Much of the pressure and resistance we feel in creative practice comes from approaching things from a linear perspective as opposed to a cyclic one. So often, we expect to appear at the page, hash out a brief plan and get to work.
From here, we presume that level of intensity of both our attention and our output will build progressively as though following a straight, upward line on a graph, reaching its crescendo before we place the pencil down.
In reality, though, it’s almost impossible to produce quality work within this dynamic, simply because quality action requires equal periods of quality inaction– and it’s the inaction or the downtime that we often don’t allow for.
In a culture that values pushing, overcoming and constant activity, it’s a real mindset shift to allow yourself intentional moments of rest and reset, both away from your creative practice and within it.
The natural world around us does not move forward, forward, forward. She expands and contracts, fluidly and continuously. Each state of being allows for and promotes the other.
These days, my creative experience spins before me in cycles. I see the moments of intensity, of following my interests and curiosity.
I see the intentional engagement as I learn something new or pick my ways through the parts that I find challenging.
I see flatter moments of sustained progress as we tinker with things that we know.
And in between, I remind myself to allow for spaciousness (isn’t that such a lovely word?).
A contraction, a return to neutral. Back to the compost from which all things grow.
Cycles, not straight lines.
Onwards.
xx Jane