Do you ever get caught up working and forget?

Forget to fill your own cup?

Then one day you have some time, to do your own creative and that realisation hits you? Like an unexpected big cold wave taking you under? Scaring the life out of you for that one moment before you come back up and realise you’re fine, but shook.

Your cup is empty, your brain is blank, you don’t have anything to do (and if you’re like me) suddenly you don’t even want to try?

THIS HAPPENED TO ME ABOUT A YEAR AGO. I HATED IT.

What’s even worse is that I ignored it for too long. I was sulking in my creative brain. Because I hadn’t fed it. I hadn’t made time, made sure I had time to do what I do to be inspired. Read, look through people I admire Instagrams/websites, Pinterest, watching bizarre films (Men of Chickens if someone wants a hommage to surrealism film suggestion) and just talking dreams and ideas with the ones I love.

I got busy, my career as a unit stills photographer was taking off (huzzah) but I was physically drained on my off days and the other days was me hustling trying to get more work because I’m new in the industry. My hobbies and things I find inspiring got put to one side, then stuff got piled on top of it so it was out of mind and then it stopped completely, it wasn’t in my world anymore. Also, I take full responsibility that instead of browsing Pinterest which I used to do religiously, I started browsing Reddit which was way less inspirational (no offence).

I changed my Instagram, Reddit and other social media browsing styles, I started actively engaging with people I found inspirational so I saw more of their feed. On Reddit, I unfollowed accounts which are just noise distractions. I tried to go back on Pinterest, I’m still struggling to go back as often as I used too. I read an old favourite to get myself back into reading, I then read The Rules of Magic and by chance Alice Hoffmans next book came out a few days after I finished it, Magic Lessons and I immediately read that. Also just finished ‘Where the Crawdads sing’ which was beautiful.

So, I’m recovering but it sucked, not filling up my own cup sucked. It’s taken me a while to recover too!

Other creatives, have you had this issue before? Any tips on preventing this?