This is Your Creativity on Existential Stress
and thoughts on how to take better care
Image from ’s fantastic Storyworlds which you would love reading
There’s a quote from Fire Up Your Writing Brain by Sue Reynolds I’ve read at writing retreats and writing groups for many years:
"The more pressure you put on yourself, the higher your anxiety level rises and the more writing becomes a signal of danger, which transmits a message straight to your limbic system, triggering fight-or-flight reactions. When that happens, the limbic system stops forwarding messages to the cortex, which is where conscious thought, imagination, and creativity are generated. Instead, your amygdala releases stress hormones, like cortisol and adrenaline, and soon, your heart rate is skyrocketing, your ability to feel emotionally safe enough to write [or create anything] is eroded, and your ability to concentrate vanishes.”
I use Sue’s quote to launch into teaching writers ways to manage self-created stress - the pressure you put on yourself to be brilliant in your first (or third!) draft, or the pressure you’ve internalized from past professors, parents, or ex-partners, or the pressure your itty-bitty-shitty committee loves to regurgitate on repeat.
But what I’ve been missing is how the existential stress of living in a truly bonkers world is affecting my creativity.
Go ahead, call me obtuse. Talk about missing the obvious!
It took eight days of camping way off-grid, watching the mountain clouds and listening to the river murmur, tracing the path of deer, red-tailed hawks, and a short-eared owl to truly get how much I’ve allowed world events to warp my creativity.
My chronic hives disappeared.
My low-level depression lifted. (Might have been swimming in the freezing river!)
My ability to concentrate on my writing strengthened.
The day after we got home? My hives were back, my why bother to take care of yourself if the world is ending mood returned, and my writing felt jerky and fragmented again.
Ironically, one of my recurring patterns is to forget to take care of myself. I wrote the first popular book about self-care!
Oh, this being human — it’s always Groundhog Day about some pattern.
Only this lack of self-care groundhog day bit deeper than others. It’s one thing for me to tell myself, “You need to stop reading so much news, don’t start the day with Heather Cox Richardson for god’s sake, start meditating again” and it’s another thing entirely to realize that my ability to do what I love most is being eroded and damaged, along with my joy of life.
That’s the motivation I’ve needed to start taking better care of my brain. If I want to keep writing while living in a dystopian reality, half-assed self-care isn’t going to cut it.
Here are two questions I’m putting on Post-it notes above my desk, by my bed, and on the kitchen counter.
Does this support my well-being?
What might be more pleasurable?
The first question I just used to stop reading the news while eating lunch, and later, practice a little yoga. Yay me!
The second question invites me toward real pleasure, which is so refreshing, especially for my creative brain but it sometimes (often?) takes more effort. I would much rather read fiction while sipping my morning coffee than the news, and I have to nudge myself toward what feels good.
I’m also using Clear Space app to make it harder to get trapped in Instagram land, signing up for an oil pastel class (gulp), putting my writing notebook and the book I’m copying passages from (as a way to improve my writing) in the kitchen to replace my phone habit, and doing more in personal volunteer work.
I’m also getting inspired by my amazing friend
who has such a zest for life:
But most importantly of all?
When I find myself being pulled into why-bother-to-take-care-of-my-mental-health when-the-planet-is-burning, I’m going to remember how much I love my people and writing and high mountain meadows, and how much I enjoy giving the finger to the Death Star crowd (a little defiance goes a long way for me), and I’m going to go right my ship, fill my tank, do something fun
The stakes are high and I’m worth it.
So are you.
What do you do to keep your mind above water and your creative heart beating? If you feel like sharing something, know your comments uplift me and the many women who read them.
Thanks for reading, thanks for being alive.
Love,
Jen
Girl, my mental health skyrocketed when I shut down all my social accounts - including my 6k follower LinkedIn - and stopped reading news. I know not everyone has the privilege of getting off socials - it’s the professional lifeblood for so many. My point is that leaving it has made me feel in my body how toxic it was to me.
I no longer digest news daily. I read Heather Cox Richardson maybe once a week. I listen to Ezra Klein episodes maybe once every two weeks.
I know my community will tell me when there’s a protest I need to attend or when something major happens.
Phoebe tells me she can’t put her head in the sand like that (a not-so-subtle chastisement of her mom), but I say fuck it. I still know the world is on fire. I still know that congress fucked us the that cruel bill. But I’m not eating and drinking the diet of shit served up by socials and news anymore and wow! It actually makes me feel like a human connected to the physical world and people around me. My nervous system is so much happier.
I stopped drinking booze four years ago after a four day hangover. Then all the reasons I was drinking came out and did Riverdance in my brain until I began to face and unpack them. Little by little.
Saying no is a biggie, asking friends to slow their pace when we're out walking together, sounds small but everyone turns everything into 'their steps' for progress, progress.
Like many, for me now it's all about mornings. Replace the scroll with meditation, stretch and walk. I always take care with my breakfast, even if it's just a boiled egg and toast, a nice coffee pot, the right cup, sitting outside, journalling. The days take care of themselves. Not needing to be the loudest person in the group, or in my head. 🙏