Creative Block - Be Patient With Yourself

    Patience is not something grief asks politely for, it demands it. Trauma and loss don’t move in straight lines, and neither does healing. Some days you wake up ready to try, ready to write, ready to think clearly. Other days, your mind feels foggy, your body feels heavy, and even the smallest task feels like too much. That isn’t failure. That’s grief doing what grief does.

    Grief will have you rethinking and reshaping your identity. As the clock was counting down to 2026, anxiety set in. I felt that my father's memory was slipping away along with 2025. I was leaving the year I lost him and entering a new era without him. That was hard. I've never known a year without my father. This is new territory for me. 

    Seeing Diana Ross perform on television reminded me of watching Mahogany and Lady Sings The Blues with my parents. Do you know where you're going to? Do you like the things that life is showing you? As of right now, I'm not so sure.

    I’ve had to learn that impatience with myself only adds another layer of pain. When you’ve been through illness, disruption, and loss back-to-back, your nervous system is still catching up. Yes, my nervous is still catching up, even nearly a year and a half later. Healing doesn’t follow a schedule, and creativity doesn’t respond well to pressure. Patience becomes an act of compassion—one that says, I’m allowed to move at the pace my life has set for me.

Check out my post Creative Block - Getting Back To Trying

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