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 - 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

Men's Basketball Highlights | Cincinnati 79, #2 Iowa State 70 | Peacock

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

James 3v2 - We All Stumble In Many Ways

 "We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check."

‭‭James‬ ‭3‬:‭2‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Recently someone shared with me that they felt another person acted "unChrist-like". I immediately told them, "Hold on, we all fall short daily."

Just as this scripture states we all stumble in many ways. You just never know if someone is having a bad day, struggling with finances or simply trying to manage time to care for others and themselves. Life right now is difficult for so many people. 

We have to learn to grant grace and to realize that none of are perfect. Rather, we're human with complexities as we navigate the same 24 hours as everyone else. 

(Originally posted on 8.17.2024)

Fred Hammond & RFC - Just to Be Close to You

It May Look Like I'm Surrounded

 

Surround means to enclose one all sides, to extend around the margin or edge of, encircle. Like when life's circumstances encases you and you don't know how you're going to get out. Or when anxiety and depression rears its ugly head and you can't seem to grab a hold of it. It feels like you're encircled and you're trapped and so you fall into a cycle of being stagnant and accepting  the status quo. 

Then you're stuck, just going around in circles. Making the same bad decisions. Attracting the same dormant relationships. But God!!! Behold, He makes all things new. He makes all things work together for good. Once you find the courage to break out of that cycle and that season of limited or no growth you can truly understand that it may look like I'm surrounded but I'm surrounded by you.

Sometimes all we can see is the enemy surrounding us, not realizing  that God has the enemy surrounded and defeated. Therefore we are blessed.

(Originally posted on 10.19.19)

 #lateinthemidnighthour #godsgoingtoturnitaround #itsgoingtoworkinmyfavor #yetwillitrusthim #thisishowifightmybattles #thisbattleaintyours #allthingswork #thinkingofamasterplan #jeremiah2911 #romans8v28 #iwokeuplikethis 🙇🏽‍♀️🥰🙌🏽👏🏾🤲🏽👑

And We Overcome - Joann Rosario

Serenity & Forgiveness - Learning From The Healing Runes

 (Originally posted 1.28.2009)

Forgiveness

In the 1990's I had a wonderful manager at the phone company. She was very centered in astrology and being holistic. She was also a dynamic cook. For the 4th of July one summer she invited the entire staff over to her home. There are two things that I remembered, one she kept the ice tea coming. While we were drinking ice tea she was boiling more in a pot. I thought how cool is that. Never thought it was that simply until I saw the process.

As I walked about her home I noticed a bag of stones and a book. I asked her about them and she told me they were ancient runes. She suggested I think of something that was going on in my life and pull a stone from the bag. I pulled the stone of Serenity. The book provided information about serenity and that was my first encounter with the serenity prayer.

For Christmas that year Bonnie gave me the exact same book and bag of runes, that I still use to this day. The past few weeks, actually the past year has been a test for me. So I decided to pull a rune to speak to those situations. I pulled the rune of Forgiveness tonight.

The passage in the book told me that I have to forgive myself as I heal and then I have to forgive others. You know you can be in a situation and place blame on others and not see what part you played in that situation. Tonight as I begin to heal from the failed marriage and the broken friendships I have to remember to be forgiving of myself for harm or pain I may have caused to others. Maybe when the marriage ended I didn't take that time to take care of me and so the wounds were still open causing more hurt to me and to others.

Remember to take out the time to see yourself in your situations. It isn't always the other person's fault entirely, you always have to look at the part you played also.

Be forgiving of yourself.

Arlinda

A Gratitude Exercise #inallthingsgivethanks