Ridding myself of the deadwood

After a wonderful vacation, which included a lot of driving, I came home to nearly a hundred emails - most of which I deleted. From those emails, I got the sense that I was being sent things that I shouldn't have been sent. Disagreements between other people that I was being indirectly involved in. I decided to lighten my load and rid myself of two volunteer positions that were dragging me down and taking away from my creative time and energy effectively giving me Writer's Block. One of these positions, I was unclear about cutting ties from until today.

Earlier today I was in the local library and stumbled across a copy of Psychic by Sylvia Browne. I read it in pretty much one sitting. One passage she wrote particularly jumped out at me:
As sometimes happens when I'm overwhelmed, I begin sinking into a deep depression. Since I know that's not uncommon, it's worth mentioning that I later learned to call it a "psychic attack." Please don't let that conjure up an image of me on a rampage through Cleveland with a machine gun. The term refers to an attack on the psyche when we involuntarily begin hearing and believing all the negative, debilitating, confidence-shattering "tapes" that play over and over and over again in our minds when we're exhausted, ill, and/or far too busy for our own good. The tapes are the insults and insulting thoughts aimed at us by the dark entities we've let into our lives.
She goes on to say that everyone has those same tapes playing in our heads and they all sound remarkably alike.

This paragraph struck a chord with me. I've been miserable and suffering "psychic attacks" for a long time now. From both volunteer posts which have nearly driven me to drink and a friendship that I've been struggling to free myself from. As fate would have it, one of the volunteer jobs came to an end of its own accord. The other I was driven out from out of sheer frustration. And the friend is moving. To help life return to a better balance, I have a permanent post at my job which lets me work two days a week and spend the other three pursuing my dreams of being a writer.

Sometimes Writer's Block, isn't a block at all. It's a sign that something has to give to make room for the creative self.