Write A List Of What Is Helping And Hurting Your Creativity

I am drowning in the dark gloomy days of Portland. At the top of my list of things that are currently hurting my mental health, creativity, and overall quality of life are gloomy days I cannot control. On the right side of a column is a long list dedicated to all that is helping me in this exact moment.

One of the ways we trip up when assessing our quality of life is to measure it up against the ruler of what used to make us happy or to only notice the things that used to make our days harder. While those details are amazing to have in our back pocket as context, the only way we’re going to address our right now is to notice our right now.

While having a conversation with a friend about how hard even the smallest of things have been feeling lately, I was reminded that we’re in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of a season of life we have never had to survive before, in the middle of a time where so many things that once brought us peace and joy are no longer available to us. I have spent the last few days resentful for all I’m missing. For instance, jeez do I miss coffee shops and co-working spaces. I miss having a space to go to that would help me break up my monotony. I am sad every time that I think about how yes, I can technically go to a coffee shop, but I can’t stay there, people watch, write, read, or just exist.

It’s like all the things that used to fill my cup are now the same things that hurt my mental health because it’s so easy to dwell. I’m taking the time to pull together a list of all that is helping my creativity and overall quality of life. I’ve been reading so much more than I was a year ago. It’s been such a joy and gift that COVID has unintentionally given me. All the times that I do get to venture outside have become holy moments for me. I notice the stores I walk into more instead of taking them for granted.

I’m not saying that it makes me miss all the things I love any less, but this exercise has helped me love all the new things that are bringing me joy even more than I already do. It’s helpful too in keeping the bad voices in my head at bay. I know that COVID isn’t something I can control. I can only practice gently hugging myself through all the scary and emotionally traumatizing parts of it.

I don’t necessarily even think that right now is the time to try to heal from the mental health implications that COVID has brought with it because the truth is that we’re still smack dab in the middle of it all.

If it’s helpful, borrow my exercise. Put everything that’s hurting you, making you sad, making you resentful, that you’re missing, on the left side of the column, so that you know what some of your triggers are. On the right side, list out all the joyful little moments your life is now made up of. Everything and anything counts, we’re not here to judge, we’re here to list.