Cycles of Creative Rest

Creativity is cyclical, like the seasons.

We cannot produce all the time. We must make time to rest.

But in a culture that prizes productivity and output above all else, how do we allow for the time and space? 

Thinking of rest as part of the cycle of creation allows me to indulge fully, to trust that I am resourcing and gathering ideas and fresh energy for the next bout of creative expression.

It allows me to honor my own internal rhythms, whether or not (most often not!) they conform to the rhythms of society, of the calendar year, or of my own expectations. 

Come check out the Hot Mess series on TikTok, and watch as I lose my mind - and find it again - writing, producing, and acting in a show!

#CreatingIsHealing🦋

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi, my friends.
Welcome back. Um, , I'mlaughing at myself because
today's topic shouldn't bescary, and yet it feels scary
to talk about. We're talkingabout rest, so you should have
no reason to be afraid of it.
But I was just thinking aboutwhy it feels , um, anxiety
producing to bring this up. AndI think that's exactly why it's

(00:23):
a great topic for this becauseas a country in the west, we
have one of, like, as aculture, we are very proud of
our workaholic attitudes. We'revery proud of our output. We
are very proud of our abilityto hustle. Um, some less so
post covid. There's been a realrethinking of what is the point

(00:44):
of working so much and so hardand all the time. Um, but
compared to, you know, a lot ofEuropean nations where they
have six weeks of guaranteedvacation and they take siestas
in the afternoon, and there'sjust this culture of play and
this culture of rest, that's anattitude that's built into the
culture. And we have adifferent culture. And I find

(01:07):
rest for me. I, I also am highenergy and I like producing
stuff, so I don't always restvery well. Um, and in fact,
when I'm resting, I'm alwaysworried I'm not doing enough.
And so the reason I wasbringing this up is because I
went to a film festival in Juneand I was up staying with my

(01:28):
aunt the month before in May.
And I didn't wanna do anythingcreatively. I felt like I
should be doing all thesethings 'cause I knew I was
gonna be at a film festival inJune and I was so excited about
it. And I was so proud of thefilm we were bringing and
screening. And I, I just hadall this internal dialogue of,

(01:50):
you know, I'm about to kind oflaunch this next project into
the world. There's so much Iwanna be doing, and I wanted to
do nothing. I'd actually pickedup a novel for the first time
in, I don't know how long. Andall I wanted to do at night was
curl up on the couch and read,which as a kid, was my greatest
joy. And I've really lost thatsince college. And especially
during Covid , I found I had noattention span. I read the New

(02:12):
York Times and The New Yorker,pretty much. I don't read the
New York Times cover to cover.
I skimm the headlines and thengo down to the arts and the
recipe section and read those.
Um, but I read The New Yorkerso, so much. And I love long
form articles, but a novel,it's a very different thing.
And really curling up with anovel is a very different

(02:33):
energy. It's very meditative,it's very quiet, it's very
internal. And I was talking toa coach about this because I
felt, I felt like there shouldbe a to-do list and I couldn't
figure out what the to-do listwas. And she said something
that I thought was quitebrilliant, which was that there
are cycles to everything. Andthat maybe this was my cycle of

(02:56):
creative rest. And it, itstruck me that like, just
naming it gave me so muchpermission to soak up that time
and knowing that the filmfestival was gonna be five days
of extrovert energy, of meetingpeople, of seeing films, of
connecting, of hearing people'sstories, parties. It was just

(03:18):
gonna be a lot of energy andkind of not, not performative
energy, but, you know, being ona lot. And my body was like
gearing up for that, knowingthat that would be really
intense and just wanted to ,um, cocoon itself. And also was
coming off of other stuff thatI had been really pushing and
being creative about. And Ijust wanted a break. And it was

(03:41):
so helpful to give it a nameand to decide like that, that
month I was just gonna donothing but read a book. I
wasn't , I don't think I putthe podcast out that month too,
which was one of the big thingsI felt like, oh, I should, you
know, do this. And I was like,I, my brain just doesn't even
function right now. And, andthe reason I'm bringing it here
is because, you know, ,I love a plan. I just mapped

(04:03):
out an entire six months of therest of the year from July to
December. 'cause I'm trying tofigure out a bunch of stuff for
my finance day job. And I likeknowing where things are
headed. And I like settinggoals and achieving goals. And
I like having , um, deadlinesto do things. You know,
there's, there's a real senseof , um, if I don't sort of
challenge myself to put out apodcast every two weeks, then I

(04:26):
just won't do it. And sothere's this really interesting
fine line, especially withcreative stuff, because it's so
vulnerable, because it's soscary to be visible and
vulnerable, where I think weall have to be very , um,
honest with ourselves aboutasking is this, is this me
resisting the work? Or is thisme resourcing myself? And

(04:50):
what's fascinating is it couldbe either like, Netflix
sometimes is incrediblyresourcing. I've got nothing
left and I just really wannawatch a really good show, or
even a really terrible show.
This can be really fun. Andsometimes Netflix is a reason
to not do the thing that feelstoo hard and scary to do. So
that's another thing that's sotricky about rest, is it's easy

(05:13):
to say we're resting and not beresting. Um, and so this is
very much an inquiry that Ithink we all need to have, but
just even knowing that rest issuch an important part of you ,
uh, restore yourself. And it'sinteresting because , um, back
to the Netflix example, I'vealways felt that rest should
be, you know, massages orthings away from the

(05:35):
electronics. And Instagram isdefinitely not restful. And I
have this coach that I really,really admire and she gets up
at five crushes her entire day,goes to the gym, boss is like a
boss. And that I think fiveo'clock she's done. And she
will watch Netflix for threehours from five o'clock to
eight o'clock, whatever TV showshe's

Speaker 2 (05:56):
Excited about, has no qualms about it. Her and her
husband just like veg in frontof the Netflix. And she is
thrilled. And she's one ofthese people who's built a
multimillion dollar empire ofcoaching. Um, she's brilliant.
She's funny. And that is hergo-to when she finds it
incredibly restful and she cancheck out and she can take a
break. And she gives herselfpermission to really enjoy

(06:17):
that. And so for me, I've beenmaking note of that. Like,
sometimes I call it justreading the internet. Like all
I wanna do is curl up and readthe New Yorker and Vanity Fair
articles and then check , uh,you know, what do I check? Also
Vogue or something like that.
Or the New York Times recipes.
I've gotten into readingrecipes, which I find really

(06:37):
fascinating. I was never acook. So , um, but just reading
things, you know, and I, I feellike reading the internet is
just kind of, it's endless, butit, it's, I used to feel bad
about it, right? Like, oh, am Ijust wasting time? Am I
avoiding something? And now Ifind that sometimes I'm more
able to say to myself, no, Ireally just like, I wanna

(06:58):
cocoon. I wanna curl up andjust read the internet. I wanna
read other people's stories. Iwanna hear about how the world
is going. And the reason I likelong form articles like Vanity
Fair and New Yorker is it helpsexplain and digest for me what
is going on in the world. So Iwanna hear someone else's
perspective on the SupremeCourt case or you know , uh,

(07:18):
whether there's gonna beindictment, an indictment
coming, or what are the chancesof saving our democracy? I like
knowing these things. Um, and,and so giving myself permission
to do that and then checking inevery once in a while. Am I
being lazy? Am I being, to me,laziness is not a thing. It's
really just resistance. Isthere something that I wanna be

(07:40):
doing and I'm afraid to do andso I'm not doing it and instead
I'm doing this. And sometimesit's just, no, I'm done. My
brain has got nothing left.
I've got nothing left. And Ithink what's interesting about
Cycles of Rest is that again,we live in a highly structured

(08:00):
time that, you know, especiallyif you're at all in hustle
culture, there's quarterlygoals and mid-year check-ins.
And I'm always trying to givemyself things to get done by
the end of the month. And I usea calendar as a way to set
myself up for things. You know,it can be a North Star. And yet

(08:20):
I find , my calendarplans almost never work out
that way. A lot of it has to dowith kind of being chronically
ill because I set a plan andthen I have no energy for three
weeks. And I'm like, oh , theregoes that plan. Not gonna get
into that today 'cause it's areally tough , uh, thing to go
through. But it's taught me alot about , um, sort of letting
the internal, the internalrhythms lead me to new places I

(08:46):
didn't expect. And what I endup doing when I really don't
have any energy to do somethingcreative , um, or physical, is
I do a , a lot of journalingand I do a lot of thought work
on how I value myself as anartist. How, what are the
things that I wanna be doing inthe world that I am resisting,
and how can I dig into thosethoughts that make those things

(09:08):
seem scary or hard or wrong orme not good enough? And I just
do a lot, a lot of work. Um,there's an entire wall of
Post-its, I'll be posting onInstagram because I'm obsessed
with journaling on Post-Itsright now because I feel like
they're very , uh, finite andthen they're done. And because
journaling is so internal, Inever feel like there's

(09:30):
anything to show for it. So Istarted putting them on the
wall so I can look up and lookback at the week and I might
not have produced a podcast orI might not have written the
script, or I might not haveauditioned, but I've done all
this internal work and, and Ithink there is something, even
if you're not a journaler, evenif you're not someone who is
actively trying to examinetheir thoughts , um, which is

(09:51):
totally fine. I think we allhave our journey in different
ways, but there's stillsomething about being on a
break, about just hanging out.
I had a friend who , um, , he liked to go
fishing and I asked him why.
And he said, it's really just areason to sit by the water and
drink a beer. And I was like,huh, yeah, that makes sense,
right? It's like you just needa thing that gets you out there

(10:14):
, um, that you can stare at thewater and let your thoughts
sort of , uh, not ruminate, butuh , marinate, right? Let your
thoughts really sort themselvesout. Like I find hanging out
with myself to be a reallydelightful thing. And sometimes
even when I put down, just liedown and do nothing, or listen

(10:34):
to music and do nothing, reallygiving myself permission that
those are deeply resourcingthings for me to just hang out
and nothing to do. And soagain, it's about seeing what
is resourcing and what ispossibly the thing that is
happening in the background onthe back burner that isn't an
active push, that you're tryingto get something done, but

(10:56):
you're having this realinternal shift about what's
next. I think part of my workleading up to the film festival
was feeling this readiness forthe next level of my career for
really connecting withfilmmakers that I didn't know
and, and really stepping intobigger projects and feeling
already just the thought of it.
This incredible resistance andpanic hadn't even happened yet.

(11:17):
And I could already feel myselfshrinking and protecting myself
and trying to armor up andtrying to bail on the film
festival. And so a lot of Maywas me that month of May was me
spending time doing the workof, for me it's journaling.
It's just what helps , um,really looking at what are my
thoughts about the, the nextlevel of the career that I

(11:39):
want. What are my thoughtsabout shooting, you know, an
indie , uh, feature filmproject? What are my thoughts
about stepping into a leadrole? And they're not great
thoughts to be honest. They'reall like, you know, all of this
like not enoughness and notready and um, uh, like, who
would want me, you know, I'mnot gonna get into it. But I
think we all have that, right?

(12:00):
We all have that in differentplaces. And for me it was
incredibly helpful to spendtime seeing those, listing them
out every day and seeing, oh,this is just the repetitive
thought I had this thoughtyesterday, I'll probably have
it tomorrow. And it, it allowedme to slowly create some wiggle
room between that thoughtfeeling incredibly true and
that thought being, being moreof a witness to my own

(12:23):
thoughts, being more of, I havea friend who says a ticker tape
parade, right? That goes acrossyour brain and you don't have
to listen to it, you can justlet it go across your brain and
just be like, oh, there's athought happening. So spending
time with the places in which Icould feel my body tense up and
knowing that the places where Ihave tension where I don't feel
ready to step into somethingnew are the places where I

(12:45):
block myself from the nextthing. It's a little woo , but
I think it works for everyonein different ways. You might
not feel it in your system,energetic system in the same
way, but we all have thingsthat we don't feel ready for.
And so when opportunities come,we're gonna either 'em up or
bail on 'em because we're , wecan only do what we feel ready
for. Um, so I spent that timeand it felt like I was doing

(13:07):
nothing. But when I showed upto that film festival, I felt
like my best self. I felt so atease meeting people. And I'm
usually someone who goes to afilm festival and I like panic
because I get so in my headthinking everyone else knows
what they're doing and I haveno idea. And what am I doing
here? When am I here to sell?
And who am I as an artist?

(13:28):
Like, I just get so in my headand this time I just like hung
out and let myself be excitedabout. I had one whole
conversation about, we werestanding in the back of , uh,
this huge , um, paneldiscussion, which was really,
really fascinating. But it wasthe first morning and it had
just gone on for a really longtime and I was really craving
stretching and I'm standing inthe back and I made this new

(13:50):
friend who also was dying tostretch and we sort of made it
this game to try to very subtlymake yoga pose stretches
happen. Like she was like, I'mgonna drop a spoon. It was a
breakfast. I'm gonna drop a stospoon on the floor so I can
down do a downward facing dogpicking it up. This might not
be your kind of joke. I thoughtit was freaking hilarious. And
it wasn't about acting and itwasn't about art. It was just

(14:11):
about hanging out and havingthings that matter to me and
being in this space and lettingmyself be me and really
connecting with people aboutthat. And I, for the first time
I walked away from a filmfestival feeling like I'd made
actual friends that I want totext and hang out with and know
and spend five weeks on a setwith rather than just handing
out my business card toeveryone and you know, writing

(14:32):
an email later saying like,I've done all those things, you
know, kind of the follow up andit works for some people. It's
never worked for me. I'vealways just felt like I don't
know who you are and I don'tfeel myself 'cause I feel like
I'm trying to pretend to besomebody else, right? So all of
this work that I did leading upto the film festival was about
knowing myself

Speaker 3 (14:50):
And knowing, knowing what I had to offer. And so it
made me much less , uh, pushy.
I had, I had nothing to prove Iwas just there. And that to me
just felt so delightful to hangout and really get to see
people and also not feel like Ihad to meet everybody every,
like, for the whole festivaland not go to every party, but
just go to whoever I was drawnto and have conversations. Like

(15:13):
I'm an incredibly chattyperson. I like talking to just
about anybody except if I'm ata film festival where it feels
like I'm supposed to, and thenI shut down, write the paradox
of that and or I can do thething where I just go out again
and hand my business card andtalk to everybody. But I never
feel like I really connected'cause I was just doing the
networking thing. Andnetworking in that vein doesn't

(15:36):
work for me. And so I spend allthis time really thinking
about, well, how do I show up?
What is my energy? How do Itrack opportunities? How did
this last film get made? It's'cause Oh, I was hanging out
with my friend talking aboutleaving Brooklyn and he turned
to me and said, let's make amovie. And I, I wasn't
auditioning, I wasn't lookingfor it. I wasn't even talking
to him about filmmaking . Wejust ended up making this

(15:56):
thing. And so again, lookingback to how do I show up my
best self where I then want todo the kinds of projects that I
attract is some of the internalwork. And it might not feel
like work. Um, and that's maybethe beauty of it. So, oh, I had
one more thing I was gonna sayabout creative rest. Um, oh

(16:18):
yes, timelines. So the lastthing I'll say, which I think
is really, really , uh, for mesomething I'm still struggling
with is that they're hard toplan. And I feel all the time,
like I'm supposed to rest on aSaturday, I'm supposed to rest
on a Sunday, and Saturdays areusually the days that I really
wanna design something onCanva. And I'm like making a

(16:39):
website or a postcard or a whoknows what. And I really like
working on scripts on likeFriday nights and I'm really
bad at going out on the nightswhere I feel like I'm supposed
to go out. Like Friday night issupposed to be a big date night
or Saturday night, I don't evenknow. Or a big party night. And
I find those way too stressfuland overwhelming and I'd much
rather go out on a Tuesday or aThursday where it's way less

(17:03):
packed , um, and way lessintense and just have more
casualness. Like, I don't likethe pressure of feeling like
everyone is out to meetsomebody and I'm like, I just
wanna be in the world. Andthat's me. And I've always felt
incredibly weird about it. Ifeel weird about it talking
now. And so I've always feltlike I was off schedule from
everyone else's. Like I wassupposed to get my work done
during the week so I could goout on the weekends, but that's

(17:25):
never been my cycle. I tend to, um, work in spurts. I tend to
like think about something andfeel like I'm not getting
anything done and then getreally excited and in one day
like crank out a script or youknow, crank out a rehearsal or
whatever it is or, or work forstretches on a song. I'm not.
Um, and it's interesting 'causeI'm always trying to create

(17:45):
more structure because again, Idon't wanna be resisting the
work, so I wanna make sure I'mshowing up every day for the
work. And sometimes thedownside of having these cycles
is that it gets easy to stay ina fallow period that's no
longer fallow. It's justresistance. So again, this
question of inquiry and knowingreally , um, what your cycles
are. And so I'm always tryingto put in structure like show
up every day at 9:00 AM towrite or, you know, attend this

(18:08):
group every two weeks to, topresent writing, right? Finding
ways to keep myselfaccountable. And I think
there's room for both, but it'sbeen this constant , uh, I mean
it's a new way of reallyappreciating my cycles of rest
and then giving myselfpermission to bow out of things
because my cycle of rest cameat a time when I thought I was

(18:30):
meant to be productive. Andthat can be tricky to honor
relationships. If you're in apartnership and you are meant
to deliver something and you'rereally in a cycle of rest, you
might have to kind of negotiatebetween that and between them .
Um, but for me it's mostlyabout myself. I had this grand
plan. I was gonna get x, y , zdone in this month and I was
gonna get x, y , z done thatmonth. And by building on these

(18:51):
things I was gonna get to x, y, Z by the end of the year. And
really discovering that mycreative system, my energetic
system doesn't work that way.
Sometimes I just need to canceleverything and like curl up on
the couch and read a reallygood book for a month and do
some deep thinking about what'snext. And everything in me that

(19:13):
is a planner , uh, that likesto map out her life is just
like, is just already freakingout. Just saying that. And so
again, i I offer you today thisidea that if you haven't been
working on something recentlyand you're feeling like you're
just up at uh, your owncommitments to yourself, that
just reframing it and maybethinking about what are the

(19:35):
ways in which your system, yourcreative insights are resting.
What, what ways are youresourcing? Maybe you've been
going to dance class more,maybe you've been going to Tai
Chi or you've been goingswimming or you've been laying
by summertime, so maybe you'vebeen laying by a , a shallow
pool and just soaking up thesun. There are so many ways in

(19:57):
which we need to bereplenished. And so I would
just offer that , uh, giving itthis label that, you know,
there's some I've heard who saythat they would much rather
write their novel in thewintertime 'cause it's already
cold and they kind of wannahuddle in indoor and they tend
not to write in the summertimebecause it's so expansive and
they wanna be out at picnicsand in the park and they wanna

(20:19):
be really , um, social, right?
So there's seasonal cycleswhich we already see around us,
but how do those match or howdo you contradict those? How is
it that like everyone's outplaying and you find the heat
unbearable. So you'd muchrather be indoors working on
something, you know, and in thewinters when you need social
because you're just feeling tooglom on your own. And, and I
think that's what I'm reallyhere to offer you is like get

(20:41):
curious about maybe how you'reout of step in a way with the
world and maybe that feeling ofwrongness is just 'cause you
haven't yet given yourselfpermission to have your own
rhythms and your own patternsthat feed you. And so much of
it for me, especially this yearof having left Brooklyn and
having all this time to myselfand moving every month or two

(21:02):
has given me such new , um,permission to just do things my
own way. And it's been one ofthe biggest victories, one of
the biggest gifts of this yearhas been to just say, oh,
that's just how I do thingsbecause I've, oh , I do things
weirdly. It's a given prettymuch every time and I've always
felt really bad about that andfelt really , uh, awkward and

(21:26):
like I don't fit. And now I'mjust learning to, to let that
be. And maybe someone relatesand maybe they don't and maybe
they're cool with it even ifthey don't get it. And maybe
it's annoying, but like feelingmuch less need to prove myself,
much less need to sink up tothe rhythms around me. 'cause I
don't belong to the rhythmsaround me. I keep moving. And
so , um, yeah, I'm, I'm here toencourage you to make your own

(21:48):
rhythms, to honor your rhythms,to listen to when they speak to
you, to really practice notpushing through because you
think you should and you set adeadline and you have to
because there might be way moreauthentic creation happening if
you really let it come frominside and let it come from
your need for rest and yourneed for expression rather than

(22:11):
what I always think is the mostimportant thing to do, which is
schedule it. So yeah, I'm, I'mhoping you're getting a lot of
rest this summer. A lot of playthis summer. I do think there's
are really good times for that.
A lot of sun, a lot of water.
And whether you're creating ornot, I just invite you to spend

(22:32):
some time thinking about how isit resourcing you to be doing
either right now be well myfriends.