The Gift of Creative Ruts
New Video Journal / Notes from the Heart
Hello you beautiful humans!
Who’s familiar with creative ruts? 😉
Do you often feel like you’re lacking in your art and productivity? That you’re not working hard enough? That you’re not good enough? Especially compared with the bombardment of the every-day content that social media pushes to us from other amazing creatives, all over the world, all the time?
I sure know I’m familiar with the above feelings, and it’s a pretty regular occurrence for me to fall into the comparison trap, or to become irritated with myself when I’m feeling “stuck”. I’ve felt that way for the last few weeks, to be honest.
Here’s my latest video journal, where I go more into depth on my struggles and realizations with creative ruts this month. I hope maybe something in this can resonate with you:
Because these creative ruts happen to me frequently over the last decade, I’ve come to know the key that works for me, to pull myself out of these ruts. And it definitely doesn’t come from trying harder.
It comes from acceptance.
From being okay, with just being enough.
There is a part of me, perhaps the same part that I believe is in connection with the Earth, the Universe, which whispers much more subtly than the usual loud noises constantly in my head… and I often must get quiet enough to hear it… a voice in the back of my mind that tells me to accept these moments. To be okay with my slow productivity, reflected in a slow season. To trust this process of resting, because maybe it’s exactly what I need, to give me the energy later to grow.
Maybe I should actually be proud of myself now, for simply being “enough”.
I think maybe creative ruts aren’t something to be feared, or to feel bad about. I want to try to see them as a gift, reminding us to step back and look around, REALLY look. To let ourselves be awed, to remember how finite we are in the infinity of the stars. Because really, how long is this life we get to live, on this spinning ball of rock in outer space?
Maybe these creative ruts are a gift to remind me that I don’t actually want to spend my life constantly trying harder to do more, create more, and be more… for what? I just want to be me. A gently living, loving and imperfect being, letting go of the pressure I put on myself, and finding the balance between doing the bare minimum of what I “think” I should do, and showing up more fully to experience being here, very much alive, right now. And then, simply letting my art express what that means to me, being in that moment. Imperfect or messy as it may be.
To be honest, it's here in this emotional space of “being enough” that seems to be the sweet spot for me, where I connect with a deeper and rawer form of my own truth each day… which often ends up expressing itself through new art ideas and creativity anyway, even in ways I might not have thought of in the first place if I tried to keep doing more out of pressure, comparison, or forcing myself out of creative ruts.
It’s like a breath of relief, coming back to myself here. In this lighter space of being okay with just “being enough”. Where my art and productivity is no longer a pursuit of perfection, but rather a reflection… a unique mirror of myself, with all my feelings and dreams, constantly changing, so often messy, but also incredibly and imperfectly beautiful.
So for now, I’ve been focusing on living more presently, taking my daily lessons from Pepper on the joys of sand between the toes, cool sticks, birds, and simply being alive. And when I reflect more on these “little” moments, I realize they’re actually the big moments, the important parts of life that I want to remember.
I don’t know if any of you resonate with these same kind of feelings, especially at this time of year, but if you do, I hope you can remember that you are enough, just as you are. I hope you can find some peace and ease in giving yourself permission to be imperfect, to create imperfectly. And I hope you can learn to let go of the pressure you put on yourself, to see just how beautiful you are in this very moment.
I’m sending you all so much love and light as we enter this spring season here in the northern hemisphere. It means a lot to me that you’re here reading this, or watching this latest video. I’m so looking forward to sharing more of these moments with you here soon!
May you find peace and beauty around you, wherever you are.
With love,
Lizzy
Whimsical West Coast Retreat:
Applications are now OPEN for our new Creative Retreat taking place this Fall, on Oct 27 - Nov 2nd!
If you’re interesting in learning how to create powerful and story-telling images in stunning natural locations, while forging friendships with our small group of amazing humans over the course of an inspiration-filled week, please read all the retreat info and send in your application here:
Editing Presets:
I’m so excited to have put together this pack of 20 Presets (+ 1 free editing tutorial), pieced together after 15 years of fine-tuning my editing process. I hope you love these as much as I do. 🥰
Loved watching this so much! Thank you for sharing so openly and so vividly and beautifully. It was really inspiring, honestly. I've been in a rut recently too, although it's been more of a too hot, too dry, exhausted by an endless summer (and bushfires) one, so although the seasons aren't quite the same, the feelings are. I love the way you share the world and the way you see the world, and the way that these videos are like a version of both <3