#202 Rekindle Part 1: Stability Before Creativity
I share:
Why stability frees up space to be creative
The four pillars that led to stability for me (and maybe you)
How I reclaimed social media as a place of pleasure
Why tending mental health counts as stability
Two barriers of conditioning I had to break through to allow myself that stability
grab your (free) “Rekindle Map” here
Mentioned in the episode
Free Rekindle Map
Quiet Messenger 201: My Year-Long Sabbatical to Unhook From Biz Culture & Rekindle My Work
Think of a plant that’s been in a pot that’s too small for too long.
It’s grown as much as it can in that container.
When you replant it in a bigger pot, its roots grow deeper and spread out to take up more space. Until finally you start to see fresh growth above the soil.
I was like that rootbound plant that had outgrown its pot.
I didn’t need to just evolve a niche or a message. I needed to REBUILD the way I work, what I talk about, how I structure things, weave true creativity in.
This called for a bigger evolution than I could do while inside my business — it meant taking a step back to REPATTERN.
When I went from being on a hiatus to calling it a sabbatical, the new framing felt more generative, like something was happening during that time rather than it being just an empty pause.
After all, when professors go on sabbatical, they fly to research or teach at a university across the world or country so they can expand their experience, get exposed to other ideas. Going on sabbatical gave me all that fresh soil.
But before anything could change aboveground, I needed to expand my roots.
That’s why getting stability was the first step.
Because the thing about stability is that, though it may seem counterintuitive, it gives you breathing space to be creative.
Two pillars of stability for me were:
Taking on a contract position for a different source of income than my biz offerings. This released the pressure of money coming from my creativity. Which let me play with being creative in ways that were for me, versus for business growth.
Mental health support which began to pull me back above water and eventually into a centered place so I could open up to shifts to come.
That didn’t mean that I immediately was creative. Or that fire was instantly rekindled for my work.
What it did mean is that, by spring, my roots were strong enough that I felt a shift in my energy, ready to follow sparks of inspiration.
xoxo
p.s. I recommend grabbing The Rekindle Map to go along with this episode — a FREE guide to evolve your work if you’ve lost that fire.
