Creative Block - Be Honest With Your Support System

The second point in Creative Block - Get Back To Trying is to be honest with your support system.

This has been hard for me to verbalize to others, friends and families included. There have been so many days that I just shutdown. It's not done on purpose. Some days are better than others and some days are just that, "a day". A day with no makeup and earrings, a litmus test for me is when I have them both on. A day when I may get dressed by sundown. Heck, it might even be a day where I have on what I had on the previous day because I slept in it. That's real talk.

One of the hardest things to do is admit that you’re not okay—especially when you’re used to being the strong one, the creative one, the dependable one. But pretending everything is fine takes energy you don’t have.  So, while I don't pretend, often I shut the world out. Grief already asks so much of you; masking your truth shouldn’t be one more burden.

Honesty creates room to breathe. It allows the people who love you to show up fully, instead of guessing or assuming. Saying, “Today is hard,” or “I don’t have words right now,” is not weakness. It’s clarity. And clarity invites connection, support, and sometimes relief—if only for a moment.

Between my sister and my three closest girlfriends, I can almost guarantee that one of them will pick up when I'm shutting the world out. In those moments I am grateful to have someone try to pull me out of that space of grief, depression and loneliness.

What's crazy to me is that I tend to be outgoing and pretty much happy go lucky. However, since Fall of 2024 my days have been so unpredictable. I honestly think that writing about it has been really helpful for me.

Creative Block - Getting Back To Trying

   

    One day this week my mom asked me if I had been writing recently. I didn't know how to answer that question. What I've been trying to do, especially since December is to journal my days. I've been trying to post more on this blog site and to my social media pages. Like I have really been trying.

    But some days it's hard. It's hard to gather my thoughts, to organize my thoughts and then to put my thoughts on paper or to type them out or use dictation. Some days it's just hard. Over the past year and a half my life has had so many moments of grief that I find difficult to complete writings or to continue posting on my blog. It really depends on the day.

    Grief has a way of taking hold of you. Even as I try to fight for things to be normal, grief seems to hold me back and sometimes I can't move forward or I move very slowly. I liken it to a runner being prevented from continuing a race because someone is physically holding them back,

    I have learned that grief has shown up in several areas of my life. It's the ending of a career, it's the time loss because of illness and the passing of a relative. When you combine all of that happening in less than 2 years, I have to be honest and say most days are difficult. Well maybe not most days, how about some days are difficult.

    I love to write. I'm very creative. I am a creative who has dealt with hard things over the past couple of years. I have therapy and I have my support system. I make sure I get enough sleep and I do need to drink more water. If I could give advice to anybody who's in a similar situation I would tell them;

1. Be patient with yourself because going through trauma and grief has a way of spiraling in a way that sometimes you can't really control. 
2. Be honest with your support system. Don't try to go through life and make it seem like you're okay and everything is just fine. Because everything isn't just fine. 
3. There is value in at least trying. Make an attempt each day to do something that you love. Make an attempt each day to talk to your family and talk to your friends. Get a good laughing. 
4. Cry when you need to. It does you no good to hold everything in.

    Since Fall of 2024 I have gone from having a serious illness, to rehabilitation, to trying to heal at home and to losing my father less than a year later. There are days where I just sit & wonder & pray & believe that I'll get back on the pathway of writing and creating. But right now honestly I do have a creative block that I working through.

    It might not seem like it with this long blog. lol This is really a heart spill for me just to get it all out. 

    For that I'm grateful.

    Arlinda