I know what it’s like to feel creatively drained so if that’s you right now, keep reading.

Often, when we get completely creatively drained, we may feel like there is absolutely nothing we can do.

You need rest. That’s true.

But I don’t think you need rest in the sense of lying down. Your type of rest has nothing really to do with what you do physically. Although sometimes moving your body or not-moving your body might help.

You need rest from all the stuff you are telling yourself that you should be doing.

It’s not that you can’t write - because let’s admit it, writing is hella easy. You just open a doc and type away.

It’s that you can’t write in the way that you feel you have to.

It’s that you can’t write in a way that will impress people.

In a way that the writing craft gurus tell you you should be writing.

In a way that would fit the image of yourself as a writer. The image you hold in your head and probably want to uphold for others.

Is this making any sense?

What would happen if you just allowed yourself to write anything? Literally anything? Whatever it is that you are feeling right now, for example.

-

I have been blocked so many times and for so many years.

And so many times I believed I just needed a break, I just needed rest.

Which was true in a way, because I was exhausted!

But the real reason why I was exhausted was not that I had worked so much or given so much of myself away.

It was because I was trying to put on a performance, I was trying to fit a certain role, I was trying to uphold a certain image that either I had of myself or I thought other people had of me.

The moment you release that, you can get in the flow again.

The moment you release the need to be something special or to prove something or whatever, you feel tremendous relief and all of a sudden you realise your energy is back.

THAT is the kind of rest that you need.

-