Life = Energy: a semi-epiphany about energy and motivation

Remember that "safe space and creativity" theme I came up with a few months ago, that I kept promising to come back to? Yeah, it's perverse how not having safe space often means I don't have the creative energy even to write about it. I'm sure you can hear me laughing about how friggin' funny that is. ;P

Anyway, yesterday I was ranting about a specific type of non-motivation — the kind that comes from spending all your energy on one huge problem, so that you don't have any left to solve the everyday problems that come up. You know, like when you spend all your time trying to wrangle personal drama even though you know you should be thinking about how to fix the leaky washing machine and how to pay the bills this month, or deciding whether to use up the next two weeks of your life on a single project (not that I'm avoiding thinking about that right now, or anything...).

Today it clicked that my rant also applies to creativity. Actually, in my head, when I say "motivation," that includes creativity; I do sometimes think of life as one long series of creative problem-solving sessions. Today's now-elusive moment of clarity left me with an idea that goes something like this:

Problem-solving = energy. Creativity (and its requisite safe space) = energy. You only have so much energy to go around.

So when you use up a huge amount of energy on trying to solve a big, important problem, it naturally drains your "reserves" — the energy that you would use on "luxury" stuff that doesn't immediately contribute to your survival, like painting or sewing or writing or even cleaning the kitchen. If you solve the problem, that drain on your energy goes away. As you generate more energy to live, you slowly "fill up" again, and are ready to do more stuff, whether it's tackling big problems or spending time on luxuries, or both.

But when a big problem doesn't actually get solved, you have to keep putting energy into it, so your reserves stay depleted. Then, you stay unmotivated, in proportion to the amount of effort you spend dealing with the problem. Sometimes that means you neglect luxuries but keep chugging along on the necessities ... and sometimes that means you neglect both luxuries AND essentials. (If the latter happens long enough, the structure of your life starts to devolve into a problem of its own, and that, of course, becomes its own drain on your energy...)

Of course, everyone deals with this big-problem energy drain differently: It depends on how much energy they have, how fast their energy returns (which is related not just to personal resilience and emotional metabolism, but also to the efficiency of the support network(s)), and how their priorities are structured.

As far as priorities, what your brain designates as essential might be something my brain designates a luxury. (Heck, an individual person's priorities change over time, too!) Maybe when you're dealing with a gigantic problem, you stop cooking and start ordering take-out for every meal and you completely stop working on renovating the bathroom, but you keep on driving your kids to school and taking the dog for walks and going to knit night.

And me? Right now when I'm dealing with a problem of epic proportions, I stop answering e-mail and working on anything I'm doing for myself, but I keep on working on anything I promised someone else I would do. (Sigh.) Have you seen the Hierarchy of Cleaning? Being creatively inspired is waaaaay up there in the tip of the "hierarchy of energy usage" pyramid, firmly in the "extras" section.


Sunset over Lake Tarpon, August 14, 2010. Going out and enjoying naturey goodness is one of the things that my brain marks as "luxury" ... but I should still do it more.

I've said for years that the only way to get me to stop being bothered by a problem is to solve the problem. Although I define "solve" relatively loosely, in a way that deals more with closure than with actually making a problem literally go away, that still means that if a problem isn't solved, doing "me stuff" can only sometimes put me back on track for inspiration and productivity. It depends on how big the unsolved problem is. I can only regain so much energy by reading, taking walks, eating noodles, and playing pointless video and computer games, and sometimes those things just aren't enough to bring me back to place where I feel inspired to do amazing, creative things.

And oh MAN does it put me behind when a massive problem rears its ugly, persistent head right when I need to be making crucial decisions, laying the foundations for important projects, and doing things that let me pay the bills. I know a priority adjustment would help remedy this by making sure I spend energy where I need to ... but there are some things I can't change without changing my personal ethics and values. I can't put cleaning the house before providing emotional support to loved ones in need, for instance. But I really, really need to clarify the parts of my hierarchy of energy usage that involve creating new products for the shop, promoting the business, and doing creative things just for myself. Really really. I can't keep shunting energy back and forth between dealing with Problems That Won't Go Away and Things I Need to Do To Pay Bills. They need to have equal treatment. And even if I have to go through Energy Boot Camp to expand my personal endurance to do that, well ... I have to do what I have to do.

I can't keep getting behind on life, no matter how demoralized or demotivated I am. I mean, sheesh. Why am I alive if I'm not going to really live?

Yeah. Time to dig in my heels, grit my teeth, and find a way — a healthy way — to create more energy, or to pare down my energy usage.

That's just that.

The Great Craft Room Rescue begins (and a Love That Room review)

It's nice how clean can be contagious.

For just over a week, the first mate and I have been making a conscious effort to clean every single day. We started with the kitchen, since it's the room that gets used most actively — we move things in there literally every day, it gets dirtied every single day, its pile of clutter evolves every day. The whiteboard that hangs where we can see it all the time has a count: "Days the kitchen is clean." That doesn't mean the kitchen has to be in a constant state of near-perfection; it means that we — mostly he, since he's taken responsibility for that area ;) — made the effort to clean the counters, put away dishes, put dirty dishes in the dishwasher, etc., that morning, so that the kitchen feels usable, even livable, for most of the day.

This was the kitchen's "cute spot" a couple of days into the effort:


The sunflower came from our local organic CSA and is not a regular denizen of the kitchen. ;)
Aside from the niceness of having clean space, a bonus to making incremental but definite cleaning progress is that I want to clean even more. I really like clean space. Seeing it makes me want to make more of it, and keep what I have. So for the past few days, thanks to the cleaning virus, I've been picking at the several-years' accumulated mess that is the craft room.

In today's craft-room-archaeology project, I excavated a storage stool that was hiding beneath an inherited, old-school electric Singer sewing machine/table, and I cleaned off the top of a box of thrift-store sweaters destined to be recycled into yarn for new yarny projects. Then I went to check my inbox, and found that the Love That Room e-book is finally out. Yay! And hurray for synchronicity!

FYI, Love That Room is an e-book based on an online course created by Lisa Baldwin of Zen at Play. The goal: to help you de-clutter physical spaces that are holding you back from enjoying them, in a way that respects what you aren't ready to let go of yet and helps you uncover things you love that are buried in the mess. I've been waiting a couple of weeks for the e-book to be ready, and now I have it in my greedy little hands. ;D

Those are affiliate links (at least, they should be — I have no idea if they work yet...), but I promise my discovering it today of all days really was synchronicity — I didn't write this blog post just to show off the e-book. ;) I'm actually pretty leery of giving my money to people I've never met who promise to help me do something I haven't been able to do myself, all with the magical power of their PDF e-book or online course or what have you.

But! I also freely admit I almost signed up for the Love That Room course last time it happened. I'm really drawn to its compassionate, intelligent, self-respecting aspects, and I do have a tiny little clutter problem in a few areas. ;) I'm also really big on dealing with non-ideal situations holistically and logically — if there's a clutter problem, that's partly an indicator of mental and emotional conditions. We're not random, unemotional beings; we do things for reasons, even when we don't see them, understand them, or like them. And Lisa seems like a smart, understanding person who gets that concept. I like hearing ideas from smart, understanding people; I haven't thought every thought there is, after all. There are also people who swear by her course ... but I couldn't quite convince myself to sign up.

Then she released the Love That Room e-book. Which, if I remember correctly, is less expensive than the course — at least, the advance copy is (and that's what's still on sale right now). I'm also big on guarantees, which Love That Room comes with: I can have my money back if I don't find the e-book worth it.

So there it was. Leery I may be, but when a product looks good, when I can have my money back if it turns out not to be, and when I know I'm honest and demanding enough to ask for it back if that happens, that's the magical convergence. Yes. I bought the e-book.

It sounds cheesy, but five pages in, I'm already glad I did. I'm still withholding judgement on whether it was worth the money, because although it looks pretty promising, I'm ultimately going to judge it by whether it helps me make real progress, not by how warm and fuzzy it makes me feel. I'm still, as always, skeptical: about whether I'll ever get my craft room into a place where I love it, and about whether this e-book can really help me do it. But I live and die by the facts, and here's an interesting one:

When I started writing this post, I was absolutely not going to post photos of the current state of the craft room. I have photos, but they were taken for posterity — specifically not for public display, except after I finally have the room cleaned up, so you can all ooh and ahh over how amazing the transformation is. ;)

The longer I sit here and type, though, the more I think, Eh, maybe I will just post the photos.

Oh, I'm not going to. Not yet. ;) Caution is one of my numerous (and sometimes contradictory-seeming) middle names. But if I'm considering posting the photos, it's because I'm more confident I'll succeed at making the craft room super-cool. Since that's not a usual side effect of blogging itself, at least for me, it's possible that the e-book is actually having a positive effect on my attitude. And I'm a skeptic, not an optimist. Facts carry far more weight in my mind than random positivity. So if I feel more confident, there must be some new idea in my mind that's convincing enough to seem factual.

Will the attitude shift last? We'll see. Tune in next time for the continuing saga of the Great Craft Room Rescue. And in the meantime, feel free to check out Love That Room. You can always get your money back if it doesn't work. ;)

Safe space and creativity: a little taste of a big idea

Funny how just when I was thinking Hey, this Craft or Bust thing has really been working out for me, surprisingly well! I hit a wall. This week has been probably my least productive of the year. And it has a lot to do with something else I can't get out of my head this week — the recurring theme of safe space being connected to creativity. Because I'm not feeling so mentally hot right now, I won't try to go into great detail. I'll just say this: For me, if for no one else, and I think probably it isn't just me, being truly creative requires safe space. Not a space that's insipid and sheltered, but a space where I feel comfortable expressing what's truly me. Sometimes this space has to be created through rebellious acts — defying convention and taking that safe space, come hell or high water, no matter what anyone thinks of you — and sometimes safe space is a gentle thing, a retreat, like an obscure clearing in the woods with a little brook and softly falling leaves.

The bottom line, though, is that I can't create well without a safe space. I can create haphazardly, in a way that doesn't satisfy me, in a way that I look back on and see the holes in where I didn't fill in everything that I was thinking or feeling at the time, that make the piece feel incomplete or false. But to create anything that resonates with me, I need safe space.

And this week my safe space has been pretty nonexistent. No gory details, I promise. Just that little note, as an explanation of why I have been largely silent and unamusing on virtually all counts.

On the other hand, before my creative lines went dead, I was brewing a few new ideas that should help my rock my shadow artist to sleep, if I ever get out of this shattered-safe-space-induced funk. More on all those things later. For now, send positive vibes. Send geeky ideas. Send your belief in me and my creativity and intrinsic creative weirdness. My safe space is now under reconstruction. (And I will get my weekly craftiness in. I know I can work on just one thing before Sunday. And that's the beauty of Craft or Bust.)