fatigue is tiring

Tired, by me in Ft. Collins, CO

My intention is to use this blog to stay accountable to my creativity & not muse on about my aches & pains & general grumbles, but it's hard to separate all of that from my creative life. My creative life is my life...my creativity is affected by everything else around me, whether it's the fun swirling stuff or the icky stagnant stuff.

I've been navigating my way through some health (physical & mental) issues for the last 2+ years & this undoubtedly has colored my creativity...for better & worse. Because of it, I am tired all.the.time. And because of that, I often don't feel up to working on art...and it's not even that I don't feel physically up to it, but more mentally energized for it. The physical drain causes a mental strain...the combination of which keeps me down alot of the times, but I'm learning to find ways to work inspite of it. To find my creative force from beneath the muck of chronic fatigue & ever-looming lethargy.

The first year of struggling with these health things, I focused more on remedying the physical. I've had a kazillion tests; seen dozens of different doctors; tried various alternative techniques. I have had progress and setbacks, feelings of hope and defeat, self-pity and dusting-myself-off. Thankfully I have had art, even if it sits untouched for months on end, to fill some of those voids of uselessness that come up from not feeling capable of achieving even the basic everyday things.

It is also art that has pioneered the way to me getting out of my "professional" rut. And because of this, I have begun, just in the last few months really, to also start focusing on healing the mental as well...and partly why I decided to create this blog to help me along the way. I've had various advisors plant the seeds of the mind-body connection for years--that our very thoughts & beliefs manifest physically within our body. It only took one look in Louise Hay's You Can Heal Your Life to get a confirmation of exactly the mind/body connection going on in me currently. Two relavant ones that jump out at me:

Fatigue = resistance, boredom, lack of love for what one does.
Adrenal problems = defeatism, no longer caring for the self, anxiety.

So I am working to right the mental in hopes that the physical will follow. And I'm hoping that naming, nurturing, and then following my truth will allow the rest to right itself. I'm ready for the journey & to feeling like myself, not again, but really anew!

xoxo!