Episode 24: Success, Grief & Creative Overwhelm

In this episode of The Creative Couch, I respond to three thoughtful creative dilemmas from Kate, Susan and Coralie, exploring creative success, grief, burnout, overwhelm and how to protect the joy of making when life and work begin placing too many demands upon it.

Kate returned to painting during lockdown after a twenty-year break from creativity. What began as a joyful, private practice gradually became a successful full-time career, with books, products, licensing opportunities and a large online audience. From the outside, she appears to be living the dream, but success has started to feel more like pressure than pleasure. We explore what happens when the artist and the brand become almost indistinguishable, why every launch can begin to feel like a verdict on your entire career, and how to create space for experimentation when creativity has become responsible for your income, identity and public success.

Susan has spent approximately seven years caring for her parents while holding onto plans to develop her art practice and create a small business. Following the sudden death of her mother in May, she now has more time but feels lost, guilty and unable to enter her studio. At 64, she is telling herself there is no time to waste, but the urgency is leaving her frozen. We discuss why caring responsibilities were never an excuse, how grief can make new freedom feel more like absence, and why returning to creativity may need to happen gently, through the back door rather than the front.

Coralie works digitally in animation, is developing a personal game project with her husband and is also caring for a very young baby. After revisiting The Artist’s Way, she has rediscovered her love of charcoal, coloured pencil, graphite, plein-air painting and paper miniatures. The excitement feels wonderful, but it quickly becomes overwhelming as she tries to turn every interest into a project or connect it to her professional work. We explore the difference between enthusiasm and capacity, why renewed creative energy after burnout needs to be protected, and how traditional materials might become a small place for play rather than another demanding part of her working life.

Also in this episode, I share a recent Loving Lately recommendation: Languages of Loss by Sasha Bates. The book follows Bates as she navigates the sudden death of her husband, drawing on both her personal experience of grief and her work as a psychotherapist. I’ve been reading it partly to educate myself about grief, but it has also been helping me process the recent death of my friend Frances and think about how I can best support her wife Carly, who is one of my closest friends.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why success can begin to feel like pressure rather than pleasure
• What happens when the artist and the creative brand become difficult to separate
• Why every launch does not need to become a verdict on your entire career
• How people pleasing can shape the work we make and the opportunities we accept
• Why caring for somebody is never simply an excuse for not progressing
• How grief can make newly available time feel like absence rather than freedom
• Why telling yourself there is no time to waste can leave you unable to begin
• How to return to the studio gently after loss
• The difference between creative excitement and genuine capacity
• Why every new interest does not need to become a project
• How to protect renewed creative energy after burnout
• Why creativity sometimes needs to remain private, playful and deliberately unproductive

Each dilemma is explored through both its emotional and practical layers, with ideas and exercises you can apply to your own creative practice.

If you have a creative dilemma you’d like me to explore in a future episode, I’d love to hear from you. You can email me at:

thecreativecouchpod@gmail.com

If you’re feeling stuck in your own creative practice and would like support, you can find out more about my creative coaching, workshops and artwork at:

www.sammarshallart.com

You can also find me on Instagram at @sammarshallart.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Creative Coach. I'm some martial artist and creative coach. This is a podcast for anyone navigating the ups and downs of a creative life. Each week I respond to three real creative dilemmas sent in by listeners, exploring both the emotional side of what you're experiencing and some practical ways to move forward. And from time to time, I'll also be joined by other artists to talk about their creative life, their practice, their challenges, and what keeps them going. Hello and welcome to the creative couch. Welcome back. So it's now Sunday, Sunday evening. It is seven o'clock, and I'm recording this yeah, quite late in the day for me, really. I've run a two-day drawing into print workshop here at Hollytree headquarters this weekend. And um I am now just sitting down. I've written my notes, and I thought, actually, you know what? I really want to record the podcast now rather than waiting for tomorrow. Um, so that's what I'm doing. I'm here, I'm just having a lovely, gentle sit down. Got Marple on my lap. Those of you who've watching me on YouTube, she's here, Brown Girl's here, and I thought we'd just spend the next sort of three quarters of an hour together going over this week's dilemmas, and also recommending something which I have found tremendously helpful over the past few weeks. Um, as many of you know, I am grieving the loss of one of my dear wonderful friends, Frances, and um I'm also really looking out for and caring for her wife, Carly, who is also one of my closest friends. And I've been trying to educate myself on grief, about grief, um, not only to help myself, but also to help Carly in the best way I can. And Carly recommended this book to me um called Languages of Loss by Sasha Bates, and I listened to it on audio, audible, um, and it's it's narrated by um Tamsin Gregg. I think that's her name. Is it Tamsin Gregg? Um, yeah, Tamsin Grieg, I think maybe you say her name. Um G-R-E-I-G. She's been in loads of things. Um, I'm sure you'll know who she is, and she's got an amazing voice, and she was friends of Sasha's husband, Bill. Um, but it is the most wonderful book, it is heart-wrenching, it is hard to listen to, it is funny, it is joyful, it is just the most wonderful book. It's so well written, and it really did help me when I was listening to it. I felt like I was learning lots about grief, and it was also, you know, comforting me with the loss of Francis, but it was also educating me as to how to best help Carly um through this incredibly difficult period. So that is my recommendation this week. Um it's a really good book, and and it it is is like I say, is a really good resource um for those of you whose lives have been touched by greed, and you know, as as as all of our lives will be, obviously. Um yeah, it's a really good book, and and I do recommend the audio. Tamsin does an amazing job. Right, okay, on to this week's podcast. So I am answering Kate's dilemma, I am answering Susan's dilemma, and I'm also answering Coralie's dilemma.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Right, let's get on with it. What was the saying I like to use? Let's go on with it. There was another saying that I picked up from somewhere. Not not let's do this.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Anyway, I can't remember. It's gone. As of lots of things in my mind. It's gone, it's gone elsewhere. Anyway, right, let's Sam focus. Okay, right. So Kate wrote in and said, um, and she wrote a really eloquent, very detailed uh email, which I've tried to break down as best I can. And she tells us that she returned to creativity during lockdown after a 20-year break from art. And at that stage, painting felt absorbing, prolific, and completely free. There was no pressure to sell, no audience waiting, and no need for the work to lead anywhere. She was simply making because she wanted to make. And she also says that during that time, sorry, over time, that private creative practice became a side business and has now become a full-time career. She has built a large online following. She's sold her work internationally, she's written books, and she's developed a successful product and life, and she's developed successful product and licening licensing, sorry, opportunities. And so from the outside, it looks like Kate is, you know, living the dream. She's left her day job and she's built a successful life around her creativity. However, that success has changed her relationship with her work. She writes that she feels that her personal practice has become her job and the joy she once felt has been increasingly replaced by pressure. She feels she must keep producing, keep succeeding, and somehow top the last achievement. Before each product launch or print launch or painting launch, she says she feels it will fail, and even when even when the evidence suggests otherwise. When things go well, she feels relief rather than real pleasure. The success does not settle the anxiety. She said that it simply raises the expectation for the next project. She worries that she has already made the best work and she's reached the peak of her career, and she has now when she writes that she feels that sometimes she's got nowhere to go but down. Alongside this is a really strong people-pleasing instinct. She worries what customers and followers and professional partners think of her and her work and fears disappointing the people who have invested in her success. And she writes that she would love to recover some of the freedom and joy she's she experienced in the early days, but she does not know how to do that. Now her art has both become her livelihood and her public identity. I think the first thing I want to say here, Kate, is that you're not ungrateful. I think it is entirely possible to feel really proud of the uh the life that you've built and the career you've built, but also feel burdened by it. Um, you know, you can love the opportunities that your uh the work has brought you, but also recognize that success has changed the way that you feel about it. Um, and and you write in your email that you you write that you feel like you're in um experience imposter syndrome, but I don't think it's really imposter syndrome. I think there might be an element of that, particularly in the fear that you feel you'll be you'll be exposed or be something will be uncovered and and you know you'll let down your sort of hundreds and thousands of followers. But I feel it's more to do with the fact that your creativity has become responsible for everything. You know, you it has to provide your income, it has to maintain your audience, um, you know, it has to uh generate new products and opportunities, it has become everything, you know, and that is a lot of pressure on creativity. And I think that's really the crux of this. This, you know, um, it's it has to satisfy the customers, it has to satisfy the audience. And on top of all of that, it also is expected to provide joy and freedom and playfulness, and that's just such an enormous amount of pressure to place on your creativity. And I do wonder, you know, that when you were painting during lockdown, nobody was expecting anything from you. There wasn't, you know, you didn't have a big audience, you were just able to kind of enjoy the work. The painting can go anywhere, anywhere without any kind of consequence, but now each body of work is carrying this emotional burden of the whole business. So no wonder you feel anxious. And I think that your people-pleasing tendencies intensifies with this, obviously. You know, once we have an audience, we do feel that weight of expectation. We do feel, you know, I know that for myself, you know, you you feel like people are constantly waiting and expecting something from you. You know, you've got this invisible audience of people kind of looking up, saying, feed me, feed me, feed me. I understand that. But I think that it's important to really look at that in reality because nobody's really thinking about you as much as you think they are, you know. That's the reality of it. I mean, I still have people say to me, Oh, you've written a lino cut book. You know, and I sort of feel that everybody in the world should know I've written a lino cut book because all I've talked about for the past, I don't know, six years is that I've written a lino cut book or a book about drawing, you know, but people, people don't, people aren't thinking about you as much as you think they are. And I think that is really helpful to to you know to to bear in mind. I think that if you have got those people pleasing tendencies, you will worry deeply about disappointing people, you know, you will be begin anticipating what they want and try and do what you think they want you to do. It like I say, it's like you've got and create it created this this huge room full of inspect expectant people. You know, it's a lot, it's a lot to carry. And I also think within your email, I sensed a lot of grief. I did sense there was grief there, you know, you're grieving for the life you once had that provided you with so much joy and so much pleasure. And you know, you talk about wanting to get it back, getting the joy back, and that's almost become another demand. It's like, well, I want to get that joy back, and that's another layer of pressure. I feel like you're adding to yourself. And I think the thing is you might not be able to recreate those early days because your circumstances have changed, your art has changed, and it I think that the important thing here is to, you know, really look at you as an artist, you as a business owner, you know, and you as Kate. I think there's you know, we we need to kind of separate the different parts of you here because I think the aim is not to pretend that the business doesn't exist, the aim is to create enough separation so that the business no longer consumes every part of your life and every part of you as being an artist. I mean, one of the sentences that really stands out, and I underlined it, you know, it's it was that whole thing about that, you know, the the better things go, the bigger pressure there is to keep up. You know, success hasn't made you feel safer, it's almost made you feel more vulnerable and more aware that you know, the higher you get, the further you've got to drop or the further you've got to fall. Um, so every launch is becoming more than a launch, it's becoming a um you know, a measure of your whole success. And that again, that's a lot of pressure to put on a product launch or a painting launch or however whatever form it takes. Um, and I think it's important to remember that you know, a launch can go badly without your career being over. You know, sometimes I release prints and you know I could I sell a couple. That doesn't mean that my career as an artist is over, it just means that that print launch wasn't particularly successful. You know, I don't really do print launches, but I know I mean a lot of people kind of do that big thing. I mean, I just email people and say, I've got a new print in my shop. I don't really do a print launch, but I think the important thing to remember is that you know the launch doesn't have to carry the weight of of whether you are successful or not. Uh and and it it's almost like like I say, the further, the higher you feel like you're you're getting, the more successful you're getting, the f the the more frightening it is because the drop seems bigger. Okay. I think I'm gonna go back to what I said earlier. I said I think you need to work on three different things. I think you need to create separation here. I think you need to separate Kate the artist, Kate the person, and Kate the business. Um, the business could have launches, deadlines, you know, all of that kind of stuff, sales figures, marketing plans, but the the artist in you, I think, still need to go somewhere which is uncertain, which is but has opportunities to be experimental, it can follow strange ideas and it can just play around with with with things that will never become a product, will things that will never be available to be sold. Uh this you know, this this doesn't mean that you have to abandon the the the the the audience and this and the and the and the successful career that you've built. It just means that you you start to accept that not all of your creativity should belong to your business. So it's about creating boundaries as well. You know, I think it's really important that you create those really strong boundaries. You know, what does the business need from me and what do I need from my creative practice? I think those are really good things to kind of steer you in the right direction to get a little bit more clarity. You know, the business might need planning, uh consistency, and a reliable income, but the artist in you might need playfulness, experimentation, you know, time to get messy, time to be private, room to fail. Those are different needs, and at the moment they're being forced into the same space. And I think that is where the conflict is lying. Another thing I I think that I've sort of touched on as well is is to is to kind of change the role of the launch. I think you need to stop viewing the launches as a verdict on your whole career. So I would say you need to create boundaries around that, you know, check when you you know, decide when you're gonna check the sales figures, um, decide when you will review the launch, you know, maybe do the launch and then you know, wait a week before you be you check all those kind of things, you know. Don't go in, don't go into the data crunching, just let it breathe a bit. And and and also I think that when you're in the middle of, I mean, I don't really know what these launches involve, but I'm guessing it's it's products or it's it's a uh a new series of paintings or something like that. And I think when you're in the middle of that, it's very hard. When you're in the middle of the emotional intensity of doing something like that, I think it's really hard to judge, you know, the actual uh success of it. So it's almost like you you you you need to let it simmer, let it let it give it some distance and then evaluate it. And but but but try and remember that the the the result is business information, it's not a value of you. It doesn't mean if a launch doesn't go well, it doesn't affect you as an artist at all. It's no reflection on you as an artist, is not a measure of your worth. I think that's really important that you hear that. It is not a measure of your worth, you know, your talent or or the you know. And I think it's really, you know, it's really helpful to have have products that or launches that don't go well and that are quieter. I mean, that's maybe maybe not even use the word don't go well. You know, let's just use the word they're quieter, they're not as loud as you know, could change the terminology around it, you know. If you're using these words like, oh, that was a flop or that failed, you know, it is going to affect you emotionally, it is gonna affect your your self-esteem. So I think maybe changing the terminology around these things are is really helpful. I remember when I first started selling my prints during lockdown. Again, it was during lockdown. I mean, I sold them before, but never as much as I sold them in lockdown. And I remember just having this launching this lockdown series. I mean, I just sold so many, it was crazy. And I just then naively assumed that that was the way it was gonna go. And I remember, you know, uh releasing some or you know, doing um uh doing an email and saying, Oh, I've got these new prints. And I mean, they just did the no hardly anybody bought them, and it was hard. It was hard, but I'm really pleased it came quickly after that because had I have gone on and sold loads and loads and loads consistently and then you know, and then kind of got used to that, then I think it it it it does create again like this expectation, exactly what you're what you're experiencing. And I think that you know, I then because that happened quite quickly after, you know, selling loads, I was like, oh, okay, so this is how it goes, is it? Sometimes it goes really well and sometimes it doesn't, you know, sometimes it's quieter, sometimes it's louder. And so I was able very quickly to get into that uh acceptance with the way sales go. But I but also for me it's very different because you know, my prints don't pay my mortgage, my prints, my print, this my my art, my what my artwork isn't my whole business. So you know, I I I guess I've created a life that is you know, I have other sources of income. And and so one of the things that I would suggest that you look at, Kate, you know, and and you know, I'm being really honest with you here, if is if this is getting too much, then it's okay to say, you know what, I need to scale this back. I need to scale this back, and I need to perhaps think about other ways to support me financially. And so that takes the pressure off the business and you have a little bit more flexibility. You know, it's okay to say this was great for a while, but actually now it's affecting me, it's affecting my mental health, and I think that I need to scale it back a bit. So I think that is important. That brings me on to the next thing, is is you know, I think just because you've reached this peak in in your dream, it doesn't mean that you're no no longer able to change it. You you might really need to be really honest with yourself and and just set sort of look at your figures and look at everything in you know, get a financial advisor to help you out. And you know, it might be that you do need to kind of uh just slightly change the way it it behaves. It doesn't mean that you have to dismantle everything, but you might need to reduce or reshape parts of the machine as it were, so that the whole thing becomes much more sustainable in the future, and pleasing your audience cannot mean abandoning yourself. I think that's really important, you know. You come first, you come first. It's as simple as that, you know. And people will understand. People will understand if you said, you know what, I can't run that workshop, and you know, like for me next year, I had some quite quite a few opportunities to teach, and I've turned them down because I just thought I can't do that. I can't, I I can't keep doing things at the way I you know, I can't. I looked at how uh stressed and overworked and how much promotion I've had to do for various places that I teach this year, and I thought I can't do that anymore. I'm saying no. And people understand, you know, people do understand. Saying no to things is absolutely valid, and I can tell you as soon as you start doing it and standing down, standing up and saying, you know what, I can't do that, it becomes a lot easier to then say, I can't do this, I can't do that. So I think it's almost a time for you to pause, reevaluate, take stock, and think, right, what can I slightly shave down? What can I remove? What can I to create some more space for you, Kate the artist? Right, so that then comes onto the homework. How am I doing for time? Okay, okay. Right, three different versions of you. I think you need to divide a page into three sections. You as a person, what do you need, Kate, to feel rested and grounded? You as an artist, what do you need to feel curious, challenged, and creatively alive? You as a business owner, what does the business genuinely need in order to remain healthy? You know, we're looking at figures here. What do I have to earn to make sure that I can pay my mortgage, that I can, you know, do all the things that I need to do. And I think look at where those needs support one another and where they are currently in conflict, because I think that will give you a lot of information. Okay, so that's the first bit of your homework. The next part of your homework is something I'm going to advise for Susan as well is make something unavailable. And I have recommended this before, and I think this is a really good thing. You make something entirely for you. You make something without the pressure of having to think about marketing it, about selling it, about videoing it, about doing anything. You just make it for yourself. Just make it for yourself. Go back to that lovely time where you were creating without an audience, just enjoy it. And the third one I think is a bit of writing. So I think this whole idea is what is enough. So define enough. What write down what a successful and sustainable creative life would look like if it did not have to keep growing. You know, be specific, is like I said earlier, be granular. How much income do I actually Need? How many launches do I want to do each year? How many days do you want to spend in the studio? How many days do you want to spend away from social media? Which parts of the business do you genuinely want to keep? So for me, okay, I looked at this and I thought, right, okay, this year's been a lot. I've taken on a lot of things, it's been too much. What parts of my creative life could I get rid of or say no to this year? I'm not saying no to them in def uh, you know, forever, but I'm saying no to them next year. So that for me is extra teaching. I don't need it, I don't need to run any more retreats. I'm doing the Warning Plus Mirabal, which I'm really looking forward to. I've had lots of offers to do lots of other things. I don't want it. And I can say no to that. So that is one part of my life that I've said no to that's created loads more space. So just look at your whole you know output and think, what can I, what can I, you know, shave off, what can I um take away. I think you don't need to become better at tolerating endless pressure. It's not about getting better, it's it's about examining which parts of your life are creating that pressure and giving your yourself permission to redesign them. I think it's as simple as that. You know, you're not failing because the dream has become heavy. You know, you've you've built this thing, it's okay to say, you know what, this dream was everything I dreamed of, but actually it's just too much. And I need to take it back, and it needs to become a uh a workable, sustainable life for me. And that might be this, that, and the other. And then once you've done it, I can guarantee that you will start to feel really excited about the space and the time that you are creating. I hope that helps, okay. I hope that helps. I really hear you, I really hear you, and I I kind of hear the kind of like you know, sort of sort of fear and and the pressure that you're feeling. And I I do think that you know the creative life that you've built can absolutely be sustaining and rewarding again and not be a drain, but it is going to take you to look really closely and carefully at the Kate machine at the moment and just look at which parts can be dismantled, you know. Okay, flight. On to the next. Right, Susan. Susan has spent approximately seven years caring for her parents whilst also trying to build her art practice. During that time, she's often felt distracted and unable to make the progress she wanted, and she now worries that she might have used her caring responsibilities in an excuse not to move forward. Her father died five years ago, and her mother died this year in May. And since then, she's found herself with much more free time and mental space. But instead of feeling free or motivated, she feels lost. But a lot of people have told her that it is her time now and that she can get her life back. But those comments have left her feeling conflicted. She does, but she does not want to create the life she imagined. She does want to create the life she had imagined and build a small business around making and sharing her art, but she feels guilty that this new freedom has come as a result of her mother's death. Alongside the grief and guilt is a fear that she might not be able to do what she's planned. She feels overwhelmed by the pressure to finally make progress, particularly because she is 64 and believes there is no time to waste. She writes that she's only entered her studio a handful of times since her mum died. Each time she's only she's looked around briefly and then left, locking the door behind her. And she also writes that she's gardening a lot and staring into space, but she finds unable to think about her work or take the first step. Oh goodness, um, sorry, Susan, that's really um that's really hard. And I just want to say how sorry I am for the loss of your mum. Um, but I also want to say that, you know, caring for your parents was not an excuse, you know, that was the reality of your life. And seven years is is a huge amount of time, and your energy and your emotional capacity was you know directed towards other people. And even when you were probably not not actually doing stuff for your parents, you were probably mentally there and thinking about them all the time. And that's an incredibly uh heavy emotional weight to bear, especially if your mum was poorly and and you know, like you say, you were you're really doing the the the bulk of the caring. And I think the thing is here is that you can't expect to emerge from years of caring to suddenly um you know rocking up to the studio and producing loads of work. You've got to give yourself time. Um you've you've had uh you know a huge change in structure. And I I was thinking about this, I was thinking, you know, that space in your head won't feel like free time at the moment, it's gonna feel like an absence. So it's not free time, it's just an absence. It's a space that it it can't fully be used yet because you're still grieving and there's still a lot of unpacking and processing. I mean, I don't really like that word, but it is true, isn't it? You know, you've got a lot of thinking to do, you've still got a lot of just sitting around having a cup of tea and staring into space. And I think the pressure when you get people saying, Oh, it's your time now, come on, you know, let's see what you can get up to. And also the fact that, you know, that you say you're 63 and you keep telling yourself there's no time to waste. I mean, no wonder you go into that studio and close the door and go straight back out there. I mean, there's nothing like that feeling of time running out and expectation from other people to make you panic. I mean, you know, it sort of relates to what we were talking about with Kate. So I think what I scribble down here, um you don't need to turn your mum's death into immediate productivity. I I can hear what you say, you know, that the the the the there's guilt and there's grief, and that they're intertwined. You know, your mum's death isn't a gift that you've been given, it's a loss. And you're allowed to grieve, obviously, and you are allowed to move forward. Those two things can exist together, but I think you're a bit like a rabbit caught in the headlights here. You know, the more urgently you tell yourself to move, the the kind of more frozen you become. And I think this whole idea is that you know, you you you you've been caring for your mum for seven years, and it's suddenly like, right, let's do this. There's no time to waste. I think that that the main thing I've thought about this is beginning gently. And I often use this this phrase, going through the back door. Whenever I'm feeling overwhelmed with things, and whenever I don't know how to how to approach things, I always say, right, Sam, go through the back door rather than the front door. And that's exactly what I think you need to do here is that you need to go gently. I think you need to say to yourself, I'm 64 and I'm allowed to go through this gently. I'm allowed to move gently because I think that's the that's that's that's the key here. Is it's gentleness is is not the same as giving up. I think it's the I think it's the the the only approach at the moment that will allow you to move at all. And let's talk about the practical thing. You know, in your in your in your um email, it was very clear that your productivity was then linked to having a business. And I think you need to take the business off the table. I think that's the business is it's too soon to think about business here because you're you're you're telling yourself you've got to return to art and you've got to start making work and selling it. And uh the first step is rebuilding a relationship with the studio and your materials and the act of making. It isn't about uh building a uh website, having a shop and selling it, it's literally about uh you going back into the studio and spending some time making your work in whatever form that takes. It's how do I start to feel safe and familiar in my studio again. That's what you need to do here. You know, the the more time you spend in the studio, the more naturally things will start to flow, I think, and you will feel more comfortable and I think it will be quite a natural process. But thinking about the the you know, the final outcome rather than you know sitting down and just making the work for a start, I think it's just it's putting more stress where there doesn't need to be any stress. So don't go through the front door because that door is too heavy. You need to go through the back door, you need to go through the back door. I think breaking it down into sections whereby you go into the studio for 10 minutes just with a cup of tea and you just sit in the studio. There's no pressure to do any work, you just go and sit in the studio. I remember a really um, I remember an amazing talk by the artist Peter Doyg, the painter Peter Doyg, and I remember him just sort of saying, you know, time spent in the studio is working. Even just time spent sat in the studio is working. You know, you're you're surrounded by your work, you're surrounded by your materials. You will be thinking about your work if you're sat in the studio. That is, you know, even if you're not practically making anything, you don't need to enter the studio with a proper project or an important idea. You could just sort a drawer out, you know. I I think I've said this before, but often when I'm when I just need to re-enter a relationship with the studio after being there for a long time, I'll I'll do things like clean my rollers, I'll sort some drawers out, you know, I'll just be in there for a bit. I might clean the floor, I might sort a pencil tin out, you know. You're just building that familiarity and trust. And also, I think I I don't quite remember who I advised this to the other week, but it was very much about leaving a note for your future self. So, you know, every time you go into the studio, maybe it's just for 10 minutes, just write a note to yourself to say, you know, um, just it could just be a little note, little gentle, encouraging note. Lovely to see you back here, or you know, you could leave your sketchbook open, you could put something on the table that you might like to draw. So every single time you re-enter the studio, there's something welcoming you in. I mean, I know it sounds ridiculous, but when I go away on my trips traveling, I often leave myself a little note when I come back. I have a little note saying, Well done, Sam Marshall, or you know, I don't know, just something random. Because when I walk into the studio, I'm like, oh, I I left that for future Sam. I mean, I talked about Future Sam a couple of podcasts ago, or maybe it was last time. You know, leave a note for future Susan, a welcome note, something to draw, an open sketchbook. And then you mentioned gardening, and it's almost like you feel like gardening has become a becoming a bit of a problem because you feel it's almost like it's become an obstacle for you getting in the studio. But I don't think you need to think about gardening as you know, a procrastinate, you know, something you're doing to procrastinate to getting into the studio. I think gardening is all part of your creativity. You know, I think that that gardening is creative. Gardening is what is a wonderfully creative activity. And I why not let gardening be your bridge? You know, maybe go out to the garden for 10 minutes, maybe bring something in from the garden, put it in your studio, sit there for 10 minutes, you know, maybe let those two things have a dialogue together. I don't think it needs to be one or the other. And I think reframing gardening as creative time can really help you. You know, I did a post the other day about the fact that I'm not doing any sort of physical making much at the moment. I spent probably four hours carving a lino this week because I've got lots of other stuff going on, but all of that other stuff is really creative, so I'm not giving myself a hard time about that, you know. So that's what I mean, reframing what gardening is to you. Okay, right, homework, three studio visits. Over the next week, I want you to visit your studio three times for 20 minutes and let's say visit one is make the space more make the space look more welcoming. Number two, handle some kind of materials or just get out your materials, sharpen your pencil, do something like that. And number three, bring in something from the garden and respond to it in some shape or form, but just say 20 minutes over over over a period of a week, just keep it small. And again, I'm going to recommend you to do something which I've just recommended to Kate. Make something that doesn't have to become something to sell, just make something entirely for you, just make something just for pleasure, no intention of selling it, no intention of doing a video of it or doing a reel of it or whatever. Just make it for you. You know, I make loads of private pieces just for myself. My drawings are pretty much all for myself. You know, I just it's just for you. You don't need to have to be thinking about selling it. And then also, you know, this idea of progress. I think you need to redefine your idea of progress because actually progress at this point will will, I think, is is you know, just spending more time in the studio, making work without judging the result, allowing yourself to work slowly and using that word gentle. I think gentle is such a lovely, lovely word. You know, go gently, go gently at this point. You know, you're still grieving the loss of your mum. That space in your head isn't free time yet, it's loss, it's a sense of loss. Take your time, go slowly, go gently, and I can guarantee that if you start doing this now, just 20 minutes, three times a week, you'll start to build that appetite up, and the studio will become not a place of of fear, it'll become a welcoming space for you to re-engage with your creativity again. Okay, Susan, I hope that helps. Right. How are we doing for time? I have no idea. I'm still babbling on. Anyway, let's get on. So Coralie wrote in, um, she wrote in a really long email uh which was incredibly complex. And um uh I'm actually gonna offer I've offered Coralie a uh coaching session to talk things through a little bit further. Um, but what I've done is I've taken part of Coralie's dilemma and and I'm gonna answer it here. So Coralie says that she works in uh digit digit digit, I can't say that word, digitally in animation, and has also has a personal game project that she is developing with her husband. And alongside this, she has a very young baby and limited time outside work. Um, she has recently rediscovered The Artist Way by Julia Cameron, and she um has rediscovered a strong appetite for traditional media and processes that she pushed aside for a long time. She says she wants to work with charcoal, coloured pencil, graphite, plan air painting, and paper miniatures, and she can already imagine these processes might feed into her personal projects. This renewed enthusiasm feels joyful and energizing, but it's also making her feel overwhelmed. Her mind feels overwhelmed with ideas. She's beginning to think about how long each one might take, and she worries she'll never have enough time to explore, explore everything properly. So rather than simply enjoying the material, she quickly starts to work out how each interest might connect to her digital work, improve and professional skills and become part of a larger project. She also has a history of burnout, which makes the urgency and intensity of her email important. Um, I wrote that down because yeah, this was a big part of the email, was this this kind of sense of urgency and kind of overwhelm. Um, she's excited by what is returning, but um it's she she's also at risk of turning that excitement into another set of expectations she cannot realistically meet. Like I say, I've kind of taken bits from the email and tried to kind of condense it down into a sort of a clearer dilemma to answer in this part. Okay, so I really think it's interesting, isn't it, how how quickly our creativity becomes connected to the outcome. So, like with Susan, you know, Susan wants to start making work to sell it, you know, Kate has done that, you know, and actually what we're discovering here is that that can be really problematic, you know, and and I think what's happening with Coralie is that rather than just exploring and enjoying getting back to traditional traditional materials, this exploration has already got, has to have an outcome. It has to have an outcome, it has to relate to her gaming work, it has to relate to her animation. You know, there's already so much pressure from that email. And I want to say that this renewed energy is something to welcome. You know, it it sounds as if parts of your creative life over the over time have become pushed aside. However, especially after experiencing burnout and after years of focusing on the skills you needed for work, it makes sense that these that the return of these interests feels powerful and kind of you know really emotional. But the thing is, this emotion and this excitement is not the same as capacity. So, what I'm reading here, Coralie, is that you know, you've got a new baby, you've already got a job in in uh animation, and all of these things that you want to do, I mean, you make a list: charcoal, colour pencil, graphite, plan air painting, and paper miniatures, it doesn't mean that you have to pursue them all. You know, the enthusiasm is information and it's showing you what still matters, but it doesn't mean that you have to do it all because I'm gonna be really frank with you here, you don't have the time. You don't have the time, and I think that is what's causing this friction, you know. It's like, well, I've got to do all these things because this is what I'm excited about, but actually you don't, and you need to be realistic about your your your your your timetable, and it isn't realistic that you can do all of those things, and by saying that you think you'd like to, it's putting more pressure on you and you're like buzzing. I can feel it, you're buzzing, you're fizzing, you're fizzy fizzy fizzy, you know. Um it's that urgency that runs through the email which concerns me, you know. Like I say, with that history of the burner, I think it's a it's it's important that you, you know, you you're aware of what you're actually really capable of. And I think you don't need to prove how serious you are by filling every single available moment with more creative work. I would be cautious about allowing this new energy to become another impossible set of expectations. You know, the thing is like I said earlier, you know, charcoal isn't char just charcoal and something you're experimenting with. It suddenly becomes character development or you know, paper miniatures are not just allowed to be play. They they they need to become, I don't know, cinematic scenes. So already that sense of play, which I think you're really wanting, is already imbued with a sense of expectation. So I think what we need to do here is just start really small. I think you need to dabble, I think you need to play, I think you need to be inconsistent, I think you need to be able to make work that isn't finished, I think you need to just do something that isn't useful. I think that you just need to have a bit of fun with this, Coralie. I think that's all you need at this present point is just have a bit of fun with this renewed sense of enthusiasm, but also be realistic about your timetable and what is available to you at the moment. Because I think you're making it a lot harder for yourself. So rather than it being joyful, it's already becoming pressure. And it sounds to me like you haven't even embarked on this yet, and it's already becoming this sense of um frustration and confusion, and and the excitement doesn't have to be acted on all at once. So I think you need to focus on three things. I would separate your your your digital work from your traditional practice. I would say don't try and merge the two at the moment, just don't. Just just just just play around with charcoal and just have some fun with charcoal. Play around with doing some painting and just let it be painting. The connections might come later, but at the moment they're not useful. They're just adding extra pressure, which you don't need. Let paper be paper, let charcoal be charcoal. Not research, not professional development, none of that. Just let it be what it is. And so I also hear, again, I think it's important that you step back and see what's happening here because it looks to me as if every interest is turning into a project, and that it just doesn't need to happen that way. You don't need another ambitious creative project. It sounds to me you've already got one, and you've got a baby as well. You know, that is that's uh an ambitious personal product. I mean, I've never but I've never had one, but I but I hear that they're pretty uh they're pretty time consuming. Um I think you need what it sounds to me, okay, is that you need a small creative refuge. You just need 20 minutes with some charcoal. You just need half an hour with some paints. And I think you just need to be clear. Not not clear. What was I saying? I think it'd be helpful for you just to concentrate on one thing at a time. So one week with charcoal. And I've recommended this loads of times. One week with charcoal, one week with, you know, but don't try and do everything at once. Just try charcoal for one week, coloured pencils for another. The enjoyment that the importance here is enjoyment and reconnection. That's the main thing, Coralie. It doesn't need to be anything else. And I think that it's important that you, like I say, you work within your capacity. Small doesn't mean insignificant. Those 15 minutes might be the most amazing 15 minutes you have in the week. You know, that create, I'm thinking about, I like this idea of this creative refuge for you. A creative refuge where you're getting back to basics, you're putting pencil on paper, you're not working with the computer, you are just doing something traditional in that sense. You know, that's where I use that word traditional because it's help helpful. And that is enough. You know, that is work. That is great. That is progress. It doesn't need to be anything more than that. 15 minutes. Right. So homework, one gentle session. That's exactly what I've just said. Just spend one, you know, 30 minutes with one medium. And it doesn't need to connect to anything. It can just be coraly sitting down with some charcoal, just seeing what happens. Have something in front of you, just draw that. Separate play from project. So this is important. I just wrote down here make two short lists, things I want to play with, and projects I'm already committed to. And I think that the project list doesn't need to come anywhere near the things I want to play with. Okay. They're two different categories. And I think talking about setting a capacity rule, really, you know, choose one simple rule for the next month that protects you from overcommitting. And it might be something like one short traditional media session each week. Um, you know, uh, you know, or or no new projects until this, you know, this game milestone is complete. Um and I just think though having those rules, having those sentences can really help you feel it, feel like you you're karma in a way, and you've got this, and you're kind of protecting yourself, protecting your energy, you know, because you don't need to do all these things at once, and you certainly don't need to do them now, you know. Just enjoy the fact that you've you're rediscovering, returning to something hands-on, which isn't on the computer, but just go at it gently, don't get overwhelmed with it, and don't think about the outcome yet. Don't think about why you're doing it, don't think about how you can monetize it, just enjoy doing it, just enjoy some time for yourself, 30 minutes a week. Maybe maybe really realistically that's all you have, and that is fine. That is absolutely fine. Okay, so I hope that helps. I've been going on for a long time now. It's now 50 minutes. I think I've been going on for 50 minutes, which might be the longest one ever. I'm really hungry. I haven't had my supper. I think I need some supper. She's fed up, but as always, it's been lovely chatting to you guys. And um, do send your dilemmas in, please, to the creative couch pod at gmail.com. As always, I am hungry for more. I've got a huge appetite for dilemmas. I love getting them, I love reading them, and I love thinking about them. I really do. All right, guys, listen, lovely to see you all, and uh, I'll see you next week. Bye. Let's turn this thing off. Record, stop recording.