A letter to the Creative Who Feels Lost

You know those times when you feel creatively at a loss?

Like you aren’t equipped to create what you want to create.
You don’t feel that you have the tools to make what you can see in your mind.

And you hear conflicting messages from the world:
one says that you have to stay positive, and
one says that you shouldn’t have the “positive mindset” because if you do, then how are you gonna be motivated to push yourself forward?

The latter message says that having a positive mindset is excusing your lack of effort, and I hate that.
Because…who says that I can’t be kick-ass productive AND be positive at the same time?

But it’s true that most of the time when we think of challenging ourselves to break new ground, we associate that with blood, sweat, and tears, and not necessarily with being “gentle” with ourselves.

We think of hustle. Not gentle.
We think of going for (x) about of time without a social life or any real self-care regimen (see: taking time to do things that nourish us, like drawing, or learning a new skill, or hiking, etc.). Not realizing that our creative work must have energy to flow.

It’s really hard to find the truth—YOUR Truth—behind these messages, especially when they’re shoved in our faces every single day.
We gotta keep this in mind: what’s effective for you may be different than what’s effective for another person.

This said, I believe there’s truth to both of the aforementioned opinions.

We have to stay self-aware: is our “positive mindset” creating a cushion around our productivity and keeping us in a comfort zone?
Because (1) we know that creative breakthroughs never happen in comfort zones, and (2) staying in that creative rut disguised as safety doesn’t sound very “comfortable” to me at all.

But self-care for us as creative people is important, and that means more than just drinking enough water every day.
It’s realizing what areas of our lives are manifesting toxicity.

I used to push myself so hard and be so self-critical because that’s how I believed that growth and learning happens.
In return, it created a whole lotta space for self-hatred, and guess what? I’m still dealing with the repercussions of that.

In this time when I notice a lot of us are examining our goals and visions and longing for positive change, we must also examine what areas of our life are holding us back creatively.

Are we staying focused on our dreams and tangible goals?

Are we cleaning out the ghosts of Negative Influences past?

By doing this, we are creating a place where our creativity can thrive and we can re-align with ourselves.