If you have been following me for a while, you would know that I have been struggling with my health for the past 1 million years, it feels like. I finally understood all my health issues (an autoimmune disorder), and I feel better. So I sat down to write a post and found that my mind was…. empty… I am serious; that had NEVER happened to me before, and fuel my frankly, it scared the hell out of me. After attempting to force my brain to come up with something worth writing about, I would draw a blank.
Finally, I realized I needed help, so I dug out my copy of the Artist Way and began to do the exercises hoping that something works soon. This blog post, if I am honest, was like pulling teeth. I STRUGGLED to get this post out of my head and onto my computer screen.
Because to be honest with you, my brain at the moment is a big empty blank where my Ideas used to flow. That scared me the most…I mean, what if my brain never comes up with a good idea for the rest of my life? That thought alone gives me untold anxiety with further makes me feel blocked.
After some serious reflection, I realized that my brain is not “broken.” Still, I have been living in survival mode in the last few months after I FINALLY found out that I had Psoriatic Arthritis, and well, according to the dr I can manage the pain, but it Is a lifelong condition. For someone who was seldom sick in their whole adult life, to being active to having to walk with a cane we… That was..hard to accept. I used to schedule in all of my me-time all “Artist Dates that Julia Cameron explained in her book the artist way to keep my creativity in tip-top shape. I had seriously slacked off until a month had gone by, and I realized that I had not done ANYTHING to keep the creative well full.
As much as I wanted to blame the pandemic and being stuck at home, I knew there were many things that I COULD do to beef up my brain to think new and coherent thoughts. For example, I used to LOVE color, but even I can’t fathom it, I stopped for some reason. Looking back, I sopped almost everything that made me feel like a very creative being. I used to decorate the planner ad I went full-on…It did not tell me my plans much, but that is not the reason I have it.. it is more about using or cultivating my creative muscles than what I plan to do day to day.
Looking back on the timeline, after I was finally diagnosed with Psoriatic Arthritis and found out you can only manage it but not cur it and that I had to learn to manage the condition, my brain just shut off. I watched all of Bridgertonfot around two months. While it occupied my brain, it did not help my creativity. It was pure brain candy. There was no problem with that, but I also felt like I was standing still or maybe even regressing on my goals. For example, there was about a month where I did not work out or watch what I ate, and that only changed when I went to the DR and saw a number I never hoped to see in my life that I was able to reverse that.
Another is that I slacked off on this blog, and that was huge because this blog fills a lot of created endeavors for me. When I was first diagnosed with Schizoaffective disorder, my therapist told me to find a hobby and pretend it is a job. If you stay in bed and wallow in self-pity, you will be stuck in misery, so that is the organ reason I started this blog. I still love to blog, but it becomes problematic when you get all blocked up and can’t think of a single thing to say. As I have so far this year.
This is why I am redoing the Artist way and picking hobbies that allow my brain the space it needs to come up with ideas., such as coloring and decorating my planner, among other things.
In a sense, I need to incorporate more “play’ into my life. I have seen firsthand what happens when you push yourself to the limits to get ahead in anything blogging included. But if you push yourself too hard, that leads to burnout and no ideas flowing in your head, and THAT is no fun.
