Today is all about balance
I would love to say that this week things have felt less rushed, but if anything I think I may feel a bit more stretched than ever. I am still quite busy with work-related things and I’ve compounded that by not managing to take as much time as I’d like for ‘me’ activities like exercise and creative pursuits. As a result, somewhat inevitably, I’ve been unwell (with a 2 day migraine and a neck injury) which has left me feeling tired and frustrated. But I also know the signs well enough to know that I need to take note and be careful.
And so it seems fitting that as today is the vernal equinox my post is about balance. Today is a special day for me and noticing it, marking it, is important. Today winter ends and spring begins. The day and night are balanced in this moment. And from here, for the next 3 months, the days begin to edge out over the night time and light returns to our lives. For someone who suffers from seasonal affective disorder the shift from dark to light has a massive effect. I’m not sure if that’s purely psychological – it definitely helps to know, as a fact, that the days are getting longer – but I know I feel different mentally and physically this week.
Looking back to get unstuck
I’m feeling stuck. It’s Tuesday evening and I need to write a blog post for Wednesday, my arbitrary, self-imposed deadline. I really don’t want to miss a week and yet I can’t think what to write. The last couple of weeks have been a bit of a struggle in terms of work/life/creative me balance. Events in my personal life are derailing most of my attempts to get work done and as for creative things… well, they’ve ground to a halt. The creative well is dry and no amount of scraping around at the bottom, hoping for something miraculous, is going to help me right now, to write this now. I need a quick fix.
I am fully aware that this is not an ideal situation. I know that I should have been topping up my creative stores with inspiring and nourishing activities, feeding my curiosity and paying attention to the little things. But we are all flawed humans, none of us is perfect, and despite knowing what we ‘should’ do, we often don’t manage it. I have a note in my diary to remind me to be kind to myself, so no berating today. Instead, what small act can I do to help? How do I unstick myself when there isn’t time to gently revive my flagging creativity? I look back.
How I struggle with starting
I started this blog in March last year because I wanted to write. You see, I have a bit of a procrastination problem and I thought that having a regular deadline would help with this. I’m not sure if you also have a procrastination problem but even if you don’t I’m sure you can see the irony in that sentiment. Well, I’m pleased to report that out of the past 43 weeks I’ve only missed one post (that was some really nasty food poisoning on holiday) and the satisfaction of knowing I can manage to keep on top of this corner of the internet gives me hope that one day I might win in my struggles to get stuff done.
I have a notebook where I jot down ideas for the blog. Sometimes they appear out of nowhere, or are inspired by books I’m reading, but usually they come out of something I’m dealing with in my own creative practice or business. With so many ideas in the notebook you’d think that it would be easy writing these posts… but no. Most weeks, despite the deadline always being Wednesday, I find myself in a mild state of panic (usually on the Tuesday) about what to write. There have been the odd perfect moments where the posts have written themselves, as the topic was so close to me that it just needed to emerge. But mostly I have to drag them out. I have tried micro-managing the blog post writing, scheduling it for the week before to get ahead of myself, and I’ve even tried binge-writing so that I have some posts banked. But generally these instances are few and far between. Things quickly return to the status quo of the last minute.
I’m sharing this with you because I think it helps to hear that other people struggle too. I may offer advice or point people in the direction of things that may help them, but I’m not without my own issues and challenges. I was intending to write this week’s post, in this last week of January, about goal setting and keeping motivated – a way to round up the start of the year. But, if you don’t actually get going then none of those things really matter. So, here are some thoughts and pointers for people who, like me, find themselves putting things off, dodging certain tasks, getting anxious or worried about the things you never quite manage to do.
Harnessing social media for motivation
A couple of weeks ago I took part in a project where I was asked to document all the food I ate, including the waste from the meals, and to reflect on my food/cooking/eating habits. The images and words were to form research for an artist’s new collection of work. I had the option to write a short piece and email some images, but because I’ve been on a social media hiatus (as I talked about here) I thought it might be a good way to get back into the Instagame. But making all this public didn’t feel right, so I set up a private account just for the project.
Don’t forget the big picture!
I have a feeling that this week is a bit frantic for everyone no matter what your creative practice. Whether you have orders to fill or deadlines to meet, this last working week before Christmas, with all the associated activity of the holidays, can be exhausting.
Mindful of how little time you all have to read blog posts right now, I just wanted to touch on the importance of not losing the big picture. With so much to do it’s easy to get blinkered, to become dead focused on what needs doing, that we forget why we are doing these things. And in this momentary forgetting we can lose our energy and motivation.
Dealing with a dip in creative energy
This illustration by Gemma Correll could be a portrait of me in winter. By the end of Feburary it is most definitely me. Every year I struggle with this season. Sometimes I’m lucky and I only get the winter blues, but sometimes, like this year, things turn out differently and life gets really tricky. I am a greyscale version of myself, and the energy and enthusiasm for life that I have in spring and summer disappear with the daylight. It takes all my energy to look normal. I get frustrated and angry at myself for not managing to cope, for finding things hard when it seems like there’s no reason to feel so bad. This year’s extreme symptoms have led me to realise that I shouldn’t battle with myself like this. It does me no good to admonish myself; I need to be kinder and work with myself to find my own way through. So, armed with a SAD lamp that is retina-burning bright, and a will to do things differently this time, I’m going to share with you my plans for the dark months. Now, you may not struggle with the change in the seasons, but I’m guessing that everyone has times in the year when their mental health takes a bit of a dip and as a result their creative energy suffers. This post is for those times.