How to Maintain Creativity in Your Brain - Part 2
A lot has happened since my last creativity post - the last week or so, I've been debating whether I should open up about it all.
My last post was about not allowing stress to hijack your creativity - and I still stand by it.
At the time, I was working so hard to make a difficult job work. I was employed, but the work was not physically or mentally healthy for me. And yet, my Pride would not allow myself to quit.
And I was extremely creative, and productive about that creativity during that time - so my theory felt justified.
But then, suddenly, the choice to continue working that job was taken out of my hands; I am currently unemployed.
Being unemployed is not new to me - I was unemployed for 3 months last year, when I was fired from a job I was struggling to do, according to the company's wants and needs. What makes THIS time so different, is that my job had the benefits. My husband is also starting a new business - and has been sick this past week and half, so he couldn't make much progress on it.
I am extremely stressed about not having benefits and not having money - and I am still fighting to prevent it from trashing my creativity.
Currently, I am re-organizing my home, so that our stuff doesn't get in the way of having a refuge from craziness. I may not have a job, but I have time - something I didn't have while fully employed. I can't afford high-end organization hardware or furniture, so I had to get creative in my organizing.
I am part of an improv troupe - I struggle with continuation of unscripted storylines, and the last few practices, I have seen patterns for how to overcome a storyline choice that isn't going anywhere. My confidence in being a performer is increasing, and one of my cast mates actually told me they saw improvement - that "whatever [I was] doing, keep doing it!"
My anxious mind internally snapped back: "What, joblessness? Zero income? Is THAT what's making me perform better??" And I went home and burst into tears.
Maybe this section of my series is here to highlight that stress can fuel creativity - but it's not my preferred way to be creative. I am a security-seeker. I love safety nets. I LOVE the feeling of being held, of being supported.
Because I grew up believing the world isn't kind when you dangle your heart on a string.
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I also mentioned in my last post that focus is more important than time.
Two years ago, I was working part-time after leaving a full-time career with no advancement. I had time, but not enough money for projects I wanted to do. I had time, but was reeling from my loss of employment identity. I had time, but again, I was working a job that was mentally and physically difficult for me - I spent my off-time taking hours to decompress.
I was not able to do many creative things at that time - stress overtook what time I had, and an opportunity to be more creative was squandered. Had I focused on creative pursuits, things may have been different now.
So what do I have? I don't have money, and I don't have benefits, and I don't have the feeling of security.
But I do have time.
I COULD focus, if I choose it.
And I still have my creative outlets - those have not been taken away from me.
The only thing left for me to do, is to choose to let go of my Pride.
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2) Let Go of Pride that Does Not Serve You
I had started writing a WHOLE different number two for this series - But life has a funny way of telling you your direction is wrong.
For years in my self-love journey (my journey to heal from verbal, mental, and emotional trauma), I very quickly identified that Fear and Anxiety were overriding my ability to live a happy life. "Inside Out", the Pixar movie, was helpful in identifying that, even before the amazing sequel came about.
So, I attacked the Fear and Anxiety - I started doing things that scared me. I learned how to express my needs and set boundaries, even when I felt scared to do those things.
It was not. fun.
Yet I did those things, because I knew that NOT doing those things, made me feel miserable. So that's what I did.
And wouldn't you know it, life improved, and I felt ALL my problems were solved!
Except they weren't.
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I still find myself working in made-up parameters that keep me 'safe' - but it's not from a Fear or Anxiety point of view.
I mentioned earlier that I worked in a full-time career with no advancement. I worked that job for almost 4 and a half years. Why did I work there so long, if it wasn't a good fit?
I felt important.
I felt needed in that job. I felt professional. I felt powerful. I was good at the administration of that job - but they didn't want an administrator for that job. They asked me to complete administrative work they didn't want to do, and when it was done, they then told me to go back to being a peon. And I couldn't do that.
So I left. I left for another opportunity that made me feel important - an opportunity that I could pursue while working part-time somewhere else.
I left because I joined a Talent Management company.
A Talent Management company is not the same thing as a Talent Agency. An Agency works with you to get auditions and jobs that complement your style or brand of talent - a Management company finds jobs for the many people they have acquired. In this way, the Management company has little to do with a person's individual success, and more to do with securing contracts with production crews - because it's likely that SOMEONE in their talent pool will peak a production company's interest for a project. So securing contracts is up to the individual to pass auditions and get work.
It is a legal form of business - but not very good for people who struggle to promote themselves.
I am a VERY creative person, and they saw that. I was asked to sign up, and attend workshop classes so I could refine my craft, and get work through their company. It was difficult to balance that schedule, and work part-time, and somehow still feel important. I quickly realized I was not able to promote myself the way I needed to be successful. So I eventually stopped submitting to the jobs they posted.
At the time, I vastly underestimated how much Pride played into this.
You wouldn't think so, seeing me up on an Improv stage - I have played a pregnant woman, an old man, a bro-dude, a highly flirtatious woman, a child, a cat, and a Roomba.
These are just a few of the things I have performed on stage. A Drip from the bucket, if you will.
And it would seem that Pride doesn't get in my way of creativity.
But my problem is I don't care what role I pull out of my brain - so long as I feel important.
I struggle to do side characters. And no matter how good my character is, I struggle to continue a storyline if it risks my feelings of importance: Did I start that scene? Did I make that choice, only to see that it doesn't work? Why can't I shift away from it?
Because it would undermine my feelings of value: You started a scene that doesn't work. Now we must shift away from it. You chose a course of action that will result in undesirable scene works - time to pivot.
My brain struggles with this, because it can't let go of the importance of my initial idea. But recently, I have found something to neutralize this:
The importance is not in the established aspects of my scene work - the importance is in the fact that I tried.
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We talk about how 'cringe' is undesirable in modern society; Doing something dramatic and hoping for a positive response, when in reality, it comes out flat - that's what most people today would classify "cringe" or "cringey" behavior. And society LOVES to punish people for being 'cringe'.
But I've noticed there are a LOT of creatives who do "cringey" things, and are actually successful: Take Jim Carrey.
It's here on YouTube - I encourage you to watch it first before continuing this post: https://youtu.be/Cs65G7rlyrw?si=M3OtpnOi5hh6AHVc
This is the first time the masses had seen Jim Carrey - And watching him, and waiting for the reactions of the audience, for me, is painful to watch.
It's strikingly clear that this sketch would either make or break Carrey as a performer.
No one in that audience, or watching the Tonight Show, had ever seen impressions like his before - they didn't even know what to expect when he took, what felt like, a full minute to transform into Elvis Presley. Before this moment, he had worked at a comedy bar in Toronto, a place that eventually came to support him, and laud him as a worthy comedian.
And I could see on his face, that in the past, Jim Carrey's work had been teased and shot down as 'cringe' in the past.
And in this televised moment, he was about to put his whole career on the line - risk his reputation and craft - to be dubbed as 'cringe', or, to become legendary, to a bunch of strangers, who had never heard or seen his work before. Maybe in some way, that pause before he started his sketch was a moment that Carrey took to assure himself that no matter how he was received, he would still do his best.
And his risk payed off - because he threw himself headfirst into his craft. Pride be damned.
That's guts I don't have yet. But boy, is there a part of me that wants to try.
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Trying involves failure.
I don't sit well with failure - my family was not a failure-fostering environment, and in fact, my siblings appeared to be merciless in calling attention to moments where I failed.
And even when they weren't in the picture, I still felt like failure was a burning sensation that took away from my importance - that failure translated to what I was doing, or trying to do but failed, made what I was doing unimportant. Therefore, I was unimportant.
So I really tried to do things successfully so I didn't feel the loss of importance. And yet, doing things successfully, I didn't feel any meaningful increase to my importance - so was it worth doing again?
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This is a prior thought I've had, reworked to fully understand the psychology of why I don't do certain things - or rather, why I have yet to do certain things. To allow myself to create truly unique social commentaries, or share photoshoots I have been in that were fun to make. Rejection and "cringe" labels are scary to me - so my Pride says to keep them to myself.
But now that I recognize this pattern of behavior, I can also go and refute it: the importance is not lost from failure. The importance lies in the fact that I tried.
So I am going to work on trying - I have a network of chosen family who can support me when my projects fail. During this period of high stress, I still have creative projects flowing into my brain that I want to do. I just need to let go of Pride and not treat Failure like it's this big entity that can strip me of importance.
Easy, right?
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I sure hope that bearing my soul like this is helpful - I have found that sharing my thoughts and internal dialogue and my struggles have indeed helped other people, when I have shared on my personal Facebook page. Please let me know how this section has affected you - it helps me share when I see people have benefitted from what I have to say.
Until next time.
XOXOX
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