The world can't thrive on your hopelessness
The saying "worry is using your imagination to create things you don't want" feels trite, but there's some truth to it
Reorienting your focus is a boon to creativity
I firmly do not believe that you need to be a suffering artist in order to create good art.
And I see the ways that worry, stress, and anxiety pull energy away from my work. And so for years I’ve been using various tools and practices to support me in reducing anxiety (I am my mother’s daughter and thus, a worrier).
One of my goals with my work is not to completely eliminate worry or gaslight myself or others out of acknowledging it, but rather seeing how I can work alongside it and still have a thriving creative practice while doing what I can to support my mental health.
I’m generally a very optimistic person (even if I worry often), but yesterday I found myself saying to a friend “I want to feel the release of not having to worry about this thing any more.”
The thing in question was a personal matter not explicitly connected to my creativity (though of course, everything is to varying extents, and during an energy work session that evening, we talked about worry as a tool for helping us refine and define our desires.
In other words, worry is informative: It tells us about how we want to see the world, because it informs us of something that is not in alignment with what we want. Our minds start to fixate on that thing, because minds like to fixate on whatever they find compelling, and as a result, we worry.
There are many things out of our control that we worry about (I’m making broad, sweeping gestures with my arms right now to indicate that wide field of play). But we can still imagine what we do want, even if it feels out of reach or out of our control.
This is not a toxic positivity, ‘love and light your way out of fascism’ approach to living but INSTEAD, reorienting towards what we want helps us not just feel better, but also see the steps we might take to start moving in that direction (however small, however much we are a piece of a larger puzzle).
By imagining what we want, we’re using our powers of creativity in a generative way. We’re using our imaginations to help us identify our desires, then to ask how we can start to move in that direction so those desires have a chance to exist in the world with us.
Reorienting our attention when the world gives us lots to worry about
This practice doesn't just apply to your creativity, it applies to so many other parts of your life in your world too. Like most things, what benefits you in one area of your life has ripple effects outward into others.
Redirecting attention is a practice
First things first, the act of redirecting your thoughts when you find yourself worrying is a practice and a process, NOT a destination. It isn’t something you can ever perfect, because human minds are messy and complicated, but it becomes easier and more powerful the more often you do it.
In other words, the impact of this practice compounds over time: You may not immediately notice the effects, but when you look back months or years in the future, you’ll be amazed how much has changed without you necessarily noticing.
So, how do we direct attention? And why do we direct attention?
Our thoughts are one of the most powerful ways that we not only take in information about the world, but also create and express in the world.
The thoughts we think are part giving and part receiving: We’re taking in and processing information, but we’re also using our thoughts to shape our actions and our world, both in response to what we see but also in a creative capacity by proactively being guided by our desires. When our thoughts are primarily reactive to the world, we're depending on other people to shape our reality.
And especially right now, that can be pretty scary, right? There are a lot of people doing a lot of shaping to make realities I do not want (and you probably feel the same).
When we're completely reactive we're handing over the reins to other people in a way that may ultimately not serve us, because it divorces us from our agency to locate our own power and desires in a situation. It asks us to give up, to adopt hopelessness as a strategy for survival (which, I’m sorry to tell you, does not work) before we’re even out of the gate.
There are two ways I work with reorienting my thoughts:
-Seeking internal versus external motivation and guidance
-Reframing
Here is what these interwoven ideas look like in action:
Internal motivation simply means to be guided by your own inner compass, rather than being buffeted around on the seas of outside events and other people’s opinions.
We often talk about internal motivation in relationship to making specific decisions (e.g. you decided to buy a house because you wanted a stable living situation, even though your family said it would be financially risky), or as a vague and general sense of self worth.
But we also make decisions in choosing the way we think about the world, and these can have a huge impact on your creativity and well-being.
For example: If I assume I’m a capable, intelligent person, and assume the world is inherently good, that people are largely generative and creative, and that there is the possibility that I can find some way to connect with cool people doing cool things and we can start to find solutions to situations in the world that I don’t like…
That’s going to serve me much better than assuming I’m completely helpless and useless, or the world is pretty much screwed so why bother (and yes, this is true even if there are heaps of evidence giving you reasons to worry).
This is where being a creative person is such an important service to the world, because you can use that inherent capacity within yourself to find a clarity of vision for what you want, and to maybe inspire others to work towards that vision with you.
In practice: This looks like letting your worry be a guide, not a rulebook. Use your worry to gain clarity about what you want. And think about what internal motivation you can locate as you reframe that worry (in other words, draw on the resources inside of you, like your sense of self-worth, creativity, ingenuity, expertise, etc. rather than framing this as something wholly driven by external resources like other people’s thoughts and opinions and expectations).
Remember your worry is informative: It is there to give you information to help you navigate the world safely. But it is also there to give you information about possible futures, so you can start to identify which ones you do/don’t want.
I want a future where my friends and I can exist as our full, complete selves in public without fearing for our safety (and everyone else can, too). When I worry about the ways in which I and my loved ones are not safe, especially now, it’s very easy to get into a panic spiral. When I ask “what is this worry telling me about what I want? What am I worried about losing by feeling this way?” I start to move towards clarity and, to whatever extent is possible, maybe start to imagine what else is possible and even, how I might help bring that to pass.
Again, this is not about minimizing the existence of very real risks: It is about using my generative, creative capacity to imagine solutions that leave me better resourced to navigate those risks. And to think of the world we can build where those risks are minimized, which frankly is a big benefit to my mental health. This is a very real way in which honing your creativity as a robust, expansive part of your existence serves you in very real ways beyond the specific creative projects you’re working on.
If this sounds delusional, it’s because we’re taught to be completely powerless in the face of daunting, overwhelming forces. It’s because we’re taught we have to go it entirely alone, in creativity and in life, in order to ‘be successful.’ What if we released that narrative and instead imagined something different?
What if we started from a place of being creative and generative, and went from there? What if we worked with our own creativity as the powerful force it is, and combined that with others, collectively using our creativity not only to find clarity of vision but also the collective wisdom and resources to bring it to pass?
Whether or not you have a robust creative community, you can still engage in reorienting and harnessing your creativity beyond your office or studio. Here’s what I mean: When you find yourself worrying, and start to imagine what you want that’s underneath that worry, ask yourself how your inherent creativity can be a part of bringing that desired reality to pass.
Even if you can just move the needle towards feeling 1% better, 1% closer to another person, 1% more able to meet a moment, 1% more equipped and resourced, etc…that’s still 1% more than you had before, and those small shifts can add up.
This is creativity in action in our daily lives: When we're thinking thoughts that are creative, we are thinking proactively about the world we want and in doing that, we often get maybe some insights about some ways to get there, even if we inch towards it just a little bit at a time.
This kind of curiosity and reframing serves us beyond worry, too: When you’re really down on yourself and get into a shame spiral about not doing ‘enough’, for example. This keeps you from expressing your creativity both because you’re using your energy and imagination to drag on yourself, but also because it (like worry) blocks you from seeing what you want and how to get there.
In practice: Let’s say you’re being hard on yourself because you aren’t writing “fast enough.” Instead of dragging yourself through the dirt, start by acknowledging what is going well (yes even if it feels weird or forced): this might even just be by acknowledging that writing at the pace you’re writing is the capacity you have.
Then, get curious: Ask yourself, “what do I need to feel supported as a writer? What would it feel like for me to really fully lean into this identity as a writer? What would it feel like if I had a really good writing day today?” And start to shift your thoughts towards presenting support to yourself, by assuming that you (an intelligent, creative being) have solutions inside yourself to find or create the conditions that will support your creative unfolding.
The tl;dr: refocusing our attention is more nuanced than just identifying what we don’t want. It’s also more nuanced than just using what we don’t want as a benchmark for identifying what we do want.
We have the opportunity to work with our creativity as a powerful force for change and good in the world, and it begins by giving ourselves permission to be hopeful, to reorient our attention to what we want, and to imagine that we are powerful enough creators to begin to bring that desired reality to pass.
When we refocus our attention, we begin by identifying what we want, then we get curious: What is this situation telling us about our needs and desires, beyond the obvious, surface-level stuff? What resources exist within ourselves as creative, intelligent people to start to move the needle in that direction?
It’s unlikely that we can go from feeling deeply worried to feeling like a situation is 100% resolved (and satisfactorily resolved) immediately, though it can happen. But what we can do is start to reframe, start to use our curiosity and creative imaginations as drivers for envisioning the alternatives to that worry that we’d like to see, then ask our inner wisdom for solutions (again, even ones that just move things 1% in a direction we want).
And we can do this regularly, which pays off the more often you do it. Reorienting towards the world you want, believing it is possible and that you have the creative capacity to participate in making it possible is a practice and a process. But it’s one that will enrich your life (and can reduce your anxiety) considerably.
What new possibilities are you imagining this week?
Thank you for this! From another generally optimistic person who worries a lot! 💕✨