When Crisis Demands We Put Our Creative Work on Hold
Ending This Month in a Better Place Than I Started
For the last month, I’ve been in survival mode, navigating a crisis I never could have anticipated. Toward the end of August my partner and the love of my life was hospitalized, leaving a team of doctors struggling to determine the cause of his declining health. Thrust into circumstances completely beyond my control, it felt as though the ground had opened beneath me and swallowed me whole. All of my mental and emotional energy was redirected toward trying to understand what was happening, absorb an overwhelming amount of complex information, support my partner, and somehow take care of myself in the midst of it all. The plans, projects, and routines that normally give shape to my creative work and daily life were abruptly put on hold. Thankfully, my family and friends provided wonderful care and support. I managed (with some rescheduling around doctors and hospital visiting hours) to maintain my commitments to coach clients, but everything else in my creative work was in limbo until this week.
I know that crisis is part of life and, inevitably, part of a creative career. I’ve navigated many different kinds of crises over the course of my creative life and career: divorce, the sudden deaths of several colleagues and mentors, the end of my family’s business, the 2009 financial crisis, and the pandemic, to name just a few. As a coach, I also regularly support other creatives as they navigate personal, professional, and situational crises, and the ways those experiences can affect their creativity, livelihoods, and careers. I understand the disruption, the need to reprioritize, and the profound impact a crisis can have on our capacity. For the past month, I haven’t written, posted, or created a single piece of content. Sometimes, crisis doesn’t just interrupt our creativity; it pulls the plug entirely.
As creatives, so much of our sense of identity can become tied to what we are doing and producing in the short-term. When we aren’t making, publishing, performing, designing, writing, or moving our projects forward, it can be easy to feel as though we are somehow falling behind or losing our creative selves. This is the kind of limiting belief that I coach other creatives to let go of and see a broader more holistic picture of their creative work and life instead. Leaning intentionally toward a bigger picture view of my practice and priorities is what I’m choosing as my partner and I move towards the other side of this crisis.
I also trust from personal experience, and from witnessing over many years as a coach, that our creative work can be a grounding force and a lifeline as we recover from crisis. When we are ready, returning to creativity can give us a way to process what we’ve experienced, reconnect with ourselves, and re- imagine what comes next. Sometimes the most creative thing we can do is simply pay attention to our capacity and needs,and approach our creative work from a new sense of awareness, care and intentionality.
This week, I’m beginning to gently reconnect with my practice. I’m not trying to make up for lost time or pick up exactly where I left off. I’m simply making space to write, coach and create again. Noticing what feels right for now and resting when I feel the need. Putting into practice what I have learned in other moments of crisis and what I have coached many other creatives to do. I know that new possibilities and fresh perspectives will develop as a result.
Happy to be ending this month in a better place than I started.
The next time you find yourself navigating a period of crisis and finding your way back to your creative work, consider shifting the question from “How quickly can I get back to where I was?” to “What will support me in moving forward from where I am now?”
Enjoyed this post? Subscribe to Ways To Be A Creative my newsletter for artists and creative professionals navigating the inner and outer work of building a creative life and career.
As a Free Subscriber, You’ll Receive:
Monthly articles like this one on building your creative practice, business, or career
A holistic perspective rooted in the realities of creative work coming from my own lived experience working in the arts and creative industries and from my work coaching other artists and creatives
Encouragement and inspiration
Updates on new programs, workshops, and offers
As a Paid Subscriber - $5/month, You'll Receive:
Exclusive posts delving deeper into topics to support your professional growth and creative career development
Full archive access
Bonus resources, tools and more
Comments