#creativeblock

i don’t think i’ve ever been a bad student, not really. a procrastinator, yes, the kind who sits on the edge of deadlines until the last moment and then somehow still pulls through, the kind who always believed that even if i started late i’d still finish, that my brain would show up when i needed it to, that i could trust myself to deliver. and for a long time, that worked. i was never the one falling behind, never the one missing the mark. but then college started, and something shifted in me that i can’t even name properly, something broke in the way i used to trust myself. suddenly, i’m not just procrastinating, i’m… failing. i’m not just late, i’m absent.

i’ve been too negative, i think. too heavy in the way i look at things, dragging myself down before i’ve even tried. my performance has been trash, and not just in studies, but in everything i thought i loved-squash, where i used to feel like my body was sharp and alive; the clubs i joined with bright-eyed promises but barely attend; the commitments that i wanted to pour myself into but instead keep slipping away from. it’s like i can’t commit to myself anymore, can’t commit to showing up for the person i thought i was going to be.

and i have this voice-god, i know it’s beautiful, people have told me so, i’ve felt it when i sang, like something inside me was finally free-and now it’s just rusting away. i don’t even sing anymore. my ukulele, the one i once carried everywhere, is lying in the corner like an abandoned instrument from a war nobody remembers, gathering dust, its silence heavier than its sound ever was.

and maybe the worst part is how the state of my mind has started spilling out into my room. my room used to be my place, mine, a reflection of me in the best way. now it’s just untidy, cluttered, like i keep throwing things around because i can’t bear to sit with myself long enough to put them back. it looks like i’m always mid-collapse, like the room is telling on me, showing what i can’t say out loud: that i am unraveling.

Me and my creative block 👹 Is it possible to overcome a struggle by giving it shape and drawing it? Because this is how I’ve spent most of January, knitting in my couch with my cat and this unwelcome guest. I know he’s cute with his red beret but don’t be fooled, he’s been giving me a hard time!

As you may have seen on my stories the past month, I’ve been having a massive creative block. In early January I finished a new picture book that has been such an enjoyable project (more on this soon!). After a big project like this it’s very common to feel creatively drained (at least for me) and I usually take it easy for a few days, then swing back to full creative mode.

(Now including drawn picture also made by me ( ´•̥̥̥ω•̥̥̥` ))

Me trying to write stories ROMAN SANDERS EDITION

1193 words and counting. Trigger-Warning slight alluding to self-harm +negative thoughts.

That wasn’t that bad Roman tried to convince himself. He’d been through way worse right . . .? Wait was that considered a good thing. He brought his hands to his head. It had begun agonizingly pounding earlier in the day and he could feel the pressure in his ears akin to something like a buzzing sound had begun making its presence known. He felt sluggish and lethargicness crept upon him. Surely they hadn’t meant it that way. Not like their intend was hurting him. So why did he feel so . . so hurt. It was like a piece inside of him was broken off. The piece that carried all his confidence. His admittedly now feeling false bravery. The bravado that helped him conquer his less then awesome feelings. He heard creaking footsteps up the stairs and some soft whispered goodnights.

The mind palace fell empty on sound as its residents started heading to their respective beds. I should probably get some shut eye too thought Roman as he looked around his room. He hadn’t had the time or to be honest motivation to clean it up for a while now. His energy seemed to have wounded down a lot lately. He would put it down to the amount of videos they had been making. But truthfully he wasn’t very much present in them at all let alone having his ideas represented as anything less than annoying. He twirled his messy hair in between his fingers, twiddling his thumbs while rocking back and forth a bit. The silence that now protruded the vacant mind surroundings made the whining in his ears stand out all the more. He grabbed his temple and began rubbing circles on his forehead. He didn’t want things to be this way. It all felt so complicated. And like his incompetence was already making everybody uncomfortable enough. Without highlighting all his other flaws. Normally he loved the spotlight but now it made him itch.

The thought alone made him have trouble breathing. He should be more put together. How could he dream of having a grand live on the stage if he couldn’t even stand a meager spotlight. He felt woozy had his room always been this of kilter, this . . dizzying. His vision blurred had he been crying this whole time. How long . . . he tried wiping away his tears as new ones grew in their places. The clock face on his nightstand was barely legible through mist his eyes produced. It read 02:10 AM. Had he really been rummaging through his hair and been sat thinking here for this long. SHIT- Logan had a schedule he wanted to keep and he didn’t want to be tired and late for the morning meetings. Ouch . . .his head stung if it wasn’t for him feeling immobile he would have moved to pick up some painkillers for his worsening headache. Then again he didn’t wanna wake up the others by making too much sound going to find it in the cabinets below. He’d been warned before about being too noisy and off-putting when trying to practice his favorite musical songs. Keep it down Logan had yelled. Yeah will you can it with your sappy bullshit his mustachy brother had added. He’d tried whisper singing ever since. It didn’t have that much flare to it, but if it made them happier he’d be glad to be of their backs.

The inside of his head felt as if someone had knocked his brain around quite a few times. Cut all its supports out and the remaining short-circuiting heap had been set on fire as some sort of twisted fun added bonus. He sniffled rubbing the underside of his nose and eye sockets. He probably deserved it. The way he’d been performing lately was about as garbage as he felt. The clock face blinked 03:00 AM it read. No, no NO . . . this had to stop. He wasn’t even supposed to stay up again. He was exhausted it took longer than he wanted to admit to come up with his sup-par ideas as it was. He didn’t need to create more problems for himself and everyone around him. He slammed down his fist against his carpet and then recoiled in shock as he remembered he shouldn’t produce sounds this late into the night. Frustrated he dug his nails into his palm and bit on his knuckles as he closed his arms around himself. His knees seemed to tremble a bit, he noticed as he looked down. Was this the self-soothing Virgil had talked about. It didn’t seem that soothing to him.

He looked at his fingers they were cold and absent of colour apart from the stained ink and the numerous papercuts on them. He’d really been trying. It might have looked easy from the outside but ‘’It was all a Ruse’’. As Deceit would so say. More and more often he felt that it was all just too much and that balancing it was getting more impossible as it became harder to smile to himself in the mirror. What had been the last time he’d truly felt accomplished. Like he got his stuff together or at least made it look presentable enough to fool everyone. His heavy eyelids started to droop over his glossy dry red tear stained eyes until they shot up to look at his calendar.

Crap.

He’d forgot. He was so busy being fucking sorry for himself that he’d missed the big red circled due date of the upcoming script. If something had to pull him over the edge this was it he’d reached his limits. And felt surrounded. He started drawing panicked breaths heaving over on himself. He didn’t know what pounded harder his head or his chest. They were gonna be so mad at him or worse they'd be staring on in drooping disappointment as he would stand there ashamed in the corner , uneasy shuffling his feet. Patton would throw out a halfhearted it’s okay kiddo. With Thomas sighing looking away as Logan crumpled his paper up and muttered something about no respect for a proper schedule in the background, again having to adjust each and every detail in his already busily packed important planning scheme. If this was only a mild version of a so called panic attack that he’d had explained to him by Virgil. He couldn’t imagine what a full blown one must have actually felt like. He felt so sorry for the dude. How could he ever manage to put on any sense of composure if he had to have these on an at least a monthly basis. the walls felt like the were eerily closing in on him. He wanted to scream to cry out for help but only a meekly weak sob would be forced out of his throat that as the shadows in the corners of his narrowed eyes started to crop up and he lost his already faltering vision to the black surrounding his corneas. His body sunk to the ground like a melted puddle.

Even us Spiritually inclined people get burnt out. Yes Source is infinite energy, but that doesn’t mean our beautifully human bodies are equipped to always be vibrating on such a high frequency all the time.

If you’re familiar with the 7 Chakra system, the Crown (top of the head – Divine connection) and the Sacral (lower abdomen – passion, creativity, emotions) I find they’re more related than we think. The lower Chakras are considered to vibrate lower, as they’re more ‘human’ so to speak, but when it comes to the Sacral, passion, creativity and emotions all have a direct connection to the Divine. When you create Divinely-inspired content like I do, it comes from both the Crown and Sacral. I can literally experience Spiritual burnout intertwined with creative blocks, as I’m sure many creative and Spiritual people do. Because it is my Divine purpose to teach, heal, create, I feel like I always need to be honouring and exercising that as it is like a birthright and duty. Yet again, I ignore the fact that I’m human.

I get lost in the expectations that I put on myself in the human world, and try to tackle them Divinely. Even creating the content that I post here, though Divinely inspired, with a tired Sacral Chakra I don’t feel like I can produce the content I need to. I feel like my head is running a mile a minute and my body can’t keep up. But as I sit here writing this, I’m watching the snow fall – it’s peaceful, and the snowflakes fall at their own pace, in their own way. I don’t even know what I’m trying to write here. The words which usually come to me Divinely are melting as soon as they enter my head. I think this is probably the most personal, and most human post I’ll write.