Here we are again – complex, deep, and nearly unexplainable emotions. This time, we will be working with grief. Specifically, grief of the unrequited kind. I was recently exposed to the idea of unprocessed grief, and how we can sometimes use that grief as a justification for not staying in the moment, but more on this later. This was an incredibly insightful take on how we process grief as individuals. Thus, my curiosity and obsession with figuring out how grief works in my life was born. May you enjoy my process, and may it also encourage and help you process grief of your own.

At its most simple, conflict is fully understanding the characters within your story. What is the deepest desire of your protagonist, antagonist, and supporting characters? Then you need an opposing force that motivates those characters to move outside their comfort zone.

Fear. What a complex and equally intriguing emotion. We have all experienced fear to some degree, ranging from mild inconvenience to crippling anxiety. Before we delve too far into the complexity of this emotion, I must first state in very clear terms that I am not a clinical practitioner. Merely I am an individual in pursuit of the truth and a deep desire to help others work through and chew on complex thoughts and emotions as I do the same. With that in mind, the core goal of this blog post is to tackle how fear keeps us from being our best selves and often bars us from pursuing what we have natural skill sets for by fooling us into the sense that inactivity is somehow better.

Think of the stories you love the most. Do you enjoy them because there is a perfect structure and by-the-books dialogue? Or is it because you see yourself (or at least a portion of yourself) in the story? Chances are it was the latter. Why is that? Well, as humans we long for connection and community, which generally results in us surrounding ourselves with like-minded individuals.