How Emotions Impact Your Creativity
As someone whose creativity is basically as life-sustaining as pizza (who’s with me on that?), I need to indulge in some form of creativity every day. But when I’m feeling blue, lousy, crummy, just not up to the task, then my creativity suffers. If I’m not careful—like paying attention to my emotions kind of careful—then I end up not creating at all, and I kind of wallow in my feelings of less-than.
Wallowing is never good. It has all the oomph of a fence post. If I wallow long enough, I can kiss my productivity goodbye. Then that brings its own set of less-than feelings. It’s a nasty spiral I prefer to avoid.
I learned this about myself when I quit writing during a pretty rough period in life—my very own Dark Night(s) of the Soul—and actually made things worse. I had been plagued by feelings of inadequacy, which prompted the ultimate Quit Show, but not writing left open a gaping hole that allowed those monsters under the bed to make good on their promise and take me out.
After a long battle, I finally figured out that my version of creativity was the problem, because I made it all about a certain picture of success that I had in mind. Once I painted a new picture over the old one, my entire journey became brighter and more exciting.
THREE EXAMPLES OF EMOTIONAL STATES DANGEROUS TO CREATIVITY
Despair
Worthlessness
Guilt
Let me be clear—all low-vibe emotional states are by-products of fear. But fear disguises itself in so many ways, that we often don’t recognize that’s what’s going on when we’re struggling.
So why don’t I just say fear is creativity’s number-one enemy?
Because, sometimes, it’s easier for us to say “I feel overwhelmed” instead of “I feel scared”—but overwhelm is really a result of the fear we can’t handle what’s being handed to us, a fear of being inept.
Exploring feelings like jealousy, or confusion, or anxiety can help us get more specific about what’s going on in our lives, to identify what is really happening, so that we have a better chance of taking inspired action to get into a healthier place.
Let’s explore the three examples I set above to see why they’re dangerous to creativity.
DESPAIR
Despair, or hopelessness, is one of the lowest-vibe emotions creative people struggle with. Often hopelessness can come from a constant cycling of submission, rejection, submission, rejection. Writers can fall into a depressive state after a long enough period of despondency and can even start to distort observations so they’re not making informed decisions, or shut down creatively. Despair can occur when a writer has attached unreasonable power to a particular vision of success, and only that vision will cut it. Not writing for long periods of time and recycling bleak thoughts such as “That’s it. I’m a terrible writer. I can’t make a go of this” are common responses.
WORTHLESSNESS
Writers who feel devalued or insignificant as they go through their creative journeys end up feeling constant fatigue and will actually seek out people (even toxic people) to provide them with a sense of value. Often, these writers are the ones who care a lot about the poor reviews they get, or the fact a certain family member criticizes their work. Praise from others is worth more to the writer than self-praise. Depression and poor performance are two costly results of worthlessness. These writers will also fall into a pattern of demoralizing self-talk such as, “Just shut up. No one cares about your stories, so stop talking about them.”
GUILT
When a writer feels like they’re doing something wrong (such as writing instead of doing the dishes), they will often blow the event out of proportion, make it worse than it really is. Guilt can spiral into anxiety, agitation, regret, and shame. Writers who suffer from guilt have trouble fully concentrating on their work because one part of their brain is telling them they shouldn’t be writing. When they write anyway, if they haven’t cleared the guilt, they often end up with brooding and self-loathing thoughts. Writers who identify with guilt often can’t deal with the consequences because they seem so much more agonizing than the guilt itself—they’d rather live with guilt. Guilty self-talk can include “I can’t believe I did that. What will they think of me? Why won’t I ever learn?”
HOW EMOTIONS IMPACT OUR CREATIVITY
How we express our creative selves will often dictate how we show up in our creative journeys. So if we’re starting off our day dreading the work we need to do on chapter four, then we’re not going to get the most out of the writing session. Likewise, if we’re committed to feeling good about the exploration and possibilities of our forthcoming writing session, then we’ll be entering into the session with anticipation and a willingness to learn.
In other words, our mental and emotional energies are tied to our creative energies. If we’re feeling low-vibe in general, like exhausted or overwhelmed—and we don’t take the time to clear out that negative energy—then our creativity will be impacted. We either won’t want to write, or we won’t like what we do end up writing.
Luckily, the power to move from low-vibe to high-vibe energy is completely in our hands (and hearts), and it really doesn't take much time at all. We just have to understand ourselves enough to know what strategies will work when.
HOW TO PIVOT FROM LOW-VIBE TO HIGH-VIBE EMOTIONS
Ask yourself the following questions:
What generates my emotional energy?
What drains my emotional energy?
What refuels my emotional energy?
Some of your answers may include fear, good news, hope, insecurity, weather, financial worries, physical health, or relationships with others.
Take some time to journal your answers and elaborate as you see fit. You may find that your emotional energy increases or decreases in specific situations, or you may find that it’s dependent on factors you never considered before.
Assess your emotional energy today, and give it a rating between 1 and 10 (one being low; 10 being high) and process this rating based on your experiences throughout the day. What external forces affected your emotional energy? How about internal forces? Did you notice that you were a nine most of the day until your kid came home from school complaining about a bad grade, and suddenly you dropped to a five?
Highlight the experiences, events, moments, ideas, hobbies, etc. that seem to make you feel good, feel energized, feel impassioned. List them out and then find ways to incorporate one or more into your life every day.
These types of positive forces, what gets us moving in a forward direction with joy, excitement, inspiration, and empowerment, are vital to high-vibe emotional energy—and therefore, consistent creativity. Negative forces, those that drain us, make us feel badly about ourselves, ruin our day, depress or anger or irritate us, need to be released from our thoughts.
Negative forces are fear-based, but not to be feared
What comes to mind when you think about a two-star review on your book? A rejection from a literary agent? Writer’s block? Everyone else around you seems to be getting published, but not you? If your immediate response is one of not feeling good enough, guilt, that you don’t measure up, that your writing sucks, why do you bother—then you are neck-deep in the breeding ground for negative forces.
Instead of looking at the above experiences as disasters, try looking at them in a positive light. When we allow our fears, worries, frustrations, lack of confidence/belief run the show, then we ultimately allow more of that stuff to flow into our lives.
I’m not saying you can totally oust the negative forces. But you absolutely can keep them to a bare minimum once you focus on the positive forces in your life and build from there. Again, this goes back to understanding that YOU have the power to control your emotional thermostat. Tuning into your feelings on a regular basis and identifying what fills or drains your well can help you set up strategies that serve you and your creative journey.
Clear out negative, low-vibe energy
First, give yourself permission to feel good! Feel good about yourself and feel good about your creations. Feel good about the plans you have for the day, about your home, your family, your friends, your ideas.
Second, practice eliminating the negative forces from your life. Granted, this probably will never be an absolute deal. You’ll have good days, bad days, mediocre days. But the more you practice eliminating the crummy forces, your good days will outweigh the bad days.
Third, pay close attention to those moments where you feel good and try to go for a bit more. Share your happiness and excitement with fellow creators or your support system. Journal about it so that you can always refer back to it when you need a pick-me-up. Celebrate good days with something that can further increase your mental energy. Help someone else feel good by pointing out their creative gifts.
Fourth, focus on what is working. Look at more than your creative life here. Examine your family life, your relationships in your community, your “other” job, your health, your finances. Where are things going awesome? Tune into how what is working makes you feel—likely it makes you feel good or peaceful or relieved. Use those positive emotions as a kick-off point for feeling good about your creative life. What can you do in your creative life that will make you feel as good as you feel in your relationships with your family? Do it today.
Fifth, try to create at the times in your day when your emotional energy is high. For me, that’s first thing in the morning. I do NOT look at my phone or any social media alerts, or turn on my emails before I write. This was a bit difficult to do at first, but I noticed that if I reach for my phone first, inevitably I saw a notification that I felt compelled to follow up on right away. That was detrimental to my writing progress. You might have a different time of day where your emotional energy is high. Do your best to align your creative sessions with your boosted emotional energy. You will be less likely to hit writer’s block and inspiration will more likely flow.
Feeling good about your creative self will, without a doubt, lead you to high emotional energy—and high emotional energy will lead you to increased writing productivity and fulfillment. It all starts with you and how you treat yourself. Be good to yourself, be kind to your Muse, and you will soon find that creativity and mental energy flow with pizzazz.
