You are awesome!

Peace,
Mo

To the dissertation writers: I’m working on mine too, but I call it thesis because it’s shorter. For awhile, I kept writing it in all capital letters, because that’s how big it felt in my head. Now I don’t let it shout at me anymore. I’m still all flavours of stuck about it though…

@Amna: I too am finding the “meeting myself where I am” as the most difficult part. I came to a realization yesterday that I have to accept that this is difficult for me, and that it’s okay for me to be not yet ready to meet myself where I am. So (muhaha!) I’m meeting myself at “not ready to meet myself where I am”, wrapping myself in a delicious paradox that I’m hoping will dissolve itself with time.

@Alicia: It’s hard to let go of the feeling that I should be done now, but I do keep trying. And you nailed it with the big scary phrase “Document That Proves Your Intellectual Worth For All Time”; no wonder we worry ourselves into a tizzy, eh? But alas, I’ve been trying to let go of this one for awhile, and it’s tough. I guess that’s why I’m reading an article about how to deal with stucks that aren’t supposed to be there anymore…

@Andrea: I just want to say that I’m also six years in, which I know makes it really hard to drop the “should be done” feeling. I’m finding that my own encouragement seems to be causing me to resist moving forward, like I’m trying to push a cat to do something it was probably going to do on its own anyways, eventually. Hey, maybe it’s the “should be done” that’s pushing me to encourage myself…

Since I’m here at a time when I really did intend to be working on my thesis, perhaps now is a good time to meet my stuck for tea. I think I’ll try a Havi-style conversation with it, even though I think I keep pretending I’ve found solutions when I do this. Deceptive, my stuck is!
.-= Qrystal´s last post … Resolving to Overcome My Stuckness =-.

So I totally don’t know you, except that because of your amazing blog, I feel I a little bit do. I’m new to finding you, less than two weeks, and already I look forward to the daily email (and ha, I just discovered if I GO to your SITE, there might already be a post UP! it’s like finding dark chocolate unexpectedly!).

In addition to your amazing, entertaining, plain ole stupendous writing style, you have SO. MUCH. WISE. And you’re sharing it. And it’s wonderful. And I’m trying hard not to gush so I’ll stop with the compliments, I think you have zillions of those (yay).

What I’m trying to say, what I was thinking about in the shower (genesis of all good ideas), is that … while I wouldn’t wish stuckness on you in a trillion years, it IS awesome that you’re as in the trenches with it as we all are. Which, sure, is true for every being, I suppose. But, you’re so NOT wise-sage-sitting-lotused-on-a-mountaintop-dispensing-wisdom. I mean, of course you’re not, you never would, I’m not saying this well. It’s that you’re living it, just as we all are, or are sure trying to. Living it, breathing it, destuckifying it, right alongside us. If you were never stuck, you wouldn’t innovate, learn, be next to us in the trenches (or not in the same way, at least). Or, over time, there might be a distancing … you might float off into clouds of bliss and who would feed Selma? (Hey Selma, quack)

OK, I’m TRYing not to essay, but essay is what I always do – just 1 more thought – driving to yoga, the thought came: it’s like what we as writers are always told – SHOW people, don’t TELL them – more effect, more impact, more connection, just more better. And you’re showing us – you’re so authentically living it.

I’m sure saying a lot to someone I totally don’t know. Hope none out of line. Really, it’s all essentially a thank you.
.-= Shana McGough´s last post … It’s the simple things =-.

Except I realized that I’d *pretended* to resolve my stuck so that everyone else would get off my case about it. When in reality, it just went behind the scenes and has been sneakily stuckifying a lot of things instead and confusing me incredibly.

On the bright side, it’s like a fog has cleared up and suddenly a lot of things make a lot more sense.

Yay sense!

Also my partner bought me a purple duck.
I don’t really know why. He didn’t even know about you, Selma that is, he didn’t even know about you and he went ahead and bought me one. It made me smile a lot.
It’s so very cute and made me think of you too.Although my duck is nameless at the moment -sad I know. Plus it has West Ham United emblazoned on it and it’s purple. I love that it is purple with a big, smiley yellow beak/ I’ll have a chat soon with purple ducky and find out what it’s name is.
No dissing of ducks allowed.

I threw a few shoes this week. Plus someone threw what felt like a bomb in response to me badly, clumsily asking for more space, which was me throwing a damn shoe. My stuck came up and it was so huge and so awful it nearly sunk the bloody ship. My ship that is.

Much better now though. Phew!

Hugs and thanks to all and this wonderful space and some brillaint pearls of wisdom.

Unfortunately, there’s little that’s scientific about my paper. It’s all philosophical gobbledy-gook (welcome to the world of musicology/music theory/composition!). My problem is that I always feel like I could be writing music (yay!) instead of writing about music (boo!). I think I’m bored. Not only do I feel like I should be done by now (6 years of sporadic writing), but I wanted it to be over with a long time ago. When I have time to work, it’s the last thing I want to do. Otherwise, I’m a busy bee who is easily distracted by more desirable things. Buzz buzz.

But I’ll think about letting go of the done-by-now, because that’s only making me and my stuck feel yucky, it’s true.

@ Dissertation people (hi Amna!) The thing that finally helped me finish mine (after 3 years of working on the blasted thing) was to let go of the feeling that I should be done now. Because otherwise the thought of it alone was such a punishment…It also helped that I had just Had It – nothing like having Had It to focus the mind. And the thing I realized afterward was that it was really just another scientific paper – the term “dissertation” had so much baggage that made it seem impossible. Because it is the Document That Proves Your Intellectual Worth For All Time. Which you never want to read again :)

It’s reassuring to know that I’m not supposed to have everything fixed after the first, second or 40th iteration – as a recovering achiever, that’s something I get to go process now :)

I’m all kinds of broke right now, so no purchases at the moment, but I’m reading my way through this site–you have given me hope that I can do things my way (if I can figure that out), instead of going to another horrible networking group.

I’m so glad I found you! And Selma.