Team Confession: this piece exists because we had absolutely no idea what to write.
This is Faith, hi! I’m a writer and I help Mag and Gary behind the scenes of Encompassing. I’m here to start off this piece which was initially sent out as a newsletter…Of all our newsletters, this one is our favorite so far and we wanted to share it with you, all our readers.
Early in April, I asked Mag and Gary what they were working on that random week… and instead of answers, we got a very real conversation. So we decided to turn the conversation into the this.
Here’s what happened—
Mag: You’ve been asking me to write a newsletter and I’ve been telling you I’ve got no inspiration.
I’ve been working on autopilot, doing what I need to do, which feels somewhat nice because I don’t need to think. But creatively, I’ve been dry.
Though now, as we’re talking about it… I thought, why not just put it out there? That I’ve got nothing.
Makes me think about how many of my clients talk about creative dryness.
While explaining that I’m uninspired, I realized we can just stay in the here and now and talk about being it. In this space, just letting myself talk, I find I actually have a lot to say.
Clients always apologise in sessions for rambling. They feel like they should stop.
But I say: maybe it is in the rambling that ideas come. We can talk about so many things when we ramble — but we choose to talk about that one thing. And that’s often revealing. It tells us what actually matters to us.
Gary: I really have nothing to say (thinking….)
Okay… something that came up when you mentioned rambling and feeling uninspired: I feel like I have to write something right. Something perfect.
That pressure to be perfect — to show up, to say something worthwhile — that’s what stunts creativity.
But if you just give me space to speak, things come up. When you ask me to write it, that’s a different thing entirely.
We devalue rambling. Just letting yourself flow isn’t something we get to do much in daily life.
We’re holding so many roles, and we feel we have to do them well. At some point, it starts to feel almost wrong — like rambling is unproductive. Like just being yourself isn’t enough.
Mag: I like where we are arriving at in this conversation.
Again, it shows me the power of co-creation amongst people right. None of us had monopoly over what we were going to write. We made this together.
This reminds me how therapy works too: clients often come in thinking they’re stuck in a problem. But the therapist doesn’t come in as the expert with all the answers. it’s really in the dialogue itself, the back and forth, where something starts to shift.
Two people thinking together, wondering, genuinely curious about each other’s position.
That’s where insight emerges.
We were uninspired. But because of rambling, because of yapping, we have this.
Thanks for reading and enjoying the piece in all it’s flaws!
About the Author
I am a BPS-accredited and SPS-accredited Counselling Psychologist with a Doctorate in Existential Psychology from the New School of Psychotherapy and Counselling in London, U.K. My care philosophy is not to diagnose, label, or categorise but rather to work with the individual in front of me in the here and now.
My clinical credentials certainly play a significant role in defining my professional identity. But to foster a deeper connection and authenticity, I invite you to discover my other “Selves”, the various facets of who I am.
Hello, I’m Gary: A recent Anthropology graduate from Yale-NUS College, and an incoming student pursuing a Masters in Counselling. If I were to describe myself in a sentence — which is impossible, but I’ll try nonetheless — I’m currently someone who’s in a perpetual existential mood!
I invite you to join me on my journey of writing to make sense of that mood, myself, and this crazy, complex world. I’m not following a fixed structure, so I don’t know what I would come out of this conviction — I guess we can only find out as I write!
Faith Yuen Wei Ragasa
Cats and books — If you asked me to sum myself up in two words, I’d happily stop there. Everything else tends to unfold through the stories I write.
I began writing as a journalist who worked as a digital producer for news organizations based in the Philippines, including the now-closed CNN franchise in the country.
As I step beyond the newsroom and attempt freelancing, I’m giving myself room to learn, try new things, and keep discovering new stories and other ways of telling them.
