THE REAL REASON YOU KEEP CREATIVELY BURNING OUT.
& how you can breakthrough this destructive cycle and progress along your creative path.
TODAY’S TALKING POINT:
Are you stuck in a cycle of bursting with creativity and burning out? I’ll explain more about why you can’t breakthrough it, what you can do to cultivate more consistency in your creative practice.
Join ‘Restoring Creative Confidence’ - A workshop for creative’s who struggle to feel consistent.
Let’s get to it :
Recently I put up a poll up on my Instagram stories asking my audience what kind of creative they believe they are; the majority answered :
One that bursts with creativity, then goes onto burn themselves out.
This destructive pattern is so wide spread amongst the woman I work with and something I have had to learn to overcome myself, that it has become the basis of so much of my own self exploration and wider research.
This cycle of ‘bursting and burning out’ is deeply rooted in so many things, that I know it will take several blog posts and paintings to explain it fully.
However, I wanted to open the conversation with you, because I know this pattern can be crippling and leave us feeling like we are flakey, incapable, an imposter, like we will never make any progress, that we are falling behind and at worst that there is something ‘wrong’ with us that needs fixing - “Surely seeing a project through shouldn't be THIS hard”, we think to ourselves; “Perhaps I'm just not meant to do this, I never seem to get it ‘right’”.
If you have gone even further in this journey with no support, you may have become physically ill, have most probably got to the point where you will now believe that you have ‘lost it’ - that your creative spark has now been fully blown out.
You'll be shaming yourself that you let yourself down for not completing what you started as now you feel like you no longer have the capacity, nor energy to create something noteworthy.
So let's look at the cycle we go through as creatives (in basic terms), we become open to new ideas, when they come and we get clarity and all those dopamine ‘aha’ hits, we become full of enthusiasm (I'll talk about what this enthusiasm really is below), creation begins, we run on the thrill and high and literally burst with creativity.
We work for several hours straight, stay up late, get completely caught up in our work, everything falls to the wayside (most of the time we don't even stop to pee, nor eat, let alone let ourselves be) - so much so that we forget simply our'selves' in our creative process.
We are so enamoured with and dedicated to our creativity that we forget what we are expressing in the first place : Our self. Our truth. Our story.
We ignore that to be a fulfilled creative we must first and foremost have a fulfilled self to express.
A self that feels nurtured, seen, heard, acknowledged and accepted. A self that has at least her basic needs met.
A self that feels worthy enough to be seen.
We've all been told the story of the starving artist - She sacrifices material well-being to focus on her creative work. Living on minimum expenses. But I've understood the starving artist is one that not only sacrifices, material wellbeing, but her whole wellbeing, living on minimum care.
The starving artist bursts with enthusiasm, bolts towards the ‘light’ and gets so caught up in her enthusiasm, in the hope that this will be THE project that the outer world will truly see her through, this will be THE project that she will sell and finally feel accepted through, she literally sacrifices herself in the process and burns herself out, and most often her project with her.
But why does this happen?
It's not just that we get swept away with our enthusiasm, and simply forget ourselves. It's that the enthusiasm provides a ‘safe space’ for us to create within. Enthusiasm is a strong remedy that protects us against feelings of doubt and not enoughness, but if not treat with caution it can also lead us away from ourselves.
In order for us to be truly held in our enthusiasm we need to learn not to depend on it to be our safety blanket. For our enthusiasm to carry us forward, we need to also learn to feed our inner artist and help her to feel accepted.
Another symptom of this bursting/blooming cycle is feeling rushed. (Just this symptom is worthy of a whole blog post in itself.)
But it all comes down to not feeling safe enough to be, to live the creative life - To become we all need a place where we can feel acceptance, empathy and compassion, yet we don't provide this environment for ourselves because we are too busy, stuck in the motivation to prove our'selves' to those who planted the seeds of doubt that being an artist was not OK. We give our'selves' a hard time, we critic, push, even bully our'selves', by being disrespectful and unforgiving, expecting so much from the most vulnerable part of our being, because we think we should know ‘how’.
And this feeling of being rushed, has NOTHING to do with time, it stems in not having enough patience with ourselves, and not being able to show ourselves the care, let alone the love we need to support and pace ourselves along our creative path.
3 ways you can be more loving with your inner creative
Learn to mother your inner artist
I know all too well how much encouragement and patience my children need when they find something difficult and get frustrated with themselves. Your inner artist needs to feel safe and held, she needs to feel spacious, not rushed, nor pressured. She needs to know from you that she can take her time and that you are going to be loving with her in the process. Leave yourself enough time and space to create, lay down the weight of obligations before you pick up your ‘art’.
STOP OVERCOMMITING
As hungry creatives we have a tendency to bite off more than we can chew. We spread ourselves so thin, that there is not time left for living away from our art, we even become unable to switch off in the down time we do get. It’s time to start learning how to work within your energetic capacity. Before you fill your planner with new projects. Fill it with your obligations, and time that is needed to take care of your truest self, then ask yourself what you truly have the capacity to work on.
STOP making unrealistic deadlines
Learn to leave room for the emotional journey that you will go on between starting and finishing a project. This self imposed pressure to ‘perform’ can be soul crushing and lead to total self abandonment as we try to get out from under the weight of ourselves. Choose to focus on a project (being disciplined about distraction) until it is finished, rather than setting a tight deadline.
How can you be more patient, more loving and make your inner artist feel more accepted during your next creative project?
To help you here is a journaling prompt : I could be more loving with my inner artist by…
I’d love for you to email me and let me know how you intend to be more patient with your inner artist - johanna@johannarossi.com
Let’s Recap
This cycle of ‘bursting and burning out’ is deeply rooted in not allowing ourselves to be and resisting the creative way of life
In order for us to be truly held in our enthusiasm we need to learn not to depend on it to be our safety blanket. For our enthusiasm to carry us forward, we need to also learn to feed our inner artist and help her to feel accepted
To become we all need a place where we can feel acceptance, empathy and compassion, learn to provide this environment for yourself
The remedy for feeling rushed is found in being more loving and patient with our inner artist - Stop setting unrealistic deadlines and burying yourself under self imposed pressure.
Join ‘Restoring Creative Confidence’ - a workshop for creative’s who struggle to feel consistent.
ABOUT the blogger
Hi! I’m Johanna,
Have you had enough of cycling between bursting with creativity and burning yourself out? It’s time to flow. I help big hearted creative women to tend to themselves, so they can step into their creative potential at their own natural pace.
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