I got home from my vacation on Memorial Day weekend. So, theoretically, I’ve been “back at work” since May 28th, with only a brief interruption for the Nebula Conference a week ago. And yet, there’s been no activity on my blog. And I’ve gotten frustratingly little creative work done. More on that in a moment.
This was my first Nebula Conference, which I attended virtually (to save both money and energy, which turns out to have been a very good thing). I enjoyed attending panels, and getting my first glimpse into how it operates. Everyone I interacted with, and the members of every panel I streamed live were enthusiastic and welcoming. I learned some interesting things and had some other things I already knew confirmed or put into new context. As always, with a weekend full of talking to writers about writing, there will be insights that gain importance to me only after a few months, when a remembered snippet of a conversation helps me with a problem I can’t yet imagine.
But one thing was immediately relevant, and I wanted to share it today.
On a panel about self-care, author and coach Jessica Conoley commented that your creative brain works best when it can be expansive and open. By contrast, when life puts you in survival mode, your brain focuses in on the basic necessities: food, water, shelter. I knew both of those things separately, of course, but I’d never strung that comparison together like that before, and it explains SO MUCH about the mental space I felt stuck in while recovering from burnout several years ago.
It ALSO explains the mental space I’ve been in for the last couple of weeks. And the frustrating lack of progress on my writing projects.
My husband and I were in a motorcycle accident while on vacation. Full spoiler: everyone will be okay, soon. But we’re not quite okay now, and there were a few minutes there, four weeks ago, when I didn’t know whether we would ever be fully okay again.
In other words, events out of my control put me in LITERAL survival mode, and it’s taken me a while to get out of it again. The first few days after the accident were fully consumed by the task of getting home again, but we accomplished that (with the help of some amazing friends). Even after Mark got his crutches and his treatment plan (and I got a tentative “all clear” from my doctor’s office), the basic business of life still took a lot of energy, with the added complications of insurance companies to deal with.
But I was back at my desk, and I had work to do, and I was SO IMPATIENT with myself for not being able to get it done. My paid work as a bookkeeper was easy enough. But the closer a task got to my creative self, the harder it got. Writing, or even writing a blog entry, was really hard.
I tried to be a good self-supervisor. I repeated to myself that I needed to be patient, over and over again, as I slowly crawled back to something approximating my normal energy levels. But it wasn’t until I heard Jessica’s comment during the conference that I had the full understanding that I needed.
So, I’ve spent the last week reassuring my subconscious brain we don’t need to worry about survival quite that frantically. I’ve been focusing on sleeping, eating, and being fully present in my physical self, without trying to force any creative activities.
I’m rebuilding. I can feel my Survival brain receding into the background, and my creative brain coming forward again, but I’m forcing myself to remember, even today, that it might still be too early to make promises about how next week will look. I’m grateful for where I am now.
(I’m also grateful for motorcycle helmets and other protective gear – AMA).