how I vent without getting spent

A while back, I came across a book called Write No Matter What by Joli Jensen. I was just beginning the dissertation writing process, and I wanted to set myself up for success. So naturally, I spent as much time as possible reading up on the craft of writing, instead of actually doing it. In the book, Jensen calls people like me out on this common procrastination tactic and offers a solution called, "the Ventilation File." 

It's all part of her bigger writing process. The first step is to get a project box to physically house each writing project. In each box, you set aside a file folder to use specifically for venting about the project. The idea is everyday, you spend time with your project by simply opening the box and tentatively peering inside. Now, it is very likely that once the box is open, you become paralyzed by self-doubt and mind numbing terror. In that case, no problem! Simply, feed all of that frenzied emotion to the ventilation folder, which is always there for you, ready to eat it up. By getting it all out on paper, you face and acknowledge your fears instead of repressing them. And in doing so, you create the possibility of setting those inhibitions aside, and out of your way. The best part is that using the ventilation file for just 15 minutes a day actually counts as working on your project! After all, the folder is inside the project box. 

Eureka! When I read this idea, I thought: 'THIS. IS. PERFECT. This will finally cure my chronic procrastination, which for me is basically just an exaggerated fear response. Finally, I'll be as productive as I've always wanted to be, every single day!'

 I got myself a sturdy box, meticulously labeled it with the word "DISSERTATION," filled it with a bunch of folders (this involved organizing the mess of papers on my desk first), arranged them in order of importance, and stopped to admire the result. By then I was already feeling quite accomplished, so there was no need to actually start writing that day. I set the box on my bookshelf, promising to visit again in the morning. 

The next day, I whipped out the ventilation file, jittery with anticipation. I took a meditative moment to tap into all of my fears and anxieties. Then I began to write. Two minutes in, I found myself up on my feet pacing. I tried to sit back down and write, but it felt like my thoughts were coming at me too fast to get them down with any kind of coherence. Why wasn't this working?!

After the effects of the first letdown dissipated, I tried to use my ventilation file a couple more times on different days. The same thing kept happening! Eventually I gave up on the idea; I was puzzled because theoretically it should have worked, but for some reason for me it just wouldn’t. For months, my project box sat in the office closet —prematurely obsolete —as ready fodder for my bouts of self-reproach and disappointment. It wasn't until almost a year later that I finally figured out what went wrong. 

I try to start most workdays with a walk outside, rain or shine. One day, on one of those morning walks, I was listening to the Huberman Lab podcast. A neuroscientist and professor at Stanford University, Andrew Huberman is a public intellectual, committed to sharing cutting edge science with the masses. During the episode I was listening to that day, he mentioned that when the sympathetic nervous system (the one that reacts to stress by making us alert) becomes activated by a stimulus, the body gets an urge to move. 

Something clicked in my brain. I realized that for me, writing is an activity of stillness. I do it well when I am in a thoughtful, introspective mood, sitting on my bed or at my desk in an overall state of relative calmness. In other words, when I can sit still.  Of course, as a graduate student, I often write under immense pressure —pressure that tends to manifest in my restless legs bouncing up and down  incessantly as I work. But that’s when I’m bottling that all up, ignoring my feelings about the work at hand and just doing it because the deadline is so threateningly imminent. Using the ventilation file is about doing the exact opposite: bringing those very thoughts and emotions, usually repressed, to the fore. The problem I had when I tried Jensen’s technique was that by deliberately facing those feelings, I worked myself up to the point of turning on my body's stress response. Racing thoughts and a compulsive need to move.

The idea of venting before working is a brilliant one. It just didn't work for me as an act of writing. What does work is a brisk walk as I talk into a voice recorder, like the voice note app on my phone. I find this works best if I've been walking for at least 15 minutes before I begin. Only then do I allow myself to open the floodgate, deliberately tapping into all the fears and anxieties lurking behind my dissertation project or whatever else I have going on. I talk, and talk, and talk. I talk out all of the things I am worried about, all the ways that everything could go wrong. I even find myself talking up solutions to my problems, as well as words of comfort and surprising insight. I talk until my venting turns into spoken dissertation writing. Then I know I'm ready to sit down to work.

I go through periods of time when my stress response is always bubbling just below the surface. Sometimes it's to the point that venting out my fears and frustrations, let's say on the phone to a friend, can lead to a physiological response that leaves me reeling for days afterwards. But something about a brisk walk outside seems to create a layer of resilience that is otherwise much harder for me to achieve. These walks help me reach the stillness I need to get out of my own way and get my work done. Once I've had a chance to walk and do a bit of venting, my thoughts begin to emerge —not as assaults on my psyche but as invitations to curiosity, reflection, and playfulness. Then, back home, with pen in hand or fingers poised to type, the acts of thinking and writing harmonize.

Venting is an undeniably useful practice. But if you're like me, prone to pacing when you're excited or overwhelmed, maybe try a ventilation walk instead of a ventilation file.