Usually, ideas for the Working Actor Wisdom blog come easily. A question or issue comes up for me, a coaching client, or someone else in my life, and I feel inspired to turn it into a post. But for the last month or so, the ideas haven't come easily. And ironically, today I'm feeling inspired to write about that.
Inspiration isn't consistent. Some days, we wake up full of ideas, every sight and smell and person we see sparks a thought we want to apply in our lives or save for some future project, and we feel connected to a great, collective, creative source. Other days, we want to avoid all outside stimulus and hibernate. Sometimes those bursts of inspiration and hibernation come and go quickly, even within the space of a single day. And sometimes, they stretch on for weeks.
This is the nature of being a creative person. When you are a professional creative person, this reality can cause problems. Sometimes, a work day coincides with a day when we're feeling alive and inspired, but work days also sometimes fall on those hibernating days, and either way, the work has to get done.
My husband is a writer. He's tremendously fortunate to have a job that allows him to make a living doing what he loves. (Of course he also worked his ass off to get there.) But there are days when it's a real struggle. He gets writers' block. He stares at page, up against a deadline, with no inspiration to fuel him through the work ahead. It doesn't mean he loves what he does any less, it's just how it goes.
Early in our creative lives, these hibernating periods can be terrifying. We worry that inspiration may have left us forever. We flail around, trying everything we can think of to get it back. And every time it happens, we forget that it's happened before. Until one day, it happens, but we have a new thought; Oh, this. This has happened to me before. I just have to wait it out.
Aah. We accept. We stop flailing. We remember that fields need to lie fallow so they can become fertile again. We've learned something new about what it means to walk the path we've chosen.
Be gentle with yourself when you're feeling uninspired. Do the work that needs to get done as best you can, and allow yourself to let go of the things that can wait until your creative energy returns.
And it will.