Creative Burnout
As someone who’s been a creative person for the majority of my life, it can be a bit hard around New Years. With the societal pressure of “New Years Resolutions”, the hand-made gifts for the ones I love over the holidays, and trying to tend to my own creative projects, I find myself struggling to not only get rest, but to return to my creativity; leaving me in a bit of a “Creative Purgatory” for lack of a better term. However, I’ve been trying to find ways to ground myself when I find myself stuck like that.
When you’re stuck in overwhelm, it can be hard to see a way through. We’re conditioned to, and spend so much time looking forward, having to just push through and keep going, no matter how tired we are. This is for a variety of reasons, which I won’t list as it would make this blog post a novel. Rarely are we ever encouraged to slow down. People will tell you to “Just take it easy for a while” and while that advice is well-intentioned, it doesn’t do much for me personally. In the way that we are pushed to keep trudging forward, I find it hard to genuinely rest and recuperate. I am someone who always has to be doing something.
For me, it’s all about redirection. Tricking my mind into thinking that I’m being productive when I’m actually resting and taking it easy. For instance, I could be “resting” by taking an extra long shower, or spending a day making myself foods that I truly love, or switching what medium I’m working with to give my brain and body a rest from what I was working on before. I take my dog for a longer walk than usual, listening to my favorite podcast or playlist, and I try to slow down and notice the world around me. I watch the cars pass by, feel the leaves and grass crunch beneath my feet, and I slow my breath to breathe in the world around me.
Granted, this is often easier said than done. I pushed against my resting process for so long, just believing that if I kept grinding and forcing myself to work harder and do more, that eventually my exhaustion would pay off. But I didn’t realize what that was actually doing to me. I was telling myself that I was only worth something if I could get everything done. That if I just kept at it; then I’d finally be done one day and that would be fine. But during that time of my life, not only was I burnt out and exhausted; my physical health took quite a toll and further delayed all the things I wanted to achieve. I wasn’t able to show up for myself in the way I wanted to, and that was the hardest part.
I had to humble myself in a way. I had to sit with myself and analyze my creative process and find ways to make it more sustainable, because if I kept going on in the same way, it would have been catastrophic. I had to accept that if I wanted to continue doing the things that I love, I would have to learn how to rest and what that looked like for me. I had to refill my cup and replenish my mana before continuing to create magic!
One analogy I love is in reference to the gas tank of a car. When you’ve driven for a long time, and your gas tank is almost empty, you often stop off at a gas station before it hits empty. Or, if you’re like me, you wait until the little light comes on, notifying you that you’ll be out of gas very soon. But waiting until that light turns on runs the risk of you running out of gas before you can refill your tank. And if you push it off until you run out of gas, you end up on the side of the road calling BCAA and it’s a whole thing. You can’t just refill, you have to literally stop, call for help, and wait until you can get back on the road again, therefore delaying you arriving at your destination and making things take longer than they would if you had just refilled when you noticed your gas was at a quarter tank left.
All this to say, rest isn’t waiting until the gas light turns on. Rest is noticing when you’re running low on gas and taking care of it before you have to call BCAA. Rest is noticing within yourself if you’re feeling a bit of resentment towards creating and stepping away for a while and taking care of your other needs, so that you can continue to show up for yourself in the way you want to. It’s allowing yourself and giving yourself permission to say “Hey, the world won’t end if I take a break” and stepping away to be able to come back with fresh eyes and a rested mind and body, to return with that creative spark and inspiration that you started with.
Take breaks, hydrate, have a snack, and allow yourself to take time away so that you can return fulfilled and can pour your cup back into your creativity.