Anxiety and Creativity
“Anxiety is the hand maiden of creativity. ”
The following is anecdotal, based on my life experiences, and not medical advice. If you feel anxiety is affecting your daily life, please speak to your health care provider.
I am anxious a lot. That information always seems to surprise people. People tell me I seem like I have it all together. I always seem like I have a plan. I’m always doing so many projects, or doing cool stuff with my kids. They’re not wrong, but the reason I always have a plan is anxiety. The reason I’m always doing a ton of projects is anxiety. This is how I deal. Give me a purpose or a project and I’ll run with it as hard as I can.
We can let the anxiety shut us down or we can funnel it into something. If I’m idle, I’m worrying. If I’m focused on things I love I don’t have time for the worry to take over. I’ve become really good at channeling that horrible feeling of everything being out of my control into creative projects. Anxiety can be the fuel for creativity. I have health related anxiety, so living though a pandemic is quite literally one of my worst nightmares.
I’ve always been a worrier. I’ve always had some kinds of weird health issues going on. I’ve always felt awkward socially and never felt like I fit in growing up. That’s a great recipe for anxiety! I’ve also always been a maker. I’ve always been creative. I’ve always been an artist.
My relationship with anxiety and creativity is an ever evolving push and pull. I think the most obvious connection is that creating can be a great distraction from anxiety. Diving into a project and having a purpose outside of yourself takes the focus off whatever is bothering you. The physical act of creating is calming to me. It is instinctual and therapeutic. It feels right.
Anxiety can also be a great influencer of creativity. It can push you to some places that are uncomfortable, which can lead to some interesting art and work. Some of those dark and twisty parts of the brain are inaccessible when life feels easy. The beautiful part about work fueled by the uncomfortable and upsetting is that work generally ends up connecting us with others. Whatever you’re going through, no matter how alone you might feel, someone else has very likely been in a very similar situation. When you see art that speaks to your anxiety, it makes you feel less alone and more understood. Creating your own art from that dark place can help you work through your own experiences, and it can help others to feel understood as well. That is a powerful tool. Anxiety is not a requirement of making compelling work, but if you’ve got it, you might as well make the best of it!
Here’s a little peek into my last year and how it’s informed my awareness of this relationship. In early 2020 I went and saw a counselor for my increasing worries. There was a big, unexplained uptick in my daily stress, I was having nightmares, not wanting to be social, and feeling somewhat paralyzed when it came to making decisions. I was experiencing fight-or-flight responses situations that did not warrant them. In my first counseling session, I went into great detail about one especially hard day I recently had. My counselor nodded and said, “Okay, so you had a panic attack.” Oh... I did not realize that’s what had happened. She continued and told me I had health related anxiety. I said, “Oh… yeah. That’s a great way to put it.” She said “No, that’s a diagnosis.” Oh... Discovering these irrational feelings had a name made me feel I wasn’t alone... sort of. It was a complicated day. She also said the fact that I could acknowledge that my reactions and feeling were irrational was a good thing.
The next session I sheepishly admitted that my worries about COVID-19 caused me to cancel my birthday day trip my husband and I had planned to visit Detroit, in late February 2020. She encouraged me to look at the facts, which did not yet suggest the magnitude of what was to come, and we had some good discussion about it. Less than three weeks later, schools were closed and the toilet paper shortage began. When the world shut down, my anxiety said, “HA! See!! I was right and I kept you safe!!”
So what’s girl with health related anxiety to do in the midst of the crushing uncertainty of a new virus induced pandemic? Besides freak out... Rejoice in the fact that I get to stay home. Be so grateful I have a job that allows me to be home and set my own hours. Being in the bubble of my house made me feel pretty safe. My husband agreed to do all our grocery shopping, knowing I would not do well in the store. I also stopped going to counseling at that point, because it was stressful to think about a virtual session with my kids in the house. I was trapped, but I was trapped in a safe place, away from everyone, so I was mostly cool with it. I didn’t leave the house for months.
I decided pretty quickly I needed to take a sabbatical from my business. I was having to navigate sudden distance learning for my kids and I felt like I really need to be there for them as much as I could. Taking on new clients would have been very overwhelming at that point. When I get overwhelmed, everything is harder parenting, working, relationships. Everything feels like too much, so I end up doing nothing. Paralyzed in the anxiety of it all. Taking a sabbatical to be present was a good choice for me, and I was lucky enough to be able to do so.
I felt so powerless to the growing pandemic and all the unknowns. Everything felt out of control, so I tried to focus on things I could control, most of which ended up being creative things. I painted a piece of furniture. I sewed and donated a bunch of fabric masks to a group that was collecting for a local hospital because they were low on PPE. I drew up plans to build bookshelf headboards for the kids rooms. I let the kids plan on painting their rooms in the summer, and helped develop ideas for that. I tried really hard to have things for them to look forward too and express their creativity in. I painted the kitchen and stairwell. Which led right into finishing the bathroom remodel my husband and I had started in February. Which led into painting all of our kitchen cabinets, building some new shelves, and so on. I also watched a lot of Gilmore Girls... I wasn’t working, but I was creating. A lot.
After a while, requests for graphic design work started coming back in. I was hesitant, but I knew if I had time to watch multiple seasons of a TV show I had already seen, I had time to get back to work. I love my work. I love that I get to connect with people over their businesses and create in a way that elevates their work. I love that I get to use design to help people solve problems. Having specific creative tasks that other people were depending on me to be timely about, was helpful for me to get back into some semi-normal routine. I came back into it with longer turn around times to give myself some grace if I did get overwhelmed. The small amount of anxiety I get from deadlines, force me to get into my creative flow, because I won’t allow myself to disappoint clients.
I was also able to get more involved in community art projects. All the meetings were now virtual and I didn’t have to do school drop off/pick up, since my kids were still doing school virtually. Having the option to be involved, but still in the safety of my own home is pretty ideal for me. Being a part of something bigger than yourself is a great place to focus energy.
Another thing I discovered about my anxiety is that it sometimes prevents me from falling asleep at night. When the world is quiet my mind runs wild. I can’t shut off my inner dialogue, which is sometimes bubbling with big ideas, and other times boiling over with anxious thoughts. I found that the sleep timer on an audio book was my new best friend. If I can be intently listening to someone else talking, my inner dialogue stops. I went from taking hours to fall asleep to less than fifteen minutes, most nights. My most often listened to audio book is, of course, Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert. It almost feels like I’m giving myself subliminal creative messages when I do this, much like those “stop smoking while you sleep” audio tapes from the 80’s. Once I started this practice, I remembered when I was a teenager I used to set the little 13” TV I had in my room on a sleep timer to help me fall asleep. In college I often would play a CD quietly next to my bunk bed in my dorm.
One day during all the craziness, maybe nine months into this pandemic, something shifted in my brain. I realized I wasn’t trapped at home, it was a privilege to be home. I was safe and supported and I was wasting my time worrying about things out of my control. I started focusing on what I could control. I started painting more. I started taking on more design work. I started working on the book I’ve been wanting to write for over a year. It made me feel useful and it made me joyful to be creating for others and making connections again. I trained how to become a creativity coach, because connecting with other creatives is really at the core of what makes me feel useful and happy. I found the more I did, the more I could do.
This is not to say I’ve been cured of my anxiety by way of creativity, because I most certainly am not. The anxiety isn’t gone, but when I dive deep into the things I love, it’s not at the forefront of my head all the time. I still find myself fighting with feeling overwhelmed, imposter syndrome, and some perfection issues with creating art, along with the health related anxiety I deal with. I’ve just figured out some strategies that help me get out of those anxious feelings quicker than before.
Now that things are opening back up again here in Michigan, I’m still staying home in my bubble most of the time. The few times I have gone out I haven’t felt great about it. I don’t like it, but I know it’s important to be around other people. I know I’ll have to re-enter the world fully someday, and when I do I know I’ll have to come to terms with new levels of anxiety again. For now I’m so grateful to have found some balance. I know I’ll have to continue to balance those scales moving forward too, but it’s ok.
For the longest time I thought I needed to banish my anxiety, but I don’t think it works that way. I think we just have to figure out how to deal with it best, and maybe go talk to a counselor to help work through some of the things you can’t figure out on your own. When you’re so close to something all the time it’s hard to get perspective on what you’re actually doing.
The takeaway from this is NOT that people with anxiety should just do more things. Everyone is dealing with their own issues, and all the solutions will be specific to the individual. People with anxiety should do their best to recognize it in themselves, acknowledge it, speak it, and try to find a way to keep going despite it. That’s going to look very different from person to person.
All that being said... here are some things you can try when you feel anxiety creeping in.
Acknowledge it:
Think to yourself: _____ is making me feel anxious.
My body feels _______ right now.
My mind feels _____ right now.
Remind yourself that this feeling will eventually pass and you will feel better. You’ve made it through before, you can make it through again.
Speak it:
Look in the mirror and say some of the above things out loud.
Admit your feelings or struggles to a trusted loved one or friend.
Find a community you feel safe sharing in (like Art is a Record).
Speak to a a counselor or therapist.
Journal about how you’re feeling.
Keep Going:
Create something (doodle, paint, play with clay, write, play music, bake). Engage your hands and mind in something creative without thinking about the outcome. It doesn’t need to be perfect, it doesn’t need to be shared, just get lost in the act of creating.
Try a new hobby.
Exercise.
Ask a friend to hang out, in person or video call.
Do something you know brings you joy.
Read a good book.
We don’t get to control whether or not we have anxiety, but when we acknowledge it, we get to choose what we do with it.
PS - Hitting publish on this post is giving me anxiety right now, because being vulnerable is scary, but necessary to live a life connected to others.
In an effort to foster a creatives community I’ve started a Facebook group called Art is a Record Creatives Community, the same name as this blog. I would love for you to join in the fun as we discuss creative living, projects, art, and life.
