I'm not entirely sure if I've ever addressed the subject here or not, but I often find myself in creative ruts when I get more stressed than normal. As someone who fancies herself at least the slightest bit creative, it always comes to a frustrating head when I realize one of these ruts coming on.
It's a vicious cycle, really. I start to get stressed out a little bit, get a little overwhelmed at work one day, and when I go to plan out some projects or a YouTube video, I end up coming up blank and, trying to reassure myself that something will come along when I'm in the shower or cleaning or something, I shouldn't stress out too much over it. I'm just thinking too hard.
But then, overthinking as I do, it really starts gnawing in the pit of my stomach. Maybe if I force a mundane task, like folding laundry, I can force the idea to come to me sooner rather than wait for it to come along whenever it damn well pleases. So I clean. Or shower. Or sit and blankly stare at things and try to subconsciously will whatever inanimate object happens to be in my sight line to tell me something brilliant that I can work with.
Frustration bubbling at this point, I get more stressed, and there's nothing really left to clean or fold or stare at. Cue depressive state, which then sends me into the mental-death-spiral of "Why do you bother? No one read this," and "Seriously, so many comments on these videos just point out the pudge you try to hide, who are you kidding?", etc. etc. etc. until I finally decide I can't focus on anything of the sort for a while and take a mini hiatus (read: rage-quit because "I can't do anything right," as temper tantrum Erica likes to say).
Fast forward a day, a week, what-have-you, and since I have stopped trying to force thoughts and creativity (read: the pity party has ended), it happens. Something great, something interesting, some sort of inspiration whether it comes from someone else's work or just something that happened to catch my eye, and we're back to square one, we have ideas, and we're ready to conquer the world again.
I can't say this isn't exhausting or taxing or anything of the sort because it absolutely is. I also can't say that it isn't humbling, and I can definitely say that it's been worth it. It's all work, and sometimes you just have to take the low days in stride to get to the wonderful, inspiring, mountain top days again.
I apologize for the super-wordy entry, but this week is a "creative process" week, in which I have been making lists and trying to sort my thoughts with some friendly obsessive compulsive tendencies that my doctor likes to call "borderline unhealthy".
If you've made it this far in the rantings of 5 AM, list-making brain vomit, than I would like to applaud you and offer to shake your hand, but please don't be offended if I sanitize after. That's just who I am right now and I promise I'll be back to my own self shortly. Stay tuned! In the meantime, check out this cool body painting thing my baby sister so graciously volunteered to be a part of with me!
