank page not knowing where to begin the writing process.

I think about it as raw dogging the creative process. Have you been there?

But over time, I discovered something else—something that changed the way I create and write forever.

I realized that:

Inspiration is a unique way to relate to the now moment. Your level of inspiration is directly proportional to how healthy your relationship to where you are is, regardless of how challenging the circumstances may be.

Yes I know, that may be challenging to digest, but this is a realization I keep coming back to.

Engaging my “uninspired self”

Most creatives have an avoidant relationship with their uninspired selves. You know, the part of you that feels disconnected from your creative juices. The part of you that is not in artistic channeling mode.

That's the biggest fear of many writers. You'll often hear: "I don't know what I should write about".

And I was there for a while. Let’s be honest. Sometimes it’s just challenging to get the wheel rolling.

This is what changed over the last year for me.

Now, when I feel uninspired, I don’t chase inspiration. I don’t fight the void. I sit with it. I engage it. I start a dialogue with it. I listen to the part of me that may feel stuck in there.

I write about loving myself in the uninspired state. I explore where my mind goes in these moments where I feel out of touch with heart-blowing wisdom.

When I feel stuck, I don’t force movement. I stay with the stuckness, writing about what it’s like to love myself inside of it.

Yes I know that may sound counter intuitive.

Yet nearly every time I embrace that practice, something unexpected happens.

Doors I didn’t know existed begin to open.

Creativity, flow, and deep wisdom rise from within—not from forcing or fixing, but from allowing, and from opening my heart to my "uninspired self".

How to practically engage your “uninspired self”?

One day as I was writing the first manuscript of the book, I was stuck at 10 words on a blank page. I could feel the resistance within me. Here is what it felt like to engage the stuckness:

Prompt 1: I don't want to write today because....

Answer: Who says I don't want to write? I just don't have something meaningful to write right now.

Prompt 2: I think "everything" I write should be meaningful because...

Answer: Because who would want to read a thousand words of bullshit?

Prompt 3: And if despite my best efforts some people still thought that what I write is bullshit, how that'd make me feel is...

Answer: shame and embarrassment. Flavors of humiliation. It would certainly be sobering.

Prompt 4: To the parts of me that feels exposed by the process of writing this book, I'd like to say...

Answer: I certainly cannot guarantee that I’ll bring this book to a level of perfection that would make it beyond reproach. That would be an unfair and impossible standard to hold against you. But I'll be here with you every step of the way. I won't let the possibility of experiencing embarrassment cause me to shut you down. I know this work is meaningful to you. I see how much of your heart and soul you’re pouring into this. My approval of you is not conditional to whether others appreciate your work too... ** tears flowed***

Prompt 5: If I gave myself full license to write imperfectly today, I would write about...

I will spare you the rest of my journal entries for that day. But this is what happened after that…

I proceeded to write 2542 words in less that an hour and a half. And weirdly enough it was the most aligned I had ever felt in the writing process.

What I once thought of as barriers to creativity—fear, confusion, lack of clarity—have become portals instead. When I engage what is here instead of rejecting it, I find that it transforms before my eyes.

For Creatives (truly all humans), Resistance Is a Portal

If you are a creative—whether you write, paint, build, or speak—you have likely encountered moments when you feel blocked, when the words won’t come, or when your work feels lifeless.

We are conditioned to think these moments are obstacles, and they are certainly challenging… but what if they are also sacred invitations?

They are an invitation to not just engage where you are, but also to break the chains of perfectionism you unconsciously wrap around what you create.

That’s how I choose to see them. And so far, it has been working for me.

The reality is that most writer/creator’s block is perfectionism and fear masquerading as lack of inspiration.

What if what you call a block is actually a threshold?

A door you can only walk through if you are willing to welcome what you have been conditioned to resist?

Most of us have been trained to believe that only our “best” selves deserve love. This conditioning is even stronger when it comes to your heart’s work.

That we are worthy when we are clear, productive, and inspired. But what if your own love is meant to be for all the “you’s”—the stuck, the scared, the confused, the uninspired?