Legends, lately my creativity has felt more like a curse than a blessing (anyone else?!):
Ideas in abundance, swirling around my brain, making it difficult to wind down at night
Unfinished projects taunting me from the sidelines, reminding me of how much I still have to do, and (my favourite one)…
A billion and one AMAZING DISTRACTIONS keeping me “busy” and pulled away from what I really want to do.
Today’s Creative Urge will be brief (for good reason – I’ll explain at the end), but never-the-less mighty: How do you maintain your creative practice when life continues to pummel you with shit?
The Shit Show isn’t your fault – but you will have to clean it up
In the last month, the challenges have been coming THICK and FAST:
I moved into (and out of) my DREAM loft apartment
My business hasn’t been making enough money to even come close to giving me a living wage
I had some digestive issues flair up, requiring a hospital visit (all good now, thankfully!), and
An intimate relationship I was in ended rather abruptly via an Instagram DM.
It has felt like every area of my life was pure chaos, that no matter how hard I tried to force it, nothing was going right.
Or rather, things would go right for a minute, then blow up in my face the next, requiring me to dig much deeper to find stable ground.
It’s been really hard to see clearly with shit up to my eyeballs, but as a graduate of the ‘Spiral Up’ school of life, I knew one thing to be true:
No matter what, there’s ALWAYS another way
As I got out my mop and bucket to soak up the stank of my life, I decided to block my nose and focus on the clean path I was creating (not to steaming pile of rejection and loss I was leaving behind).
Because when things aren’t working, it’s not an invitation to QUIT: it’s an invitation to GET CREATIVE.
Here’s what I’ve done to tidy up around here
I ran two workshops, aptly titled The Expression Sessions, that put me in deep connection with the type of people I want to work with, anchored in a practice I am obsessed with (journaling). I’ll be running them again very soon, so stay tuned.
I let people help me. I’ve moved in with a dear friend (shout out to Genevieve), I took on more copywriting work and I even landed myself a part-time, 3-day a week job to make sure I can support myself (I’ll share more about this soon!). Cuz guess what? It’s almost impossible to create anything of value when you’re stressed about meeting your own basic needs.
Rather than create anything else new, I’m going to build what I’ve already got. That means more investment into this newsletter community, bigger and better conversations on my podcast and getting out ‘there’ to pitch myself to speak at more events (my next one is listed in the PS below with a cheeky discount code)!
I stopped drinking alcohol. Man, what a buzzkill, I know. But I observed some rather unhealthy behaviours creeping in that were preventing me from doing what I wanted to do – not to mention aiding me in making some poor decisions – so it had to go. I’m almost a month in and it’s not easy, but the benefits FAR outweigh the cost.
I finally accepted that the life I’m living now is an iteration of the one I have in my vision. Connecting where I am now to where I want to be means that I’m already on track. If you’re feeling behind or far away from your ideal life, remind yourself: I’m building the dream while I’m in it.
The Creative Urge is THE place I’ll be hanging out in from now on
Yep, that’s right. No more half-hearted commitment of “let’s just see how this goes”.
I’m ALL in – and as such, you’ll still hear from me every Monday, but it’s going to look a little different.
From next month, I’m going to focus on giving you 3 things to focus on for the week ahead to help you maximise your creativity and ‘spiral up’ from life’s challenges.
But for my legendary paid subscribers, I’ll be opening a Substack thread for us all to chat AND each month I’ll do a special secret podcast ep on here to deep dive into topics and answer any questions you throw at me.
The world we live in is changing and my biggest dream is to make a living as a creative (sans client work), so if you’d like to get EVEN CLOSER to this madness, I’d love to have you as a paid subscriber.
It’s the equivalent of buying me a coffee (in THIS economy) each month.
Breaking the curse
You may have heard me say that creativity is the antidote – I say this because, at times, it might also feel like the poison. Especially if your work involves using your creative energy to power someone else’s dream.
I’m committing to mastering Procreate on my iPad so I can finally turn my words into art (beyond what I already share on socials).
Action is the biggest antidote to anxiety, but it has to be action rooted in VISION.
I believe, with my WHOLE DAMN HEART, that creativity can save us – so if you’re vibing that, let’s get ready to SPIRAL UP, together.
Creatively yours,
Dr Maz xo
PS: I’m hosting an amazing panel at the Finders Keepers Creative Summit on March 17 here in Melbourne! It’s going to be a brilliant excuse to chitchat with other creatives, hear from inspiring speakers and dedicate some time to YOUR DREAM. Use my code ‘CBSMARION’ at checkout for 15% off too!