Creative constipation

The universe is over here creating new stars, and what am I doing? (NASA photo)

These days, when I go more than a couple of days without sitting down to write, I feel a little bit off.

It's as though I forgot to take my vitamins or apply sunscreen. I can live without these aspects of my routine, but I prefer not to.

That's how powerful our habits can become: For better or worse, we don't feel like ourselves without them.

I can honestly say, looking back at who I used to be before I started writing regularly, I didn't feel like myself back then. I knew there was something missing. I felt like the days were passing by with nothing to show for them. I would fantasize and plan and never do.

It was a sort of creative constipation. I had so much inside me that I couldn't get out. (Hopefully, I wasn't full of crap.) But now, the day to act on my ideas and bring them to life isn't "someday." It's every day.

When we have a big dream, some of us have a tendency to keep it hidden to protect it from getting sullied and broken by brutal reality. It then expands in scope in our minds until we can't find the edge of it anymore and we don't know where to begin. As a result, we feel like we're falling farther behind every day instead of advancing.

What we must do, then, is figure out what it will take for us to feel fulfilled, and then do that. It doesn't always take much. For me, it turned out to be daily writing as well as music time. When I do those simple things, I don't feel like my life is slipping away. I feel like I'm actually living it.

I know, because I did it, that it's tempting to scoff at the simplicity of my Nike-esque advice. It seems like there needs to be a grand plan or a meaningful commitment — some larger scale and scope to the work. But taking action can relieve the frustration. We don't need overthink it.

My past is full of overthinking. I wanted things to be more complicated than they actually were — I wanted excuses for why I wasn't making things happen in my life. I wanted to daydream about the future instead of truly experiencing the present.

What changed is that I listened one day when someone said, "Just write." Instead of assuming that I knew better and I could come up with a superior plan, I just followed someone who knew what she was talking about. After that, everything was different.

In the end, it really was that simple: Just write. I didn't have obsess about what to write and to whom. I just started, and once I got things flowing, I realized I had things to say.

Of course, what I've actually created isn't as important as the process of creating. It has been, ultimately, a process of getting to know and trust myself at a new level. A process of respecting my own intuition and creative impulses. A process of making things for the fun of it. At this point, I can't stop.

I sleep easier now that I have a creative practice. I am more confident and make choices that are more aligned with my authentic self. I have made new friends. It's been an adventure that could only begin once I was willing to take the first step (or type the first word).

Breaking out of "creative constipation" to write consistently has been one of the best decisions I've made. Maybe it won't be enough forever, but for now, it satisfies me. What will satisfy you?