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We are living in unprecedented times, these past months have been very challenging for many of us.
It’s difficult to keep up the good vibes and creative production, especially if you are one of those artists who rely only on their creativity rather than on commissions.
In psychologically and emotionally challenging situations, we have sometimes difficulty coping.
That said, let’s see what I came up with to be more creative during a pandemic.
1. Emotional awareness
First of all, you need to get aware that your emotions do not rule you. If you’re feeling anxious, stressed, or overwhelmed you need to determine whether these emotions belong to you or to someone else. Most of the time these days, one can experience weird feelings because the collective’s feelings are very strong. Especially for sensitive people, and most of the artists are, the emotions of the collective will be very much felt.
Bring awareness by identifying if the emotion is coming from you or from the outside by asking the question: “Is this true? Is this true for me?” Make this question to yourself and see if it resonates. If you feel that it is not true for you and it is not affecting you, then you will know that the emotion that you are feeling comes from the outside and not from you. Of course, there can be some major issues going on in your life at the moment that make you unclear about your emotions, but otherwise, this simple exercise can work very well.
Even if something happening in your life at the moment is unpleasant, always remember that your emotions do not define you. You can discern your emotions from your creative process. You can discern your emotions from your creative production.
After that, it is important to start to think and to shift the perception and to think of the situation in another in another perception, from another point of view.
2. Think outside of the box
Start to think outside of the box, try to start to think about what are the benefits of being in a situation like this. If you are able to detach from your perspective and see yourself from above, you will have the vision of the whole situation as well.
Imagine being a bird that can fly up in the sky and watch the whole situation from above. What will you do differently? How much more relaxed could you be considering all the elements and not only a portion of it?
3. Shift your routines
If you’re feeling stuck in the production, you can start to shift your routines and find new ones. If we give our system a change factor, it will unblock and it will see and behave in a different way. But what does “new routines” mean?
For example, start to go to bed a little bit earlier, start to disconnect from social media, start to wake up early in the morning and do a little bit of exercise, start to do a walk in nature every day, start to shift your nutrition, eating healthier foods, eat more veggies and greens so that your body also detoxifies.
Why is it important?
We are a complex system that merges body, mind, spirit, and emotions. This vision is called the holistic approach, and it states that these different parts are all connected to each other. If my body is not fit, is not well, even my thoughts, even my emotions in my mental state will be influenced by that.
Try to shift your routines for at least a couple of weeks or even better for one month, so that your brain can build in the new pathway for the new habit.
4. Change your workflow
Very similar to the previous points, this one refers mainly to the process you use to get things done. For example, if you are used to producing your art in a specific way, you change the steps, maybe making the process leaner or simplifying it.
Every time you feel stuck, just give your brain new patterns and new habits. In this way you rewire it. You can start to approach your creation from the end, or in the middle or as another person.
Of course, keep it possible and coherent with your business.
5. Look at the silver lining
Always look at the advantages of the situation. For example, right now we are more oriented to work from home, most of us had to. What could be the advantage of this situation? It could be that you gain a lot of time that you were spending before by commuting.
Another advantage is that spending less time on social occasions we can have a bigger opportunity to explore ourselves deeper. Right now we are forced to go in and this can be very positive for our creativity and for our production because we can really unlock deep aspects of us that can become more valuable than as a production and as a creative expression of ourselves.
Last but not least we can build a better and deeper connection with people that we really care about, and grow new relationships based on a deeper meaning.
6. Take care of your mental health
I have already talked about it before, but I want to enhance it again and another point is to take care of your mental health.
Being overwhelmed every day with a great load of information, most of the time very negative, good care of your mental health is fundamental to keep the integrity and the center. Find the stillness inside the storm. If you feel too much overwhelm disconnect from social media and from the mainstream and shift to connect in relationships that really nurture us and that we care about.
Meditation is a great, great tool. And I will do a vlog in the coming days regarding meditation and creative flow. So meditate, meditate regularly if you can. And this goes also into the other point that I wanted to address.
7. Improve self-care
Be very gentle with yourself, be very caring with yourself. Take care of your body, spirit, and mind, really to make it more coherent, more whole, more complete, and more strong from the inside and from the outside.
8. Have fun
This is the most important point to me and it is the following: have fun.
It is true that we are not our emotions, but emotions rule a big part in our conscious and unconscious behavior because, depending on how we feel, we will react and interact and act in a certain way with others and also with ourselves, with our inner talk and with our outer talk.
It is fundamental that we put ourselves in a condition in which we can have emotions that support us, and since we are not our emotions, even if something that happens is not so positive, we can always try to find the good in it. I’m not talking about becoming Pollyanna, I’m talking about trying to be resilient and trying to be in the mindset of finding the positive aspect and exiting the victim modality to uplift yourself so that you can rise over the situation.
I am perfectly aware that this is a delicate topic and I know that there are very difficult situations right now, and I’m sorry, deeply sorry for people who are experiencing losses and pain regarding all that is happening in the world. But if we can shift to a wider perception and if we can reconnect with the emotion of Joy with the emotion of love, with the emotion of gratitude then we will be able to be more creative and also to uplift ourselves and others.
I hope that the 8 steps to be creative in a pandemic have served you, please let me know in the comments what you think about it and if you have any other ideas, if I did miss something if you use all of them if there is someone that is your favorite, and we will talk soon.
OK, thank you so much. Enjoy your day. Be healthy, be happy. And I’m sending you lots of love.
