Creative Blocks and Self-Healing
Today I want to share a little bit about the other side of me. You see, I'm an artist. A novelist, to be exact. I've been writing novels non-stop since the mid-eighties. Three, four, sometimes five a year. My best year I produced seven new titles. My worst, two.
That is, until now. So far in 2021 I've released zero new novels. I'm working on two of them, but working is a relevant term. Mostly I've been feeling bad for not working on them, trying to make myself work on them, and failing.
My creativity has hit a standstill. So what does that mean? I have no problem working on blog posts, or non-fiction things. No trouble working in the magic shop. But my storytelling flow has dried up.
And so has the flow for countless other artists and creators I know. We discuss it a lot. What happened? Was it the pandemic? What can we do about it?
Something is blocking the flow
I have always felt my creativity, my stories, come through me, not from me. As if my muse–because that's as good a thing to call her as anything and it feels good to me–As if my muse has stopped sending stories down to me.
Now, from my studies of the Law of Attraction I know about the current of non-physical into physical. Source energy, our Higher Self is always flowing into us. It's a livestream. But sometimes we tune it out. We throw blocks in its way. We start looking to other sources to flow into us. Worries and problems and troubles of the world. Lions and tigers and bears abound. When we look at them, we shut off the flow off well being and replace it with whatever we're looking at.
So the same must be true of the flow of creativity. The flow is constant, a livestream that does not shut down. It can only be blocked from my end.
What is blocking the flow?
What am I looking at instead?
The two questions are really one question, because whatever I'm looking at is blocking the flow. What have I been looking at? Covid numbers. Daughters who are front line nurses already carrying the trauma of the first wave and the second, and the third. Daughters who are teachers, exposed to ignorant parents who won't mask. Grandchildren who have to go back to school soon. The latest climate report. And closer to home, people who refuse to vaccinate or wear a mask and who are exposed to my grandkids regularly.
What am I doing about it?
Morning meditation, outdoors unless it's pouring, 20 minutes. Best if done early, before anything else.
Coffee outside after meditation.
Short walks around the property.
Exercising extreme willpower in turning off the news. And leaving it off.
Only doing the tasks my heart calls to me to do.
Spending time in the gardens.
Being fully present in whatever it is I am doing.
Working in segments, stopping when I deem the segment done, then relaxing while I decide what's next.
Drinking more water, more water, more water.
Eating lots of fruits, veggies, & whole grains.
Getting up and moving around every hour.
Post for my followers, reply to comments or notes, then get off social media immediately.
Listen to my inner guidance. Listen to my body, too.
Casting circle and working magic more often.
Paying more attention to the things that bring me joy.
Allowing others to have their own journey even if I think they're stupid and contagious –Nirvana reference.
Imagining the world as I would like it to be more often than I notice the world as it is.
How is it working?
I turned off the new so I could honestly type #4. So you know, it works as well as I let it work.
I had to attend a function–scratch that–I chose to attend a function over the weekend where unvaccinated, unmasked people were breathing on babies, so...
But the thing is, I woke up and knew I shouldn't go. I felt it right to my toes. Stay home, said my inner being. My character Rachel de Luca, (who is me incognita) -calls hers, her "Inner Bitch." Yes, it's a proper name. Back on topic, I went anyway. That never works out. I was tired, I was cranky, I didn't get up early enough to meditate before leaving, and I went anyway in a for-the-record-books "Duh, Maggie moment."
I experienced what I expected to experience at the event. I should not have gone in with any notion of anything different. I know how this works. Come on, man!
Ah, but getting mad at myself for missteps is as counter-productive as the missteps themselves. The point of life is to experience, learn, assimilate, expand. The point of life is that there are no missteps. 'S'all good, man."
Unwanted experiences bring further clarity to what is wanted. They serve a purpose. They work best, though, if we quickly turn our attention to the thing they showed us we want, and let go of them.
Get aligned, THEN act. Always.
So this week I'm back to the drawing board. Meditating, being good to myself, enjoying great stories, both reading them and watching them on TV, eating well, hydrating a lot, moving more. I'm doing more basking and spending more time outside. I'm giving myself permission to do what I want to do and trying to overwrite my old habit of thinking activity-x earns my living and is worthy of my time and activity-y does not and is notr. Well-being flows through the path of least resistance, and resistance is only ever put there by me. That worhty-of-my-time habit of thought is a big block to anything different, so I'm working on overwriting that with a more helpful belief.
I am practicing presence and following my heart and basking the beauty around me, appreciating all I have. I'm segmenting my day and focusing fully on one task at a time. I meditate every single morning. No. Matter. What. I'm getting back to feeling extremely satisfied with what is and eager for more. I'm getting back to good by focusing on the good already here.
And I'm imagining the world as I wish it to be and looking for little pieces of that here and there. That's how manifestations pop in, a piece at a time, until the parts combine and there it is.
I hope my storytelling flow will resume in a better way than ever before. I'm honestly unsure what the future holds in my fiction writing, but I'm super eager to find out. I feel like I might be in a stage of death and rebirth. I feel like who I am when I come out the other side of this period will be different from who I was before.
How are you doing?
What are your tips for getting re-aligned after hitting rough spot? Have you broken through creative blocks before? How? Please let me know in comments!
One thing is for sure...
I am having no trouble at all working on all things spiritual, mystical and magical and I have a lot of new and exciting offerings coming soon from The Bliss Blog and Magic Shop.