Entering the World of Small Things
How I broke through my creative block and am on the other side. I think.
Buried beneath the train tracks
Grave marked
A pile of stones
To her resting place
Fully no one, no sounds but
The rumble of passing trains
I didn’t realize I was blocked. I am finding that that word is a blanket that covers up all kinds of challenging things underneath it; being stuck, being resistant, procrastinating, trying to be perfect, afraid of failing, superhero complex, good girl complex, relationship-to-self issues – to name a few. And then we can get into the stickier, harder things if that wasn’t bad enough: unresolved grief, unprocessed past trauma, depression, mental and physical health challenges to name several.
In a fast-paced world where lives were being lived in all kinds of interesting and not-so-interesting ways, I was craving a slower version for my own life and I wanted the pain to stop. To get back some of the things I had once identified with as being part of my core – being creative, to feel hopeful, and positive. It was last year that I became fully aware of my dilemma. My creativity was gone for the most part. There were a few spider-web-like threads, but they were always at risk of dissipating in the air.
I had been in therapy, I think she is number 5, for three years and was diagnosed with C-PTSD. So that is what this is? I thought. It’s a strange feeling to have lived with something so long and to not have any other baseline to compare against. That was my normal with heavy doses of over-achieving, people-pleasing, non-connected to self to counter all the other crap going on internally. As I worked my way through the thicket of the why’s, what nots, limiting beliefs, the EMDR, and the Internal Family Systems. I would get glimpses of what it might be to stand on the other side of this, to feel better only to plumet again into the depths of feeling like I would never be me again, not being really sure who I was any more. And I can tell you that I really don’t know how it happened. There was no lightning strike that brought it back. There was no single “trick”. There wasn’t any “one article”, and I read probably a hundred on the subject, that pointed me in the right direction. I tried everything I could get my hands on. You see, I seemed to fall outside of what was the normal approach.
Over the past year, little by little, I could see that things were getting better. It may have begun with the blackout poetry showcased with this post. It was a way of getting my toe in the water, a way to enter the portal that had been so incredibly shut off from my life. With this exercise, there was no chance of failure. It was an exercise only for me and it didn’t matter how it turned out. I bought the book at a thrift store for $2.00. It didn’t take very long to do it and it was fun. In fact, I enjoyed the process so much, I was inspired to create a collage on the facing page of images that were reminiscent of my childhood – growing up in Indiana – I grew up next to a railroad track. I let go of the expectation of it being anything amazing. And I was pleased with the result which was a bonus.
This experience along with many other parts of what is now becoming a creative practice for me has become an integral part of my healing journey. I am finding additional, perhaps nonconventional ways to enrich life, thus living a creative life again. In the future, I may be changing the name of my publication to align more succinctly with my values and what my life path is turning into. We’ll see.
Happy creating – love,
