You wake up with a tingle in your chest. Your mind already crafting sentences, scenes and anecdotes. Your fingers itching to be wrapped around a paint brush. The shades readily selected.
True inspiration, much like happiness, is elusive. The more you seek it, the further it moves away. It's rare, I find, at least it has been in my life. It comes whenever it decides, and leaves much the same way.
Inspiration is the most delicious state of mind, for me. There is nothing in this world that will keep me going, keep me moving forward, the way inspiration - and the subsequent search for it - does. I am a creative. I live and breathe words, art, beauty, feeling. But I also live with depression, imposter syndrome, low self-esteem. These three demons, sitting on my shoulder and hissing into my ear, keep me from even trying, a lot of the time. But every now and then, inspiration will hit me so hard that they're forced from their perch to the ground.
I've been feeling incredibly inspired recently. The first few lines of this post accurately reflect how I've been waking up every morning, and they mirror the way I feel when I lie down to sleep, too. I almost don't want to sleep. There aren't enough hours in the day to finish the projects, the sentences, the illustrations and candles. I want to create everything, brainstorm everything. I'm peering over my shoulder, waiting for the demons to climb their way back up my spine. Waiting for the comparison trap to reset. Waiting for the inferiority to make it's way back into my blood stream.
I've learned enough about a few things recently to know that if I'm waiting for the demons to come back, it's almost as if I'm holding the door open for them, just a fraction of an inch. I might not even realise I'm doing it. Sometimes I feel it's better to expect them to return, so I don't feel disappointed when they do. Confusing, contrasting thoughts spin in circles. I'm dizzy just trying to catch up.
Some things to do:
• Exercise a social media cull. Unfollow everyone on social media who makes you feel inferior, small or stupid. Replace them with spiritual leaders, artists, writers and witches. Make your feed an inspiring place to be.
• Let it breathe. You don't have to be creating every second of the day to still consider yourself creative. Don't force it. Don't sit staring at a blank page. But at the same time...
• Allot yourself time to explore. Take a look at your schedule for the coming week and see when you have an hour or two spare you can give to paint swatching, flash fiction, creating candle scent samples, practicing your buttercream piping technique.
• Notice where else your creativity lies. Aesthetically pleasing meals, outfits, make-up, home décor, arranging flowers, the way you organise displays at work. These are all valid forms of creativity.
• Work at it. Write sentences, scenes, character profiles you may never use again. Paint the same moon over and over. Arrange the art on your wall, take it down, try again. Art and beauty do not only lie within the finished product.
• Do not censor yourself. Fanfiction, recreating art from your favourite video games, knitting, writing a song about a cat, documenting photo diaries of your Animal Crossing: New Horizons island, crafting plant pots with dicks, vaginas and tits on the front... these things are all cool as fuck and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Follow what lights the passion in your heart.
And finally, a reminder: your art is still real and valid even if yours are the only eyes that look upon it. No words of praise could be higher than those you can give yourself.
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