What I do when I'm creatively blocked
Happy Sunday, Soothers. Did you know I actually write the Sunday Soother on Mondays? I let the day itself pass and try to put myself in a Sunday state of mind at the start of the week when I'm writing the newsletter.
Normally, ideas and words come fast and furious to me when I'm writing. I keep an idea bank and, while I have many, many, MANY, maaaannnny issues in my life, generally, keeping the creative fire lit does not seem to be one of them. In fact, it's almost the opposite, I feel like I'm a wide open firehose of creative universal energy and most times I'm actually working to stem the flow and wrangle it into something manageable, consumable, and enjoyable for me to produce.
Not today, though.
Today I am listless, I am melancholy, I am deep in the "womp womps," and I am creatively tapped. This happens every once in a while and it's totally normal and I never know exactly why it's happening. Usually some factors are at play: my body is tired (I started working out again and also in a frenzy of trying to bask in as much sunshine on a beautiful spring day I managed to hike 20,000 steps yesterday); the weather is blah, and so am I (check, after beautiful spring weekend of sunshine joy it's 40 degrees and raining on this Monday); I may be creatively engaged elsewhere, and also doing something business related (promoting, launching, marketing and selling my Intentional Dating course) and there's often a muddying of the waters between creativity and selling.
Actually most of the time I feel pretty good being a creative and teacher who sells her things, because isn't that incredible that I get to do that? But also every once in a while I feel that I "should" be promoting the thing that is for sale exclusively while it's open, particularly here in the Soother, and meh, sometimes I just don't want to, and these internal parts of me battle.
I absolutely have an internal part who is like, as far as I can gather, the monocled Monopoly dude, all about selling, buying, profiting, maximizing. That's my Railroad Baron part. Then I kind of feel like I have a part who would rather — though I do not myself personally smoke weed — but this part would rather be smoking weed in bed under the covers all day, to just check out, the Sleepyhead. Then there's the playful creative child, my Page of Wands in Tarot, who wants to create and play without any thought or structure to logic or the future or marketing or business. Then, kind of looming over everything else, is my Clipboard Lady Who Also Has a Stopwatch for Some Reason? And she is the Queen of Should, she wields shame and productivity as threats and weapons and reminds me of all the worst-case scenarios that could happen if I don't work and get all the things done.
Today the Railroad Baron and the Queen of Should were fighting the Page of Wands and the Sleepyhead. And I am here to tell you the Sleepyhead part in particular has won. But not without some battles along the way. Here's a list of all the things I attempted to engage in to get myself to do work today:
Walked past my gym like 5 times, convincing myself to go in and just work out for 20 minutes. Didn't do it!
Listlessly made a cup of decaf coffee (been using Trader Joe's decaf instant coffee lately) and balefully drank it while looking out the window in an attempt to spot the neighborhood cats that my boyfriend and I have been obsessed with since the start of the pandemic, that we named Ms. Coffee and Mr. Cream.
Walked on the local trail, listening to several of Taylor Swift's most melancholy songs
Did do SOME work, especially scheduling some emails and Instagrams to promote my course, but it was definitely done under duress.
Wraithed for like an entire hour. Wraithing is what I call it when I'm in my apartment like, aimlessly walking around and picking things up and putting them down, sighing a lot, likely a listless ghost.
And here we are, winding up writing this meandering essay after I totally had given up, gotten under the covers and started watching season 2 of Starstruck.
When I'm in a funk, moodwise or creatively, my old approach used to be like, "What can I do to get me out of this so I can produce?" And while that old approach still wants to kick in from time to time, more and more often I am learning to ask myself the following instead:
What is true right now?
What am I feeling right now?
What do I need right now?
And how can I make this easier on myself?
Today's answers to those questions:
What is true right now? I don't feel like doing any work. It is cold and gray outside and I hate the cold and gray. It is also true that nothing HAS to be done. I'm my own boss, so.... I could make this entire problem go away.
What am I feeling right now? Listless, apathetic, melancholy.
What do I need right now? Warm beverages. Blankets. To rest. To just check out for a bit.
And how can I make this easier on myself? I can reschedule most of the tasks I had on my list today for later. I can also half them, probably. Shit, I can totally delete all of them if I want and go full anarchy on my own schedule. I make the rules! Mwahahahha.
I felt a bit better after writing these things down. Not better like, happier and ready to now produce all the things and do all the work, but better like... softer. Resigned, but in a neutral way, not a sad or shameful way. Just like... this is what this is. The Queen of Should has shrugged her shoulders, gone to sit down on her couch and shuffle papers, keeping an eye on me for now.
And so now I return to my covers, to another cup of milky decaf instant coffee, to a sweet TV show stretching out in front of me for the afternoon, to my listlessness and melancholy. To gratitude that I have the privilege to rest today and make these choices.
Returning to my humanity, my inevitable ups and downs and sparks and hollows that come with being this soul inside a human body with these confusing emotions and desires and shoulds and shouldn'ts, navigating the world of creativity, money, sharing, producing, working, teaching, and everything else that comes along with it.
And sending out my love to those of you who have felt this way too, and a hope that you will ask yourself, What is true? What am I feeling? What do I need? And how can I, forever and ever, keep making this easier on myself?