Navigating Burnout & Creativity

Welcome, I’m Selva Oscura. Or just Selva.

I know we’re all going through it right now; the world is up in flames, nothing is affordable, and we’re all trying to stay sane while everything is on fire. I can imagine it’s hard to even express our creativity.

However, there’s something I’d like to remind you:

We don’t have to go through it alone.

And a word of advice you didn’t ask for?

STOP BEING SO HARD ON YOURSELF.

I say that as a Virgo moon, and if you know anything about Astrology and moon signs, you’d be holding a mirror up to me right now as I say this.

I was diagnosed last year with ADHD, and if you’re neurodivergent, you know how difficult it is to live as a neurodivergent in a neurotypical world. And it’s especially hard as a creative/artist, whatever you want to call yourself. While our talents are loved and cherished, they are often belittled, dismissed, or treated as entertainment only.

But art is more than that.

It’s a different kind of voice. It’s a voice I, like many other artists, have lost touch with. The voice is there, alive, and experiencing life with you, but it’s hiding. It doesn’t feel safe, because your body doesn’t feel safe. It’s tired, overwhelmed, and scared, just like you.

Before we can ever truly reconnect with our creative voice, we must feel safe. Safe to create, safe to be playful. And our world is anything but playful right now.

But it’s actually exactly what we should be doing, playing. It’s nothing new; we know what we’re supposed to do. It all really boils down to whether you are permitting yourself to.

That’s something I struggle with every day and have struggled with almost all my life.

For years, I have been trying to reconnect with my creative side. I started drawing at 6 years old and fell in love immediately. I drew every day consistently until ~18-19 years old. Once I started college, I tried to stay consistent; however, I was experiencing a lot of personal and familial issues that got in the way of creating. The daily mental and emotional exhaustion left no time or energy to create. My main goal at the time was to find a way to survive and escape. And that’s all my mind had time for. The stress really affected my mental health, so much so that I’m still recovering.

Give Yourself the Permission to Receive Grace

That brings me to this phrase that I’ve been hearing that I really love: The recovering artist.

I know many people resonate with that phrase. I believe everyone is creative. Any artist will tell you that creativity is just like any other muscle; you just have to exercise it.

That said, when I first heard about it, it sent me on a search to learn how to do just that: recover.

Earlier this year, I started using New Master’s Academy to get a formal art education without spending a fortune at a traditional art school. (Not sponsored by them; I just need the structure.) I was doing really well for a bit. Drawing every day, practicing as much as I can. The way ADHD affects me, I hyperfocus on a hobby for weeks to months, and then burn myself out and jump to the next hobby. Rinse and repeat.

So, now I’m here. Trying to be better, trying to hold myself accountable.

Unfortunately for me, the only thing that holds me accountable is lighting a fire under my ass, clearly.

So I created this blog to do just that. It’s out in the world, so now I have to keep going.

I will try to be smarter about it, though. Even if I feel like I can keep going because I have a good rhythm going, I’ll still try to take some breaks to avoid burnout.

Like I told you guys earlier, I also have to stop being so hard on myself.

We usually tend to be harder on ourselves than other people. We tend to set these unrealistic standards for ourselves because we’re afraid. Afraid of failing, afraid of succeeding, or afraid of judgment. Whatever your fear is, I’m here to hold your hand and tell you that you have to be kind to yourself for your body to feel safe again. If you’re just as cruel and mean to yourself as those who’ve hurt you, how do you expect your sensitive, dreamy, playful, childlike creativity to feel safe?

I’m glad to be here, and I hope you are too. I’ll leave you with this poem I wrote a little while ago:

The melodies in my head keep me up at night

Dancing skeletons in my closet,

Throw away the key.

Let the rain remind you,

That you are not weak.

Don’t ignore the whispers.

The ones you try to hide.

They linger in your mind,

planting seeds in disguise.

Those flowers won’t bloom.

And there won’t be any room,

Empty the floodgates.

Soon, you can choose.

To live out your days in the skies,

With a cluttered mind,

But you’d leave behind,

A potential life.

Grown from your bones,

A voice of wonder,

You had a chance to own your thunder.

Embrace these whispers as a reminder.

That the songs you sing to yourself,

Can be kinder.

Love,

Selva

(Astrological Weather at the time: Moon in Capricorn; 6th House.)