When did I lose my voice?

My clients are a mix of absolutely depending on social media for their businesses or absolutely oblivious to its algorithms. Me? I'm somewhere in the middle.

I go through periods where I am chronically online and then have to pull myself away before I lose all progress with my mental health. It's a decidedly unhealthy relationship, but when it's good... it's good, right?

A few weeks ago it wasn't so good. I found myself overwhelmed with rage, grief, and a host of opinions I kept writing and deleting. (Politics, especially during an election cycle, will do that to a girl.)

So I decided the best way to spend the remaining weeks of this Venus Retrograde was to get the hell off social media. Log out, delete it from all my devices, and otherwise add an abundance of friction between me and any log ins.

I started sitting in silence again. At home. At the coffee shop. In the car.

The first few days were laughably uncomfortable. And then, as time went on, the silence was blissful. Delicious. I had space in my day, a desire to read physical books, and the capacity to model what life without a phone constantly in your hand looks like to the rest of my family (who need it, too.)

I was calmer. Hell, the house was calmer. Cleaner. I even started some (small) remodeling tasks I've had on my list for the last two years.

And then I started to write again. Journaling, writing on my framework, and even some work on a long held book idea (it's at least 30 years at this point.) I came across a ton of old ideas, but try as I might, I couldn't make them better.

Moving on from writing, I dove back into my rebrand (which I've been working on for the last year) and even that became a "what's old is new again" project.

Very on theme for this Venus Retrograde. But also very frustrating because... when did I lose my ability to do anything new?

When did I lose my voice?

When I'm on social media my ideas fly a thousand miles a minute. But I have no brain space to actually work on them. And now, off social media, I can't come up with ideas on my own when I have the capacity to put the work into them.

It's frustrating as hell.

Have I lost the ability to think? Have I lost the ability to create? Or am I swimming in this Venus Retrograde, doing all the things I should be doing: reviewing, revising, reflecting?

And will future me say the same things? Undoubtedly.

I don't know why I'm writing, or even sharing, this. Perhaps it's an exercise in getting out of my own way. Of clawing back my voice. Of finding a new ritual, away from social media: just open the damn thing, write, and publish.

Or maybe this is my sign to continue to sit with this discomfort, work with it... until it becomes as blissful as the silence that came without being on my phone.

And maybe in the bliss, in this silence, I can learn to listen to the voices I've been unable, or unwilling, to hear.

Maybe that's my lesson this Venus Rx cycle. Maybe it's yours, too.