On staying creative during the most inwards months of the year
Hello Unravellers, it’s Camilla here!
After months of grief and unwellness, and a summer of trying to avoid burnout once again, it’s as they say, sod’s law that my creative flow and inspiration are returning to me during these unusually warm-when-it-should-be-cold ‘winter’ months.
As I wrote in the Forging The Soul article a couple of weeks ago, from Samhain (Hallowe’en) onwards, it’s natural to want to turn inwards. This is a time of hibernation, descending into winter darkness and inward reflection, sowing those winter seeds and incubating them for spring. It’s the time of year when all we want to do is snuggle up on the sofa with a good book and a hot chocolate rather than be in a state of high activity.
This desire to hibernate goes completely against the grain of modern society when we’re thrust into this period of high activity around Christmas with family and friend gatherings, ‘work-dos’ and more. The shops are already full of sparkling party dresses, while what I hold in my heart is fluffy bed socks and oversized fairisle jumpers. I’ve had a Nutcracker-themed afternoon tea meeting written in my diary for months at this point and there are still so many people I’ve yet to confirm dates with that I’d dearly love to see. Oh and let’s not talk about the present buying!
My ongoing health issues are making me more mindful of the need to pace myself and find balance at this busy time of year and yet… the more I work with alternative therapies in order to support my health, the more I’m finding myself inspired and excited to create again.
In taking the pressure off myself to ‘do’ anything, the desire has naturally arisen. Being forced to get so very practical in terms of managing my health, gave my mind and soul a break from the need to always be doing and making. My ideas have more clarity and all the disparate pieces have consolidated into more solid ideas and plans rather than vague concepts without shape and form. I see creativity as a force of nature with its own will and flow. Stopping the constant ‘doing’, hasn’t made me less creative, but more so.
“Creative people need time to just sit around and do nothing.”
― Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative
Society has ingrained into us this idea that we need to be constantly busy in all aspects of our lives in order to be successful. But how do we manage this societal expectation while leaning into our own flow or the energy of the season, when nothing in the world has been engineered to support our soul-knowing?
Over the past few years, I’ve done a lot of soul work. I’ve learned to tune into my intuition and listen to my body. I go where I’m guided and I’ve learnt to set better boundaries. No isn’t an alien word on my tongue anymore. All of these things have helped me massively in following my own energetic flow and working with the seasonal energy of the year.
But this year, I’m struggling to find and maintain my own balance again as I’m hit with a flurry of inspiration yet overwhelmed by the growing to-do list. It’s a new experience for me as historically, there have been plenty of years previously where the creative well has all but completely dried up over winter. I remember during my Bachelor of Arts degree, feeling like my dog could have created something better in Photoshop than I did in the depths of winter when the world was grey and I couldn’t find a single spark within myself.
In those days I berated myself for not creating anything good, despite having been on a treadmill of constant creation during my degree for months and years at that point. It mattered not that my mind, body and soul were crying out for a rest. It didn’t register to me that my creativity wasn’t gone, it hadn’t run out. The idea that creativity ebbed and flowed, that it was allowed to ebb and flow, that it was meant to ebb and flow, was something I didn’t know back then.
So I berated myself instead. I chained myself to my desk morning to night, as if forcing myself to keep trying 24/7 would somehow make the ideas come out better. I kept trying to make myself do more in the hopes that doing my coursework all the way to bedtime on Christmas Eve, taking one day off for Christmas and then getting back to it on Boxing Day would improve my flow (spoiler alert: it didn’t, but it did serve for a very miserable festive season one year).
I convinced myself it was working. That I was hibernating (because I was inside) and that I wasn’t pushing myself too far beyond my energy reserves in the middle of winter. So when I found myself struggling to create and feeling increasingly exhausted, I blamed myself for not trying hard enough.
These days, I am softer with myself. I’ve learnt what it looks and feels like when I’m in flow. I’m more in tune with my energy levels throughout the year and know when it’s time to step forward or back. I stepped off the (freelance) treadmill and could see it for what it really was to me: a non-stop, soul-sucking grind. I’ve become that much more intentional with my work and how I spend my energy, even more so this year due to illness.
And yet, there’s still a push-pull feeling gnawing at me. Perhaps it’s the memory of how I used to be in the world, or the knowing that this is what society expects of us, but I can feel that urge to chain myself to my desk creeping, wanting to make all my great ideas happen, now.
What I realise, what we all need to realise, is that it’s okay to feel pulled in all these directions, as long as we remember that we get to choose where we go and when we go.
Society will always be there trying to tell us what to do if we sanction it. But on those days when the world feels loud, judgmental and opinionated, those are the days when we need to get even more quiet so we can hear the beat of our own hearts.
When I am soft with myself, I acknowledge that I am in this in-between state of inspiration and overwhelm. I accept that I am in the in-between. I love myself there in the in-between. And there in the in-between is where I gently turn inwards and ask my heart, what do you need?
Today my day went sideways for reasons out of my control. I have an ever-growing to-do list and my initial plans went south so I found myself at a loose end and couldn’t quite get my head into a place of clarity and calm. So I asked my heart, what do I need?
The answer was a hug. So I hugged my husband and my dogs. I have two very cuddly dogs who were happy to have snugs and belly rubs for as long as I wanted, which I took full advantage of until I felt like I was back in the room. And then what did I do?
I let myself flow. I followed my instincts and have done more in the past two hours than I would have achieved had my day gone as originally planned.
This is your permission slip to do the same. The world may be telling you to do more than you feel able to do right now. But the world is always going to be there asking more of us. It’s up to us to prioritise ourselves, listen to what we need and honour it.
Creativity is always going to ebb and flow. And perhaps in winter, you find it ebbs a little more or a little less. It doesn’t make you any less of a writer, painter, photographer, musician, or creator, whichever way the dice rolls for you. The power comes in accepting how it’s flowing (or isn’t), letting it be so and giving yourself more of what you need to allow flow again.
So often our frustration and exhaustion at this time of year, isn’t completely about feeling the need to hibernate. It comes from us spending so much time people-pleasing and following societal expectations around how we should be preparing for and spending the holidays instead of honouring our own needs.
“I’m restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again.”
― Anaïs Nin, Fire: From “A Journal of Love”: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1934-1937
Balance can be found within these dark, cold months, by allowing ourselves to follow our own light, our spark and inner joy, whatever that looks like. As Anaïs Nin said, let your hair be pulled by the stars. Let yourself flow wherever you want to go instead of where you think you’re supposed to be and you’ll find yourself all the happier for it.
With love,
Camilla x
If this resonates with you and you feel called to share it with someone who needs to hear this, I would be very grateful.
