This article is part two of a three part series. See part 1: Embracing Your Natural Cycles of Creativity and part 3: How to Embrace Rest in Your Creative Practice
Are you in a season of creative Rest or are you being blocked by Resistance? If you’re asking yourself this question, the truth is you might be in a bit of both. Probably not what you want to hear as a creative who’s trying to grow exponentially in today’s fast-paced, ever-evolving, content-consumerist world. But even though Resistance can masquerade as Rest, they are radically opposite forces. In this article we will outline some clear boundaries that you can draw for yourself in order to:
1- define Resistance
2- identify if you're stuck in it
3- demystify how to overcome it
In my previous blog post, Embracing Our Natural Cycles of Creativity, we established that creativity comes in cycles of abundance (high output) and rest (low output) and that this is normal and good:
Being in a season of low creative energy and output feels completely antithetical to the life path of an artist, but this is where a mindset reframe needs to come into play. We are not meant to always be "on" – while there's something to be said about being disciplined in your practice – I'd like to suggest that embracing your natural cycles of creative rest will only amplify and strengthen you and your work. [excerpt from my last blog post]
With that in mind, let’s dive into the knitty gritty of what Resistance is and how to know if you’re “stuck” in it.
What is Resistance and how do I get out of it?
Steven Pressfield, author, thought leader, and authority on all things creativity, defines Resistance as an insidious force that wants to keep us from doing the thing our soul loves, and therefore, prevent us from fulfilling our purpose here on Earth.
“Resistance cannot be seen, touched, heard, or smelled. But it can be felt. We experience it as an energy field radiating from a work-in-potential. It’s a repelling force. It’s negative. Its aim is to shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work… The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.” – The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
Yikes, sounds scary and overwhelming, but let's fast forward to the good news:
“Resistance can be beaten. If Resistance couldn’t be beaten, there would be no Fifth Symphony, no Romeo and Juliet, no Golden Gate Bridge. Defeating Resistance is like giving birth. It seems absolutely impossible until you remember that women have been pulling it off successfully, with support and without, for fifty million years... Resistance is fueled by fear, it has no strength of its own. Every ounce of juice it possesses comes from us. We feed it with power by our fear of it. Master that fear and we conquer Resistance.” – The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
See? Resistance is only as big and scary as we allow it to be. Everyday we can defeat the force of Resistance in our lives by taking action towards our dreams and prioritizing the important above the urgent.
Maybe your dream is to get your work into a museum, or to write a book, or to be a film director, or food critic, or traveling photographer – consistently taking action, even in the form of baby steps, in that direction means you’re a conqueror of Resistance.
Throughout what has felt like my “drought” season of low creativity I’ve continued to paint, to be in-studio, to sketch and doodle and express myself artistically because I understood that Resistance was at my door and it wanted to use “rest” as a logical excuse to keep me from the work. I’ve made A LOT of terrible art this year. I’ve painted over the same canvas three times in the last week, and believe me my ego has wanted to partner with Resistance and spare me the self-doubt and inner cringe.
But true Rest means you are still actively engaging with your creativity, your passion, the thing your soul loves. Even if it’s just 15 minutes a day, staying committed to doing the work will keep Resistance at bay and invite the spark of Inspiration back into your life, slowly but surely.
So the answer to “how do I know if I’m battling Resistance?” is this: you probably are, it will probably be a force you're always interacting with on some level, but keep doing the work and it’ll leave you alone – and you’ll probably create something truly transformational that no one else but you could have offered to the world.
Resistance is only as big and scary as we allow it to be.
In the third and final part of this series we'll cover how to embrace the umcomfortableness of Rest.
This article was written in July 2023.
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