I’m sitting on the purple office chair facing my MacBook screen. My fingers touch various keys on the keyboard as I prepare myself to type, but the Google doc remains blank. I take a deep breath and close my eyes, hoping that once I open them inspiration will strike, my voice will suddenly roar, and the words will start pouring out.

I open my eyes, but all I see is the blank Google doc and even more emails come through I’ve yet to answer. I start breathing faster and now my shoulders are tensing up. My eyebrows furrow as frustration and anxiety start to kick in, and the adrenaline starts to take over my body.

“Don’t think,” I say to myself. “Just do.”

And so I obey. As if competing in a race against myself, I start quickly typing out as much as I can. “I’m sitting on ––” and then quickly delete it. “That’s boring.”

I try again. “I think…” Delete. “I think what?” Hell, I don’t know. I don’t know what the hell to say. How is it possible that I had so much to say earlier, but now I’m allowed to express it, I’ve gone mute? What’s wrong with me?

“I can’t do ––” 

No, be quiet.

I start to feel anger at myself bubbling up, and so I throw myself even further into action. I’m going faster and faster, opening up tabs after tabs, until I finally find the list of writing ideas. But they offer no relief – no magical insight or voila! moment. Nothing resonates. I don’t feel connected to any of them or anything at all for that matter. What’s wrong with me?

“I can’t do––” 

NO. Shut UP.

I will fight this, and I will win. The race continues, leading me to open up Elephant Journal for inspiration. A fellow student’s blog catches my eye. “Finding My Voice,” it’s titled, just like the name of our course.

She, too, says she struggles to express herself despite yearning to so deeply.

“Doing so gives me a trauma response,” she writes. “I freeze, and I also fight. It’s not fun.”

That sentence makes me pause. The race stops.

“What…what actually is wrong with me?” I quietly ask myself again, albeit from a very different place. ,

“Finally, you’re listening,” I suddenly hear. “Nothing. I’ve been telling you this the entire time. I’m just scared. You just keep telling me to shut up and fight on though, but how do you expect to express a voice you yourself don’t listen to?”

“What!?,” I respond. “YOU are my voice!?”

“Ok” I respond, not fully convinced. “I’m listening. What do you have to say?”

“I’m scared and I’m tired. I can’t do this right now. I need some sleep. I’m not superwoman, and damn it, Sheena, I can’t perform on command. I’m a human, Sheena, not a machine you can caffeinate on and off.”

F*ck it, what did I have to lose?

“Alright, you’re right, I’m tired. I don’t believe you’re really my voice but some self-sabotaging bullshit, but I don’t know what else to do. I’ll listen to you and call it a day.”

My shoulders relax. The fight is over. I go to bed early.

The next morning, I open up the laptop. Within seconds, the words start to flow.

“I’m sitting on the purple office chair…”